Racial Justice Principles - University of Houston
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Graduate College of Social Work

Racial Justice Principles

Since adopting our strategic vision to achieve social, racial, economic, and political justice in 2016, the GCSW has been engaged in integrating our commitment to racial justice across our work. Through this work, we have realized the importance not only of expanding and formalizing this racial justice work but also of seeking out essential input from our community around what a racially just college of social work would look like.

In May 2022, the GCSW formally adopted seven racial justice principles which were developed in community with our Students, Faculty, Staff, Adjunct Faculty, Alumni, and Practicum Instructors.

We are excited to share that the GCSW will spend the 2022-2023 academic year exploring these principles with in-depth community conversations that grapple with the implications of these principles in our work as we strategize ways to integrate the principles throughout our College and core community.

 

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Racial Justice is a Journey

We believe that racial justice is an active journey; therefore, we commit to continuously working on ourselves and with our community to act both individually and collectively to achieve the systemic fair treatment of all people.
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Intentionally Centering BIPOC Experiences

We believe that racial justice requires intentionally centering the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; therefore, we commit to centering these voices, histories, and contributions in our research, our classes, our curriculum and our community engagement.

Acknowledging Harms

We believe that structural, systemic, interpersonal, and internalized racism, colonization, and White supremacy create and sustain harm; therefore, we commit to acknowledging and being answerable to harms within our community through justice-oriented processes that promote healing, change, and accountablity. 

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Being in Community With One Another

We believe that being in community with one another and recognizing our shared humanity are foundational to our racial justice journey; therefore, we commit to creating spaces, policies and practices that build meaningful and mutually respectful relationships across our community and hold us accountable to one another.

Shared Understanding

We believe that racial justice requires a shared understanding of structural, systemic, interpersonal, and internalized racism; therefore, we commit to learning, individually and together, about the ways in which all forms of racism manifest in order to transform how we participate in research, education, and community engagement.

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Equitable Access

We believe that racial justice requires equitable access to opportunities and information; therefore, we commit to working towards policies, practices, and processes that share decision making, build capacity, expand racial, ethnic, and gender representation, and increase transparency and access to resources.

Solidarity

We believe that achieving racial justice requires striving toward solidarity in the pursuit of liberation; therefore, we commit to acknowledging that our complex and intersectional histories are shaped by White supremacy and to honoring the strengths and resilience of all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

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