The Color of Action: Dr. Latish Reed's Case for Equity Beyond the Statement

"I should just write about what I'm experiencing" is a phrase most authors have said to themselves at least once. For Dr. Latish Reed, it was no different — and, in fact, a guiding principle in her educational leadership roles, consulting practice, and her 2025 debut book, The Complexities of Equity: Navigating Shades of Gray in Schools and Other Organizations. 

Growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Reed was part of her school district's desegregation program, and she was bused to Shorewood Public Schools, a suburb outside the city. Her parents chose this experience to encourage not only her learning but also to give her a tangible reminder of what it means to stand firmly for what you believe in. The program was a part of Chapter 220, a deep part of the state’s history that Wisconsin lawmakers created and passed in 1975, but it suddenly came to an end in 2015. 

What seems like a practical decision is now something deeper. Reed was often the only Black child in her class, and she had to build what she calls "this muscle around navigating the world as a black girl in a predominantly white environment." The experience left a lasting impact, one that would eventually play into Reed's path through education. 

She has spanned nearly every role within the system. She started as an admissions counselor for Marquette University before quickly transitioning to a middle school teacher with Milwaukee Public Schools, then became an assistant principal around the time of the No Child Left Behind Act. She thought her journey had reached a peak, but that little girl who always stood determined was telling her to seek more. So to understand the complex forces shaping schools such as race, class, immigrant status, and special education needs, she earned her master's at Alverno and then her PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from UW Madison. 

After earning her PhD, she took on a professorship at UNC Chapel Hill, where she taught courses like The Cultural Aspects of Leadership Instruction in School Reform and Program Development for Special Populations. She then took on another teaching role at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Yet, with more than two decades of experience under her belt, she writes candidly in the book about her denial of tenure at UMW. A moment she says that even a high-performing faculty member like herself may go through, and is a sign to not lose your way or the reasoning for why you started the work. 

Reed returned to the school district in 2016, where it all began, and became Milwaukee Public Schools’ first administrator specifically charged with leading equity work. A full-circle moment that brings those from across the organization together to write equity policies. Yet, as she puts it, "Policies and programs do not change practice, but people do.” That tension the one between good intentions and real change is the heart of her work. 

Reed's framework for understanding that tension appears in the Equity Empowerment Continuum, a tool she flips on its head by using color not to judge people, but to measure action. White, she explains, is to show "the absence of color," the absence of action or the belief that nothing is wrong and nothing needs to change, even as documented inequities persist around us. The Continuum is a tool for identifying where you are and where you want to go, recognizing that where you are can change based on a multitude of factors. You can identify where you are in relation to equity and how you are advocating and taking action toward equity, including for others. 

She describes light gray as performative, for example, statements and social media activism without the willingness to confront family or friends to change an actual practice. While Dark gray is where real progress happens, within the limits of a bureaucracy, this looks like leaning into policies, procedures, and practices that make a difference. But black, although the darkest color, she says, represents the justice that would be utopian. Reed describes it as “It's not a stationary thing. It's dynamic." Therefore not a fixed endpoint but an evolving ideal that people in an organization are always trying to define together. 

She pairs this with her original framework, which she calls the ICE- T, framework. Standing for Identity, Context, Experience, and Timing. A tool that shows how effectively someone can advocate depends on who they are, what is happening or has happened during the action they want to enable, and when they try to implement it. It comes from the willingness to lean into being a more equitable person and maintaining that environment, even when the word "equity" itself has been criticized. 

These two frameworks intertwine with Reed's consulting work, REEDLEAD Leadership Solutions, which grew out of the same gap she saw within teaching: leaders who want to lead for justice, who want to serve everyone equitably, but who don't always know what that looks like in practice. She works in collaboration with Derute Consulting Cooperative, which she co-founded with four other professors in 2012. 

Her own practice focuses on keynote addresses, professional learning, and executive coaching, helping leaders assess where they are and strategize around moving the needle forward. Reed's book and her work are a tool for people to identify where they are and where they want to go. Not everything is black and white, and it's certainly not the default way of thinking we should have. As she puts it, "I feel that we are in a space where people need tools now to understand and to process the resistance that's needed in this moment." 

For Reed, the light, medium, dark, and the shades in between chart the distance between action and performance, and leadership is where the two meet. What separates the two, for Reed, is introspection: constantly grappling with what equity, equality, and fairness look like in what you're doing, and whether you're lifting up all you can to achieve that goal. "I think some leaders forget that part," she says about the action and act of service. "People can't get what they need. You're not serving people if you're unable to serve." Service and introspection, she says, make all the difference between talking about color and acting on it.