H. Richard Milner IV

H. Richard Milner IV is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Education and Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Previously, Professor Milner was a high school English teacher and a community college instructor in Developmental Reading. Although Professor Milner began his career in higher education at Vanderbilt, he was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh in his 12th year as a professor. For five years, Professor Milner was Helen Faison Professor of Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh. While at Pitt, he directed the university’s Center for Urban Education. Professor Milner was then recruited back to Vanderbilt University in 2018.

Professor Milner examines what he has come to call consequential educational policies and practices that shape students’ opportunities to learn. The first Black person to earn tenure and promotion at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Professor Milner is a past President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the largest educational research organization in the world. Professor Milner has delivered the prestigious Brown lecture in Education Research (2015). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. His work has appeared in numerous journals, and he has authored or edited eight books including his three most recent:

Milner, H.R. & Howard, T.C. (2026). Designing qualitative research to do no harm. New York: Columbia University’s Teachers College Press.

Milner, H.R. (2023). The race card: Leading the fight for truth in America’s schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Milner, H.R. (2020). Start where you are but don’t stay there: Understanding diversity, opportunity gaps, and teaching in today’s classrooms (Second Edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.