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Dr. Kirk “Jae” James is a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU Silver. Jae was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, during a period of political and social unrest. He would ultimately migrate to the United States at ten years old with his mother in search of a better life. Yet the “American Dream,” like it is to many immigrants of color, would be more mirage than reality — the nightmare that awaited Jae — that 1 in 3 black men between 16 and 24 would be victims of what many scholars (decades later) would rather euphemistically title: “Mass Incarceration.”

As a college student with no prior criminal record, Jae would be arrested on April 13, 1994, and charged under a myriad of conspiracy counts related to the Rockefeller Drug Laws. He would be denied bail, trapped on Rikers Island for six months, and ultimately sentenced to life in prison at 19 years old. Jae would spend nine years in prison fighting an Order of Deportation, raising a daughter that was born two months after his incarceration, and getting a college degree before his eventual release in 2003. Since his release, Jae has been a champion of immigrant rights, mass incarceration, and raising awareness of the trauma instigated by various systems of oppression.

In 2013, Jae completed a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice titled “The Invisible Epidemic: Educating Social Work Students towards Holistic Practice in a Period of Mass Incarceration.” As a professor at NYU, he utilizes his firsthand knowledge and research to educate, train, and work with governments, community-based organizations, social workers, and advocates with social justice agendas throughout America, the Caribbean, and Africa.  

Jae’s teaching philosophy is most influenced by Paulo Friere, bell hooks, and theories on critical pedagogy. Jae believes education is our greatest tool for liberation and social justice. But to use it effectively, he believes it is essential that we recognize the inherent bias within our current education paradigm. And thus create space(s) that allow for critical dialogue, co-created knowledge, and action aligned with our organizing value of social justice. But in doing this, he cautions that we must recognize that these new paradigms will be challenging for all participants — and will thus require that we show up with the intention, ground rules, and trauma awareness necessary to foster liberation and justice through education.

Jae created and leads NYU Silver’s Evolving Justice — an educational initiative to build community; co-create brave space, and facilitate various dialogue(s) towards the emancipatory exploration of justice in theory and action. He believes that social justice and human rights can only happen if we build and nurture individuals, communities, and systems truly committed to evolving with what bell hooks terms a “Love Ethic.”  

Jae was inducted in the inaugural Alumni Hall of Fame at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice in 2018. He is also a recipient of the 2020 New York University Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award.