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Gender, sexuality and religion are common themes in challenged books of 2015. Rather than effectively ban these topics from the classroom, TT recommends teaching about them and offers student texts to do so.

When it comes to the damage inflicted by racist mascots and sports posturing, apologies are not enough.

Answers to your toughest social justice questions.

Lolita Bolden reflects on history and the love of community while sharing a poem.

A former teacher from Crystal City, Texas, remembers the student walkout that helped launch the Latino civil rights movement 40 years ago.

"There’s nothing wrong with the way your grandparents talk,” my elementary school teachers used to say. “Standard English is different. Not better or worse. It’s just a way of talking that you need to know.”

It used to be thought that college was where you went to open your mind, explore ideas and, in the words of Robert Maynard Hutchins, former president of the University of Chicago, “be freed from the prison-house of … class, race, time, place [and] background.”

There is a wonderful scene in Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird where the all-white jury has returned an unjust verdict against Tom Robinson. Atticus begins to wearily walk out of the courthouse. Jem and Scout are in the balcony with the black folks of the county. They all rise as Atticus walks out—except the children—so the Rev. Sykes says to Scout, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”

Sherise was beautiful, outgoing and athletic. But at the age of 10, she was also pushed to the brink. “They call me names all day and make me feel like I don’t belong. It never stops.” Her pretty face dissolved in sobs. Then, the words I feared the most. “I can’t face another day. Those kids who committed suicide ... that’s what I’m ready to do.”

In early 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders continued plans for a Poor People’s Campaign. It would take place in the spring in Washington, D.C. The poor and those in solidarity with them would take up temporary residence and march peacefully on the Capitol and advocate for substantial anti-poverty legislation from Congress. They would demand jobs, healthcare and decent housing.