Kimberly Robinson
Director
Kimberly Jenkins Robinson is director of the Education Rights Institute and is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law as well as a professor at the School of Education and Human Development and the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. She is one of the nation’s leading education law experts and speaks throughout the United States about K–20 educational equity, school funding, education and democracy, equal opportunity, civil rights, Title IX, and federalism. She also serves as director of the Law School’s Center for the Study of Race and Law.
Robinson is the editor of A Federal Right to Education: Fundamental Questions for Our Democracy (New York University Press, 2019). In the book, Robinson brings together some of the nation’s leading law and education scholars to examine why the United States should consider recognizing a federal right to education, how the United States could recognize such a right and what the right should guarantee. She is also the editor, with Professor Charles Ogletree Jr. of Harvard Law School, of The Enduring Legacy of Rodriguez: Creating New Pathways to Equal Educational Opportunity (Harvard Education Press, 2015). In it, scholars analyze the impact of the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, which held that the U.S. Constitution does not protect a right to education. Scholars also propose innovative federal, state and local reforms for remedying the harms of Rodriguez.
Before Robinson began her career as a professor, she practiced law in the General Counsel’s Office of the U.S. Department of Education and as an education litigation attorney with Hogan & Hartson law firm in Washington, D.C. (now Hogan Lovells). Robinson is a member of the American Law Institute, a senior research fellow of the Learning Policy Institute and a faculty senior fellow with UVA’s Miller Center. She is a past chair of the Education Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools.
Sarah Beach
Education Rights Institute Fellow
Research Assistant Professor of Law
Sarah Beach, Ph.D. is an inaugural Education Rights Institute fellow and a research assistant professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Her perspective is informed by her experience as a public elementary, secondary, and university educator and scholar. Her Ph.D. is in education research, statistics, and evaluation, and her research interests include assessment and accountability for K–12 schools, education policy for equitable student success, and systems thinking with a focus on systemic change.
Beach’s work can be found in academic journals, handbooks and as chapters in edited books. She has presented research at conferences hosted by the American Educational Research Association, the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness, and the National Council on Measurement in Education.
Beach holds a Ph.D. in research, statistics and evaluation from the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development, where she was a Dean’s Fellow. She also earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Richmond in political science and is licensed as a teacher in the state of Virginia in secondary English and elementary education.
GeDá Jones Herbert
Director of Programming
GeDá Jones Herbert is the inaugural director of programming for the Education Rights Institute at the University of Virginia School of Law. Jones Herbert previously worked four years as education special counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. At the Legal Defense Fund, Jones Herbert managed a large school desegregation litigation case while also supporting advocacy and education policy efforts. Before joining LDF, Jones Herbert was an attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, focusing on appellate litigation and community education, and drawing the connections from slavery to mass incarceration in America. She began her legal career in private practice but has since focused on civil rights, criminal defense and public policy. As the law program site manager for Santa Clara County, California, at Fresh Lifelines for Youth, Jones Herbert advocated for high school-aged youth who were incarcerated or at risk of becoming system-involved in the courtroom, in schools and with stakeholders throughout the community.
Prior to law school, Jones Herbert served as an elementary school teacher in Nashville, Tennessee, as a 2009 Nashville Charter Corps Member of Teach For America. During this time, Jones Herbert served in the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Policy, where she helped implement Tennessee’s Race to the Top grant award.
Jones Herbert received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. She also holds a master’s degree in school administration and leadership from Lipscomb University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Spelman College.
Helen Min
Education Rights Institute Fellow
Research Assistant Professor of Law
Helen Min, Ph.D. is an inaugural Education Rights Institute fellow and research assistant professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. As an education researcher and former public school teacher, she is interested in mixed-methods research, evaluating trauma-sensitive pedagogy, analyzing social and emotional learning, leading teacher professional development, and developing effective curriculum and instruction with the overarching goal of leveraging findings to support practitioners and policymakers.
Min’s scholarship has been published in academic journals and book chapters, and presented at the American Educational Research Association, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness and the International Society for Contemplative Research.
Before coming to ERI, Min taught undergraduate and master's students at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development and high school students in Baltimore City Public Schools. She also taught young adults in Osaka, Japan, and middle school students in Cairo, Egypt.
Min graduated with a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development, where she was a Dean’s Fellow and served within Student Affairs in the Office of Hoos First, as well as on the President’s Council on UVA-Community Partnerships. She completed the Lazord Civic Leadership Academy at the American University in Cairo and the King Hall Outreach Program at the University of California School of Law. She received her M.S. in education from the Johns Hopkins University School of Education and B.A. in history and Middle East South Asia studies from the University of California, Davis.
