WELCOME

The Rise Up planning committee welcomes you to the 2024 Rise Up Conference, which seeks to liberate

higher education during and after prison. Higher education in prison (HEP) was a direct result of

organizing by people locked in Attica’s cages and later those at Bedford Hills and Greenhaven. The

scholarship we’ve produced since has provided insights into the mechanisms of HEP as well as its

limitations. More recently, it was the leadership of formerly incarcerated people who ensured Pell grants

for incarcerated people were reinstated.

When discussion about exclusionary clauses arose, we were the ones who held firm with the position

that HEP would be for all of us or none of us. And, we made sure we won that fight. Few in the HEP

community stood by our side and supported our leadership of the Pell reinstatement movement.

Instead, the community largely focused its energy on securing and growing its position of power and

authority over the field. If a community or organization is led by and predominantly composed of people

who have not been incarcerated and is focused on securing and growing their community or

organization's leadership, then they are engaging in behavior that seeks to maintain and grow power at

the exclusion of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. These are oppressive acts. This is an

occupation of space developed by and for incarcerated people. This ends today.

Higher education after incarceration exists because of the tireless work of formerly incarcerated over the

past 50 years. We have never and will never forget our sisters, brothers, and other siblings behind the

walls. We have never and will never forget them after their release. It seems our HEP colleagues have

not had a similar perspective. All too often, we find we’re forgotten after release and our leadership goes

largely unsupported in HEP spaces. We simply are not seen as the peers, leaders, and experts we know

we are.

We are seen as deficits in need of continued help rather than assets who can take the HEP movement to

places it cannot even imagine are possible. This is a phenomenon seen all-to-often in education and

helping professions. So long as the helpee is subservient, the helper is enthusiastic with encouragement

and support. However, as the helpee begins to rise, such encouragement and support wanes.

There are two types of masters. There is the kind that sees others as inferior and seeks to keep them in

subservient status such as those who enslave, and those who seek for others to outgrow them such as

seen in the martial arts. We believe the HEP community has been more like the former than the latter. As

philanthropic interest in post-prison higher education has grown, many from the HEP community have

tried to gain recognition for and power in this work as well. These are oppressive acts. This is an

occupation of space developed by and for formerly incarcerated people. This ends today.

We realize these statements could be interpreted as attacks and our movement being one that is against

others. If they feel like attacks, we urge you to consider why they land as such. They are simply our

observations of the field’s history and our feedback about our experiences. We don’t blame any

particular people, organizations, or communities for the oppression and occupation of this space. We are

not here to attack others or organize against them. We understand how social forces and paradigms

create situations like this.

Rather, we are here to educate the community about this oppression and to organize for our people,

organizations, and movement toward liberation. We are not here to dismantle but rather to build the

community we wish existed. We hope to ignite awareness and discussion about the ways in which higher

education during and after prison has been and is oppressive as well as how our community and our HEP

allies can foster liberation from this oppression.

We have an abundance of skills, abilities, and other assets that are lacking in spaces where we are not

centered as leaders. First and foremost, our lived experience provides lived expertise. This is particularly

important in a field with so little scholarly knowledge about various outcomes related to higher

education during and after prison, the mechanisms through which such education produces these

outcomes, and thus best practices for the field. Additionally, we offer intrinsic motivation and

commitment.

Many of us have done and continue to do this work without compensation or need for recognition. We

advocate for education because we believe our and others’ potential have gone unrecognized,

unnurtured, and unrealized. We also offer entrepreneurial efficiency and collective capacity. Our

historical lack of funding for this work has forced us to develop relationships and skills for meaningful

impact with minimal resources. Our stories inspire others to take action while also fostering possibilities

among other incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.

Furthermore, the same divergent thinking and behavior that resulted in incarceration has potential for

ingenuity in the field. Such divergent thinking combined with our historical exclusion from HEP provide

an opportunity for critical reflection as well as creative ideas and strategies. For all who care to look, it is

evident we have experience running multi-million-dollar operations, securing investments, strategic

planning, developing alliances, engaging in high stakes political negotiations, and developing other

executive-level leaders. This conference is a prime example of these assets converging.

We hope this conference fosters the liberation of higher education during and after prison. Most

immediately, Rise Up centers the leadership and voice of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.

We do this through our planning, community building, and slate of speakers. However, the planning

team is intentionally limiting our long-term vision for what that liberation will look like. We’ve noted

some ways in which oppression exists and thereby said what such liberation does not look like. It is not

the occupation of space by others who didn’t forge it and haven’t been incarcerated.

It is not systems and structures that maintain the power of these occupiers. It is not a deficit-based

mindset that keeps others in needy subservient status. And, it is not constant vigilance about how those

in positions of power might feel and react. However, we seek a broader community discussion about

what a liberatory community can and should look like. We expect to follow up on this conference with

such a discussion. We don’t expect that this future is absent of our allies but rather incorporates an

allyship lens in which our leadership is centered and invested in.

Prospective allies can take cues from other liberation movements. For example, it is generally accepted

that racial, gender, and queer liberation movements should be driven by people with these identities.

Similarly, it is generally accepted that programming related to these identities should be led by those

who hold them. We ask the same from the allies of our movement. Allies in other movements generally

approach the work with a critical analysis power, privilege, and voice. We ask the same of the HEP

community.

Recognize the ways in which we created spaces that you’re now occupying and work with us toward

their liberation. Hold this value and propagate it among your peers. View us as people with the right and

capacity to lead in these spaces. As more than advisors. As educators, program directors, executive

directors, board officers, and funders. See your students and graduates as people destined to outgrow

you. Develop an understanding that any organization or community not led or at the very minimum

co-led by us is illegitimate.

Internalize your role as one in which your prime directive is to foster our liberation. Not only while

we’re incarcerated but also when we’re out. Not only for us as individuals but for the movements we’re

part of. You must operate in a manner that provides labor, support, networking, and amplification of our

messaging to minimize our labor while maximizing our voice.

Over the next two days, the Rise Up conference will highlight the role of incarcerated and formerly

incarcerated people in birthing this movement, the ways in which these spaces have been occupied by

others, the assets we offer to these spaces, and the ways in which allies can help foster liberation. The

conference also will provide perspectives on higher education during and after prison that are unique to

those with lived expertise.

Sessions will foster not only general knowledge about higher education during and after prison but also a

greater understanding of why the field wouldn’t exist without our expertise and why it shouldn’t exist

without our leadership. We expect that those with lived expertise and other HEP leaders will deepen

their critical lens and understanding of the field so that, together, we CAN and WILL #RiseUpHEP.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this conference and the liberation of HEP directly through

your labor, donations, and networking as well as indirectly through your encouragement and enthusiasm.

The Rise Up Planning Team