AUTHOR BIO
Allison Matulli, J.D., M.Ed. is a legal scholar, renowned children’s author, and education reform activist. She is the founder of The Little Lawyers — an organization that excites and empowers children to learn the law and is a Criminal Justice adjunct professor at Florida International University (FIU). Allison Matulli made history as the first-ever FIU instructor to be awarded the renowned Global Fulbright Scholar Award. As part of her fellowship, Global Fulbright Scholar Matulli will be conducting research in Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Italy on global speech rights with a focus on digital citizenship and youth online and off campus speech.
Allison is the author of Your Freedom, Your Power: A Kid’s Guide to the First Amendment (written with Clelia Castro-Malaspina and illustrated by Carmelle Kendall) which continues to receive strong reviews, including a starred review from Booklist. The book has garnered broad interest by educators, free speech advocates, and was just named a Junior Library Guild Selection and Chicago Public Library’s BEST BOOKS OF 2023. She is also the author of I Am Because We Are and another picture book, forthcoming from Disney. Allison is gracing the recent cover of Legacy Magazine (in the Miami Herald) as an honoree for MIAMI’s MOST PROMINENT BLACK WOMEN ON BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY FOR 2023! She has been featured as a keynote speaker in various events including roundtables sponsored by the New York Times, and has been a contributing writer to Education Week and more. Most recently, Allison Matulli was honored as one of South Florida’s Most Prominent & Influential Black Business Leaders of 2024 by Miami Media Group celebrating Black Excellence.
Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Allison’s lifelong quest to connect with and understand others has led her to visit over 40 countries, live in several nations including Italy, Argentina, and England, and speak fluent Italian. The Global Fulbright Scholar is on a mission to research on how children experience freedom of speech in various countries around the world, as digital citizens, online, off campus, and more. At Saint Thomas University, Allison is an Ed.D. doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership – Digital Instruction and Distance Learning Online, where she is focused on an array of pedagogy and technological instructional resources in digital learning environments.
Allison is always looking to engage in inspiring conversations about “right” and “wrong”. After all, she is a graduate of Howard University School of Law—a school known for pioneering the Civil Rights Movement. She understands how law drives the most dramatic, emotional stories of American history (and present!) and aims to approach her writing for children in a way that passes that intrigue and passion on to the next generation. She lives in Miami with her husband and two children. Allison Matulli is represented by Lilly Ghahremani at Full Circle Literary.
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OUR LATEST BLOG
Education is at the frontier of a legal evolution
But do teachers know about the historic changes in students’ first amendment rights?
When I first walked into my classroom many years ago, I was not confronted with the same level of First Amendment issues faced by teachers today. In the age of technology meets the age of COVID-19, there is a silently brewing storm. Hence, the upcoming school year will be littered with historic firsts on how administrators, teachers, students and parents battle over how kids exercise their fundamental right to free speech. Before COVID, principals were already suspending students for things they did or said on social media. Teachers were already being asked by parents to supervise student-to-student online interaction. Parents were already reporting cyberbullying on an alarmingly explosive scale. READ FULL BLOG . . .