T Temple | = University Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership January 17, 2023 SUNY Cortland Promotions Committee 22.Graham Avenue Cortland, NY 13045 Re: Michael Tillotson lease accept this letter as my enthusiastic support for Michael Tillotson's application for clevation to full professor. I am Temple University’s inaugural Vice President for Diversity, quity, and Inclision and before that served as legal counsel for Temple University, Arcadia University and Lincoln University, and as acting president of Lincoln. As such, 1 have had the privilege of collaborating with numerous scholars and educators and relying on their vast body of scholarship. De. Tillotson’s scholarship, which was brilliantly captured in his book Invisible tim Crow, was particulary helpful to me in researching and weiting my doctoral dissertation, which examinod ‘he funding scheme for public K-12 education in my home state of Pennsylvania. Specifically, 1 ‘examined the extent to which, although race neutral on its face, the funding law employs other proxies for racism that reduce African ageney and perpetuate the underfunding of schools that serve Black and Brown students, Iam indebted to Dr, Tillotson for developing Agency Reduction Formation (ARF), a dynamie and life changing theoretical framework that helps scholars locate systems that distract, neutralize, or reduce the need and desire for assertive colletive agency by Afican Americans. I chose ARE asa platform for my dissertation research, ‘because it enabled me to engge in the more targeted inquiry: whether race neutrality in the context ofthe Pennsylvania funding law is properly located as an ARF. Society needs ARF because while undeniably the quality of life for so many African Americans hs improved, that is not the complete and total measure for the African-American community (One can easily point to examples of Affican Americans whose lives have been positively impacted by a particular measure yet the aw or policy may not be just, humane, or inthe best interest ofthe African community as a whole. ARF inquiry is coneerned about the nature ofthe ‘measure and the masses of Afican people. ARF I believe is a tool - a movement —that can be used to effectively examine any phenomenon to determine if it is antithetical to the collective ‘wellbeing of Black people. i [PopePlease do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or need additional information (alerie-harrson@temple.edu/215-204-8922). veo Hanh, 3D, PRD Yi Feo iva Buy, el ntson 21Page