Bettina L. Love is an American author and academic. She is the William F. Russell Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she has been instrumental in establishing abolitionist teaching in schools. According to Love, abolitionist teaching refers to restoring humanity for children in schools. Love also advocates eliminating the billion-dollar industry of standardized testing. Early life and education Love was born in Rochester, New York. Love graduated with a B.S. in Liberal Studies from the University of Pittsburgh in 2001. She obtained her MEd in Elementary Education also from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002. She received her PhD in Educational Policy Studies from Georgia State University in 2008. Career Love's academic positions include teaching at Northern Kentucky University from 2009 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, she was assistant professor in the Department of Educational Theory & Practice at the University of Georgia. Since 2015, she has been an associate professor of education at the University of Georgia. Her writing, research, teaching, and activism meet at the intersection of race, education, abolition, and black joy. Love is concerned with how educators working with parents and communities can build communal, civically engaged schools rooted in abolitionist teaching with the goal of intersectional social justice for equitable classrooms that love and affirm black and brown children. In 2020, Love co-founded the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN) to develop and support teachers and parents to fight injustice within their schools and communities. In 2020, Love was also named a member of the Old 4th Ward Economic Security Task Force with the Atlanta City Council. In 2014, she was invited to the White House Research Conference on Girls to discuss her work focused on the lives of black girls. For her work in the field of hip hop education, in 2016, Love was named the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. In April 2017, Love participated in a one-on-one public lecture with bell hooks focused on liberatory education. In 2018, the Georgia House of Representatives presented Love with a resolution for her impact on the field of education. She has also provided commentary for various news outlets including NPR, Ed Week, The Guardian, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She is the author of the books We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and Hip