Muhammad Khalifa is a professor of educational administration and executive director of Urban Education Initiatives at Ohio State University. ¹ He is founder, president, and CEO of Adjusted Equity Solutions, ² a consulting company that conducts school equity audits and provides recommendations to educators on how to reduce perceived inequities in schools, ³ and is president of Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute (CRSLI), ⁴ a sister company to Adjusted that provides training to educators on how to be more culturally responsive. ⁵

Educational Background

Khalifa earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Michigan in 1996. In 2000, he earned a master’s degree from Eastern Michigan University. In 2008, Khalifa earned a Ph.D. in educational administration from Michigan State University. ⁶

From 1997 to 2008, Khalifa was a science teacher and a district administrator in the Detroit public school system. ⁷

Khalifa held several assistant professor positions from 2008 to 2015 at Ashland University in Ohio, the University of Texas–San Antonio, and at Michigan State University. ⁸ In 2015, he was a professor in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota. ⁹ In 2020 Khalifa joined Ohio State University as a professor of educational administration and executive director for Urban Education. ¹⁰

Career

Khalifa founded Adjusted Equity Solutions (Adjusted) and is president and CEO. ¹¹ Adjusted is a consulting organization that conducts school equity audits. The equity audits include data collection, surveys, analysis of results, and recommendations on how school leaders can reduce perceived systematic oppression in the schools. ¹²

Khalifa is president of Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute (CRSLI) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. ¹³ CRSLI is a sister company to Adjusted that provides in person and online training to educators on being more culturally responsive. The training leverages the Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL) framework found in the book Culturally Responsive School Leadership, written by Khalifa. ¹⁴

Khalifa is on the global advisory board of World Savvy ¹⁵ and on the advisory board of the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center, which provides training on race, sex, national origin, and religion to educators in support of school reform. ¹⁶

Khalifa is a senior fellow at the Yaqeen Institute, an Islamic think tank. In this role, Khalifa co-wrote Ancestral Knowledge and American Muslims: Rooting Cultural Resistance in Islam with founder, CEO, and president Dr. Omar Suleiman. ¹⁷

Publications

In 2015, Khalifa co-edited Handbook on Urban Educational Leadership and Becoming Critical: Emergence of Social Justice Scholars.  In 2017 he co-edited The School to Prison Pipeline ¹⁸ which asserts that the disciplinary practices in schools target marginalized students and increase their likelihood of crime. ¹⁹

In 2018, Khalifa published the book Culturally Responsive School Leadership. ²⁰ In his book Khalifa begins with the assumption that oppressive structures and practices are naturally occurring in schools. ²¹ He indicates that educators must “challenge whiteness and hegemonic epistemologies.” ²²

Khalifa also published Derrick Bell, CRT: Challenging the Promise of Just Schools 1980-present is an article written in support of critical race theory education in schools. ²³

In 2018, Khalifa co-published Toward an Indigenous, Decolonizing School Leadership: A Literature Review. This paper describes school as a “tool of imperialism, colonization, and control in the education of Indigenous peoples” and suggests that school leadership can develop practices to decolonize school and build on the knowledge and practices of Indigenous students. ²⁴

As a senior fellow at the Yaqeem Institute Khalifa co-published Ancestral Knowledge and American Muslims: Rooting Cultural Resistance in Islam which describes how western colonization or enslavement subverted the Muslim ancestral knowledge as inferior. ²⁵

Islamaphobia and Christian Privilege: What Educators Must Know, published in 2017, focuses on changes educators should make to incorporate Islamic practices and traditions into schools. ²⁶

1. LinkedIn – Muhammad Khalifa. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-khalifa-45b2a29/
2. “Our Team.” Adjusted Equity Solutions. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://ajusted.org/
3. “About Equity Audits.” Adjusted Equity Solutions. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://ajusted.org/
4. LinkedIn – Muhammad Khalifa. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-khalifa-45b2a29/
5. “Our Sister Company.” Adjusted Equity Solutions. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://ajusted.org/
6. LinkedIn – Muhammad Khalifa. Accessed May 23, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-khalifa-45b2a29/
7. LinkedIn – Muhammad Khalifa. Accessed May 23, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-khalifa-45b2a29/
8. LinkedIn – Muhammad Khalifa. Accessed May 23, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-khalifa-45b2a29/
9. LinkedIn – Muhammad Khalifa. Accessed May 23, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-khalifa-45b2a29/
10. LinkedIn – Muhammad Khalifa. Accessed May 23, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-khalifa-45b2a29/
11. “Our Team.” Adjusted Equity Solutions. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://ajusted.org/
12. “About Equity Audits.” Adjusted Equity Solutions. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://ajusted.org/
13. ^[1] “Our Expert Team.” CRSL Institute – About Us. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://www.crsli.org/?about
14. “Our Sister Company.” Adjusted Equity Solutions. Accessed May 19, 2022. https://ajusted.org/
15. ^[1] Adjusted Equity Solutions Twitter retweet from World Savvy. November 16, 2021. Accessed May 20, 2022. https://mobile.twitter.com/a_just_ed
16. “Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center.” Great Lakes Equity Center – Our Projects. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://greatlakesequity.org/map-eac
17. “Muhammad Khalifa.” Yaqeen Institute – Team. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/team/muhammad-khalifa
18. “Muhammad Khalifa.” Ohio State University – Faculty and Staff Directory. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://ehe.osu.edu/directory?id=khalifa.20
19. “The School to Prison Pipeline: the Role of Culture and Discipline in School.” Amazon. Accessed May 28, 2022. https://www.amazon.com/School-Prison-Pipeline-Discipline-Ethnicity-ebook/dp/B01NAI0CLS/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3CHBM48V94U1Y&keywords=muhammad+khalifa&qid=1653758434&s=books&sprefix=muhammad+khalifa%2Cstripbooks%2C110&sr=1-3&asin=B01NAI0CLS&revisionId=&format=2&depth=1
20. “Culturally Responsive School Leadership.” Amazon. Accessed May 21, 2022. https://www.amazon.com/Culturally-Responsive-School-Leadership-Education/dp/1682532070/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=1343603773483916&hvadid=83975306813613&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=85915&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=p&hvtargid=kwd-83975580431083%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=20183_10555131&keywords=culturally+responsive+school+leadership&qid=1653162149&sr=8-1
21. “Culturally Responsive School Leadership Introduction.” Academia.edu. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://www.academia.edu/37234702/Culturally_Responsive_School_Leadership_Free_Introduction?email_work_card=view-paper
22. “Culturally Responsive School Leadership Framework.” Academia.edu. Accessed May 28, 2022. https://www.academia.edu/36162495/Culturally_Responsive_School_Leadership_Framework?email_work_card=view-paper
23. “Muhammad Khalifa.” Academia.edu. Accessed May 23, 2022. https://osu.academia.edu/MuhammadKhalifa
24. Muhammad Khalifa. “Toward an Indigenous, Decolonizing School Leadership: A Literature Review.” Academia.edu. Accessed May 28, 2022. https://www.academia.edu/38280224/Toward_an_Indigenous_Decolonizing_School_Leadership_A_Literature_Review?email_work_card=thumbnail
25. “Ancestral Knowledge and American Muslims: Rooting Cultural Resistance in Islam.” Yaqeem Institute. February 21, 2019. Accessed May 28, 2022. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/ancestral-knowledge-and-american-muslims-rooting-cultural-resistance-in-islam
26. “Islamaphobia and Christian Privilege: What Educators Must Know.” Great Lakes Equity. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://greatlakesequity.org/sites/default/files/creating_safe_and_inclusive_schools_for_muslim_students.pdf