Our Team
Jason Littlefield, M.Ed
Jason Littlefield is an educator passionate about personal well-being establishing a society of individuals at peace within themselves and others. He established EmpowerED Pathways in 2017 and co-designed the Empowered Humanity Theory; a framework for life, leadership, and learning. He served as a public educator for twenty-one years in multiple capacities. From 2014 to 2021 he was a Social and Emotional Learning Specialist for the Austin Independent School District. Jason has also served students and families from around the world, including Taiwan, China, and Benin, Africa. He is an advocate for decreasing our current human division and increasing personal well-being by bringing awareness to the impact and intent of the emerging ideology dominating our institutions and permeating the zeitgeist. He does so through EmpowerED Pathways, Free Black Thought, and The Institute for Liberal Values.
Erec Smith, Ph.D.
Erec Smith is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. Although he has eclectic scholarly interests, Smith’s primary focuses on the rhetorics of anti-racist activism, theory, and pedagogy. He is a co-founder of Free Black Thought, an organization dedicated to highlighting viewpoint diversity within the black intelligentsia. Smith is a member and moderator for Heterodox Academy and sits on the Board of Advisors for both the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism and Counterweight, an organization that advocates for liberal concepts of social justice. In his latest book, A Critique of Anti-racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment, Smith addresses the detriments of anti-racist rhetoric and writing pedagogy based on identity and prefigurative politics and suggests that a more empowering form of anti-racism be considered.