Theresa Perry is Professor of Africana Studies and Education at Simmons College. She is co-author ofYoung, Gifted and Black, and co-editor of The Real Ebonics Debate, among other books. She is faculty director of the Simmons College/Beacon Press Race, Education and Democracy Lecture and Book Series.Claude M. Steele, formerly of Stanford University, is the provost and professor of psychology at Columbia University.Asa Hilliard III (1933-2007) was the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University.