Manuel Espinoza, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Education & Human Development at the University of Colorado Denver. He is a child of desegregation and a Chicano ethnographer working in the scholarly tradition that emerged during the 20th century struggle against racism in the U.S. The labor in this historical vineyard consists of linking social scientific research to everyday struggles for a just society. Historically, this line of social science has provided the law with intellectual and empirical resources to perceive social life anew. As the Director and Co-founder of the Right2Learn Dignity Lab, now in its 15th year, Manuel works with an undergraduate and graduate research collective to develop two interconnected strands of research: 1) an inquiry into the historical and legal origins of educational rights and 2) a social interactional method for studying the manifestations of dignity in educational activity. Presently, the Dignity Lab is working to amend the “education clause” of the Colorado constitution. Manuel has shared his expertise by contributing content on dignity in schools to the Cultivating Compassion for Ourselves and Others digital certificate.