California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley Issues Statement on Verdict in Derek Chauvin Murder Trial
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley issued the following statement following guilty verdicts in the Derek Chauvin murder trial:
“Today, some measure of justice has been rendered in the murder of George Floyd. While the jury’s work, in this case, has concluded, the work ahead of us as a nation and in the California Community Colleges must move forward with the urgency and moral clarity that our students demand and deserve. Over the past year, our system has made extraordinary strides to advance anti-racist practices and promote equity for students of color. This work requires the authentic partnership and support of state and federal leaders, administrators, students, faculty, and staff, and it will be guided by justice, peace, and respect. Our work is not finished, and history will be our judge.”
Dear California Community College Family,
With the goal of improving outcomes for all of our students, over the past three years, we have been committed to implementing the Vision for Success reforms with equity at the core of our work. Over the past three months, this system has mobilized to help 2.1million students in the middle of a global pandemic. With equity at the forefront of decision-making, our faculty, staff, student leaders, administrators, and trustees have responded with resources such as Wi-Fi, laptops, hot meals, emergency loans, and online education for our students. Most recently, our system and our students are hurting and they are outraged because of the systemic racial injustices that still exist in our country. In this moment, we need to use our positions of privilege, influence, and power to make a difference.
More than 69 percent of our students identify with one or more ethnic groups—this means that we serve the most diverse student populations in all of higher education. On Wednesday, the Chancellor’s Office hosted a “Call to Action” webinar. Chancellor Oakley and system leaders called for our system to actively strategize and take action against structural racism. We cannot say that we are equity champions and be afraid to have an open dialogue about structural racism. In this webinar, Chancellor Oakley called for action across six key areas that will require their own work plan and all of you to help us implement and hold us accountable. Specifically, the “Call to Action” asks for our system to mobilize around:
- A System-wide review of law enforcement officers and first responder training and curriculum. Our system trains the majority of law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMTs in California. We have an opportunity to transform our communities by leading the nation in training our law enforcement officers and first responder workforce in unconscious/implicit bias, de-escalation training with cultural sensitivity, and community-oriented/de-militarized approaches. This work must be led system-wide in partnership with the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC), faculty at our colleges, Career Technical Education Deans, workforce education practitioners, local communities and key stakeholders such as the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
- Campus leaders must host open dialogue and address campus climate. The murder of George Floyd, ongoing violence projected in the news, increased unemployment, poverty, and inequality impact every single community. Now more than ever, our students, faculty, staff, and administrators need to feel a sense of agency and must have open and honest conversations about how we come together as an educational community to keep building inclusive and safe learning environments. Our campuses already use surveys, focus groups, and town halls to address campus climate, but building community virtually requires new strategies and tools. This work must be led by our campus CEOs/Presidents in partnership with district trustees, campus police, chief student service officers, campus student leaders, and their community.
- Campuses must audit classroom climate and create an action plan to create inclusive classrooms and anti-racism curriculum. As campus leaders look at the overall campus climate, it is equally critical that faculty leaders engage in a comprehensive review of all courses and programs, including non-credit, adult education, and workforce training programs. Campuses need to discuss how they give and receive feedback and strive to embrace the process of feedback as a productive learning tool rather than a tool wielded to impose judgment and power. Faculty and administrative leaders must work together to develop action plans that provide proactive support for faculty and staff in evaluating their classroom and learning cultures, curriculum, lesson plans and syllabi, and course evaluation protocols. Campuses also need to look comprehensively at the inclusive curriculum that goes beyond a single course, such as ethnic studies, and evaluate all courses for the diversity of representation and culturally-relevant content. District leaders should engage with local faculty labor leaders to review the tenure review process to ensure that the process promotes and supports cultural competency. Additionally, districts should be intentional about engaging the experiences, perspectives, and voices of non-tenured and adjunct faculty in the equity work of the campus. This work must be led in partnership with campus CEOs/Presidents, college faculty, chief instructional officers, chief student service officers, the ASCCC, the Student Senate for California Community Colleges (SSCCC), and campus student leaders.
