Jalil Bishop

Equity Research Cooperative (EqRC)

Co-Founder

Dr. Bishop is the Director of Freedom Dreams at the Equity Research Cooperative (EqRC), a groundbreaking People of Color-controlled research co-op he co-founded. EqRC's unique approach focuses on racial justice research, redistributing financial and technical support to grassroots organizations, and transformative advocacy, aspiring to a new model.

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His work focuses on uplifting Black communities and communities of color’s lifemaking models that showcase how to create a common public good from the grassroots. Further, he launched the National Black Student Debt Hub to create the largest database on Black student debt borrowers and their solutions to transform higher education into a free public good. Rooted in organizing work, Bishop has served movements fighting for community control, student debt cancellation, free housing, and labor power. He was a Vice-Provost Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and an Assistant Professor of Education at Villanova University. He published dozens of journal articles, briefs, op-eds, reports, and congressional and federal testimonies.

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He comes from Twinsburg Heights, Ohio—a 100-year-old working-class Black neighborhood that thrives despite rampant structural racism. His roots in the community shape his lifelong pursuit of racial justice as collective action and material impact.

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