Dean's Notes

George Floyd was murdered two months ago. At the time, I wrote:

“As the Colorado School of Public Health, we ask again what we can do as a community and as individuals to change these root causes of poor health. Research on the topic is abundant and confirmatory that racism harms health through many pathways; the path to change is not more research, but using what we already know to affect change. Evidence-based advocacy is needed, but many of the pathways to action have long been blocked. This is also a time for conversation within our school’s community about what we can do to dismantle systemic racism. To that end as a tri-campus community we need to engage in honest conversations and action to be part of long-needed solutions (e.g., policy changes and practice). There are no easy answers to solve the issues of injustice and racism in our society. However, we owe it to our community to demand change and accountability. To be silent is to be complicit. We stand in agreement with the American Public Health Association that racism is an ongoing public health crisis that needs our attention now!”

Now is the time to start an ongoing discussion about our school and structural racism, equity, and inclusive excellence, looking internally and externally. Our strategic plan, completed in the fall of 2019, covers much that is needed, but a new urgency has been added by the inescapable and spotlighted consequences of structural racism and the visible inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a starting point a draft plan, Our Plan for Dismantling Structural Racism and Advancing Inclusive Excellence, will be discussed during a Town Hall event on Wednesday, July 22. The plan builds on the strategic plan, but adds steps in implementation, including the addition of a new position, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We will focus internally at the start, while looking for points of leverage externally for ColoradoSPH.

We are all impatient and want change. There are many ways to achieve change and as a community we will have different views about priorities and processes. Bring those views to the discussion on Wednesday.

Some of the conversation may be uncomfortable. We are not fluent in discussing racism and our diversity as a community. We have different backgrounds and implicit biases, perhaps unrecognized. We need to discuss with enough openness to talk with honesty. The plan includes a table on its first pagethat may be helpful:



I am reading two helpful books, How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi and White Rage by Carol Anderson. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning, weaves his own story with the dimensions of race. His title is powerful: A racist is “One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction expressing a racist idea” leaving the only alternative to be an anti-racist—“One who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist view.” White Rage brings a historical perspective to the origins of racism. For me, I was reminded of history that I needed to remember: slavery and the Reconstruction; and times that I lived through across the Civil Rights era, and the attacks on Civil Rights that followed. We are living through the book’s next chapter.

Until next week,