- District Boards review and update your Equity plans with urgency. It is time for colleges to take out their Equity Plans and look at them with fresh eyes and answer the question of whether it is designed for compliance or for outcomes. College leaders, both administrative and academic, must have candid conversations about the limitations and barriers to pushing their equity plans and agenda further, and where there are opportunities and support to accelerate the work. Colleges will need to pull together a cross-campus team, including research, human resources, technology, faculty, support services, classified staff, and others to focus on naming the barriers, identifying solutions, and then rallying the full campus to engage in meeting the needs. Equity plans must take into consideration the non-credit and adult education students, who consist of close to a million students in our system and make up some of the most vulnerable and socially disadvantaged groups. We have all seen campuses do what was previously considered impossible as they responded to COVID-19; it is time to channel that same can-do attitude and community resolve towards addressing equity and structural racism. This work must be led system-wide in partnership with district trustees, CEOs/Presidents, and all campus leaders at all levels.
- Shorten the time frame for the full implementation of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Integration Plan. In 2018, the Board of Governors of California’s Community Colleges (Board) mandated that our system create a plan to address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our workforce and learning environments. This work culminated in a unanimous vote in September 2019 where the Board adopted a new system-wide statement for DEI that impacts the mission of our system, the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reports submitted by our districts and funding allocations for EEO funds. In addition to a new statement, the Board approved the DEI Integration Plan with a call to fully implement 68 recommendations over the next five years. Our system cannot afford to wait 5 years. The Chancellor calls for the Chancellor’s Office DEI Implementation Workgroup, the statewide representatives in the Consultation Council, and campus leaders to mobilize to implement all tier 1 recommendations in the next 6 to 12 months and to act with urgency to implement tier 2 recommendations.
- Join and engage in the Vision Resource Center “Community Colleges for Change.” As an educational community, we all need to continue to invest time to learn. The Chancellor’s Office has created a virtual community in the Vision Resource Center where content, dialogue, and modules will be uploaded. Visit visionresourcecenter.cccco.edu. After logging in, under the “Connect” menu, visit “All Communities” and look for “Community Colleges for Change”. Select the community and then click “Join Community” to access the content. This site is open to our entire system.
This call to action does not end here. Our work has just begun. Similar to the Guided Pathways work you have been engaged in, it will take all of us to host honest conversations, call out structural barriers, present solutions and continually measure our progress to hold ourselves accountable for making progress. We invite you to continue to learn with us. Several of you have already emailed us to get access to the webinar recording and resources mentioned by several of the “Call to Action” webinar speakers. Below is a list of those materials:
On behalf of our 2.1 million students and the 131 employees in the Chancellor’s Office, we thank you for joining us to learn, listen, and act. Together we are a stronger, more courageous, and creative community.
In solidarity,
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Chancellor
Marty Alvarado, Executive Vice Chancellor of Educational Services and Support
Paul Feist, Vice-Chancellor of Communications and Marketing
Barney Gomez, Vice-Chancellor of Digital Innovation and Infrastructure
Dr. John Hetts, Visiting Executive of Research and Data
Marc LeForestier, General Counsel
Dr. Daisy Gonzales, Deputy Chancellor
Dr. Aisha Lowe, Vice-Chancellor of Educational Services and Support
Kelley Maddox, Vice-Chancellor of Internal Operations
Lizette Navarette, Vice-Chancellor of College Finance and Facilities Planning
David O’Brien, Vice-Chancellor of Governmental Relations
Sheneui Weber, Vice-Chancellor of Workforce and Economic Development
Chancellor’s Office
1102 Q Street, Sacramento, CA 95811 | 916-445-8752 | www.cccco.edu
As the largest system of higher education in the country with more than 2.1 million students attending 116 colleges, the California Community Colleges serve the most diverse student population of any system of higher education in the state. The California Community Colleges and the Board of Governors are committed to ensuring our faculty, administration and staff are reflective of our diverse student population to ensure we are supporting students toward the completion of their educational goals in an equitable manner. A commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion enriches the vision of equity outlined in the Vision for Success and fosters an inclusive, anti-racist campus culture.
Animated video by the Kat Blaque
By Focused.Arts.Media.Education.
Additional resources about microaggressions to aid in the discussion following the viewing.
ITVS In this mix of live-action and animation, a young boy of color navigates bias in the classroom and its impact on his future. The film also includes the voices of other children sharing their experiences, at school and at home, as they grow older.
(Filmmakers: Geeta Gandbhir and Perri Peltz)
Instagram video by Ivirlei Brookes: White Women who Truly Want to Help: Here’s how.
Inclusive teaching from the University of Michigan: This content and linked resources have been curated as a primer for instructors to better understand and attend to the ways privilege operates in the classroom.
Teaching Tolerance: Recognizing white privilege begins with truly understanding the term itself.
