Library and Academic Institution Movements & the Law

Conversations about where we’re at and how we move forward.

Author(s): Pho, Annie; Chou, Rose L.

Seventy percent of female minority lawyers report leaving or considering leaving the legal profession, according to an ABA report on the challenges that they face.

"By 2050, more than half of Americans will be people of color – and today, nearly every indicator of well-being shows disturbing disparities according to race. Yet the LGBT movement’s lack of substantive work on issues most relevant to people of color leaves the movement vulnerable to irrelevance and division—and leaves fully one-third of the members of the LGBT community underserved. This primer aims to inform and motivate LGBT-movement funders to work explicitly on issues of racial justice and inclusion. The primer illuminates general issues of race and ethnicity in American society, discusses why funders aiming for LGBT equality should work explicitly on matters of race, offers recommended philanthropic approaches to racial justice and inclusion (including language recommendations from the Aspen Institute and a model organizational self-assessment from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Race Matters Toolkit), and provides recommendations specific to LGBT movement work on racial equity and inclusion. Also included in the primer’s appendix is information on nearly 50 nonprofit and philanthropic organizations working on race, which can serve as a starting point for learning more about existing resources related to this work. Note that this report does not reflect original research into LGBT-specific racial matters. Sources were limited to secondary research and a small number of interviews."

Comparing what women of color are paid to what white, non-Hispanic men make demonstrates the enormous economic impact of the double burden of sexism and racism.

Why we’re dedicated to race and social justice Over half of the people Solid Ground serves are people of color. Many face challenges as a direct result of institutional racism: housing discrimination, benefits denial, predatory lending, employment barriers, and disparities in the education and criminal justice systems. Simply put: we can’t be an effective anti-poverty

This report builds on data from Building Movement Project’s Race to Lead survey, conducted with more than 4,000 respondents across the nonprofit sector. This report, the second in the Race to Lead series, analyzes experiences of respondents who identified as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Queer (LGBTQ).

The angry Black woman stereotype exists in many parts of American culture — including the workplace. Studies show people in organizations believe Black women are more likely to have belligerent, contentious, and angry personalities, an assumption not as readily assigned to other men and women. Recent studies suggest this negative perception is a unique phenomenon for Black women, and the researchers suggest that when Black women outwardly express anger at work, her leadership and potential are called into question.

Tech creators and journalists ignore the insights and experiences of Black women—and fail to see the harm of their "innovations."

Dr. Angelica Geter strives to build systems and criteria that ensure Black women's psychological safety at work.

CHICAGO - The American Library Association (ALA) condemns—in the strongest terms possible—the violence, threats of violence and other acts of intimidation that are increasingly taking place in America’s libraries, including last week’s bomb threats to Hilton Central District Schools in New York, which put the lives of hundreds of innocent children and staff members in jeopardy.

Belonging is a fundamental human need, and one that is linked to many of the most complex challenges of our time. Without a sense of belonging, individuals and communities suffer; with it, they thrive. Yet, because belonging is notoriously difficult to measure, it is often ignored in efforts to address the deep fractures in our societies. One purpose of this report is to call attention to belonging as a factor that matters deeply for leaders and stakeholders across diverse sectors.

Beyond revamping misleading terminology, some library science scholars and Indigenous knowledge holders are looking at how to index library materials in ways that reflect Indigenous knowledge.

Leaders should be sure to address the anxiety proactively, and with as much transparency as possible.

The Vera Institute for Justice in New York City has five tip sheets for " Designing Accessible Events for People with Disabilities and Deaf...

A collection of resources related to trauma informed practices in law libraries, trauma informed teaching, and polyvagal theory, based on the NELLCO Symposium.

Allyship Traditionally, the library and information science profession has been predominately white. Even in diverse communities, library professionals do not always reflect the populations they serve. Therefore it is essential that library and information science professionals serve their communities as allies. So, what exactly is an ally? The word ally comes from Middle French and means ‘to bind together.’ An ally is one who recognizes their unearned systemic privilege from societal injustice and works to change these patterns of injustice.

WITNESS partnered with El Grito de Sunset Park to find new ways to use eyewitness video and open source data to expose systemic police violence.

TOOLKIT OVERVIEW Throughout this project we documented the tools we used, the processes that worked best for us and the things that made our light bulbs go off. We compiled those learnings into this Toolkit for others to use, share and help grow. The Toolkit can be used as a step-by-step guide, or you can jump right in to the section you’re most interested in!

Resources related to the #blacklivesmatter, #marchforourlives, #marchforscience, #metoo, #timesup, and #nobannowall social movements.

Political Protest and Social Movements resources

This reading list has been developed to assist faculty, staff, and students in gaining understanding and appreciation of DEI issues in our society.