Pace J. McConkie, Director 

The Center for Civil Rights in Education, established at Morgan State University in 2007, unites research, teaching, training and advocacy on integral civil rights issues in education at the pre-kindergarten, elementary, secondary and postsecondary levels.  It is instituted for the identification and study of current issues and challenges related to equal educational opportunity, particularly with respect to low-income African American and other minority students seeking real and meaningful opportunities for educational excellence and advancement.

The Center convenes the needed intellectual capacity by bringing together academia, the legal profession, advocacy groups, policymakers, civic and community leaders and organizations, and students to develop and promote substantive research and collaboration of research, strategies, remedies, solutions, programs, public policy initiatives and appropriate legal and community-based advocacy necessary to overcome obstacles to educational achievement, eliminate continuing policies or practices that foster discrimination or perpetuate segregated conditions in education, and enhance educational opportunity for all students regardless of race, ethnicity or background.  Its mission and purposes are national in scope, providing critical leadership, resources and focus to the relevant educational issues at home and in communities throughout the nation. 

1700 E. Cold Spring Lane, Baltimore, MD 21251 / 77 West Street, Suite 100, Annapolis, MD 21401

(410) 990-1251; pace.mcconkie@morgan.edu

Pace J. McConkie is a civil rights attorney with a primary focus in the areas of constitutional law and pertinent state and federal civil rights law, particularly as pertaining to discrimination on the basis of race, color and ethnicity, racial inequities, equal protection, education law, equal educational opportunity, school desegregation, integration and diversity, and the First Amendment.  His work covers advice, representation and advocacy relating to public education from elementary and secondary schools through the collegiate and graduate school levels of post secondary education.  He is the founder and director of the Center for Civil Rights in Education established in 2007 at Morgan State University to unite research, teaching, training and advocacy on integral civil rights issues in education at all levels, particularly with respect to low-income African American and other minority students seeking real and meaningful opportunities for educational excellence and advancement.  

In 1998, Mr. McConkie was appointed by the Attorney General of Maryland to serve as Assistant Attorney General and Principal Counsel to the Maryland Higher Education Commission.  The Commission is the coordinating, regulatory and policy-making body for all segments of post secondary education in the State, including 58 public and private institutions of higher education.  With responsibilities for all of its legal affairs, Mr. McConkie  represented the Commission in various significant proceedings, including the negotiation and implementation of Maryland’s Partnership Agreement with the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, necessary to ensure the State’s compliance with its equal educational opportunity obligations under State and federal law and the elimination of any remaining vestiges of the State’s prior de jure segregated system of higher education.  He also represented the Commission in major First Amendment litigation in the federal courts regarding the separation of church and state and the Establishment Clause prohibition against public monies flowing directly into the coffers of religious institutions.

Prior to his appointment with the State of Maryland, Mr. McConkie was an attorney with the National Litigation Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to involve the private bar in the provision of legal services to victims of racial discrimination.  A fundamental mission of the Lawyers’ Committee is to ensure fair and equitable political participation and the elimination of all barriers to equal opportunities for minority and disadvantaged persons.  Mr. McConkie was primarily responsible for the Committee’s litigation and public policy initiatives in the area of equal educational opportunity for minority students.  He was involved in educational issues of national importance, including major litigation and policy efforts in Pittsburgh, PA, Prince George’s County, MD, San Jose, CA, Wilmington, DE, and several southern states, focusing on the complete eradication of the vestiges or present effects of segregation, the elimination of educational policies and practices that adversely effect or unlawfully discriminate against minority students, and implementation of comprehensive quality education programs.  He also participated, with the Committee as amicus curiae, in the major affirmative action cases addressing minority admissions policies and race-based scholarship programs in higher education.

For several years, Mr. McConkie served as Assistant General Counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at its national headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland where he was also responsible for the education case docket and acted as counsel for the NAACP’s Southwest Region.  He was honored as NAACP Attorney of the Year at its 1994 national convention in Chicago.  He is a Life Member of the NAACP and remains actively engaged with the Association’s legal agenda.