Dr. Joanne Marien

Dr. Joanne Marien has played a long-standing role in promoting human rights education in K-12 schools. As a career educator, curriculum development specialist, and most recently, superintendent of schools, she has led groundbreaking initiatives that center human rights awareness and social action as the focal points of district-wide curricula.

Marien holds three advanced degrees, including a professional diploma from Fordham University and a doctorate from Columbia University. She has taught numerous professional- and graduate- level courses, ranging from curriculum development and pedagogy to educational leadership. Currently, she is a clinical professor of doctoral studies in educational leadership at Manhattanville College New York.

For the past two decades, she’s proud to have lent her expertise and support to the refinement and expansion of Speak Truth to Power. She’s also served as lead author of the Robert Kennedy Education Project. Of her work with each, she says:

“Robert Kennedy staunchly believed that we each can make a difference and, indeed, have a moral responsibility to do so. Through his words and the example of his own passionate activism, he called a generation of young citizens to action. Today, STTP meaningfully responds to that very same call. By engaging young people in the powerful and relatable stories of human rights defenders, Speak Truth helps them understand the concept of human rights from the inside out. Most importantly, it inspires young citizens to take action toward those social justice issues about which they are most passionate.

Human rights education needs to be at the forefront of the national educational policy agenda. As a nation, we must maintain as a priority the goal of sending forth into the world citizens who are informed, caring, and instinctively responsive to social injustice. I’m proud to be associated with Speak Truth’s increasingly prominent role and commitment toward achieving that goal.”