The Council for Racial & Social Justice promotes and supports anti-racism & social justice in the CSU and CFA. To this end:
– The Council is committed to dismantling oppression based on Age, Ancestry, Caste, Color, Disability, Ethnicity, Gender, Gender Expression, Gender Identity, Genetic Information, Marital Status, Medical Condition, Military Status, Nationality, Race, Religion, Religious Creed, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Sex Stereotype, and Veteran Status. (Consistent with Article 16.1 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement). The Council’s responsibilities include being vigilant, assuming leadership, organizing, and taking action to ensure CFA’s goals toward the promotion of racially and socially just practices.
– The Council cultivates the ARSJ lens throughout our CFA work. The lens helps direct the creation of new initiatives within the organization. The Council also works diligently to promote Anti-Racism and Social Justice throughout the CSU.
CFA’s Council for Racial & Social Justice’s Equity Conference 2020.
About the Council
Learn more about the Council and check out important resources for your information!
Looking for ways to learn more or get involved? Start here!
The CFA workshops are designed to explore the complexities of white supremacy, racism, and privilege in the California State University workplace and to understand the theories that inform these complex topics.
A Journey into Change: An Unconscious Bias Workshop is a four-hour experience exploring participants unconscious biases and preferences, and how they manifest in micro-aggressions that interfere with the recruitment and retention of diverse faculty.
The Interrupting Racism: An Anti-Racism Workshop centers race for the disruption of racialized hierarchies and narratives. This is a three-part workshop series with each part being 2.5 hours. Parts 1 and 2 are often combined for one 4-hour workshop.
In the Understanding Privilege workshop participants explore their intersectional identities and ways to dismantle systems of privilege and oppression.
Critical Race Theory addresses the current myths surrounding this well established theory by exploring the rationale, tenets, and historical and present day application.
Each workshop is an opportunity to build awareness toward strengthening individual and institutional anti-racism practices for improving the university environment.
To inquire about scheduling for committee, department, college, or other groups, including university administrators please submit a request. Note: Requests made by those other than unit 3 faculty will incur a fee for the workshop as well as travel costs for facilitators.
For more information email Audrena Redmond, Director of Programs for Anti-racism, and Social Justice at aredmond@calfac.org and Administrative Assistant, Laura Ambrosecchio at lambrosecchio@calfac.org.
A project of the Council for Racial and Social Justice, the Equity Conference is a chance for CFA members to connect for co-liberation. The now-annual event reflects the concerted efforts undertaken in the last several years to center Anti-Racism & Social Justice in all things CFA, beginning with the recognition that racism and white supremacy is institutionalized in our organization and a commitment to what we began calling our Anti-Racism & Social Justice Transformation.
“E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G — is connected. The soil needs rain, organic matter, air, worms and life in order to do what it needs to do to give and receive life. Each element is an essential component. “Organizing takes humility and selflessness and patience and rhythm while our ultimate goal of liberation will take many expert components. Some of us build and fight for land, healthy bodies, healthy relationships, clean air, water, homes, safety, dignity, and humanizing education. Others of us fight for food and political prisoners and abolition and environmental justice. Our work is intersectional and multifaceted. Nature teaches us that our work has to be nuanced and steadfast. And more than anything, that we need each other—at our highest natural glory—in order to get free.”
“Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense.”
Vine Deloria Jr.
Useful Resources
By Cecil Canton, CFA Associate VP – Affirmative Action From California Faculty magazine, Fall 2013
Article 20, the Workload Article of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Board of Trustees of the CSU and the California Faculty Association speaks to the professional responsibility of instructional faculty:
“The primary professional responsibilities of instructional faculty members are: teaching, research, creative activity and service to the University and to the community.” (Workload, Article 20, Section 20.1)
This definition of faculty responsibility is generally accepted in almost any higher education venue across the United States. One must admit to a certain simple elegance with this definition.
The phrase “and service to the University and to the community” is so muted and subtle, that it is accepted without question or much discussion. It lulls us into a kind of intellectual somnambulence as we toil to make manifest its meaning in our professional lives.
CFA is committed to our Anti-Racism and Social Justice Transformation work. In recognition of our continued growth and learning, we have compiled a host of resources, from thoughtful articles and academic discourse to podcasts and videos.
These resources will be updated, with newest content at the top, so please check back occasionally to see what’s new in our Social Justice Study Hall.
Connecting for Co-Liberation “If you’ve come here to help me, you’re wasting your time. But if you’ve come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” ― Australian Aboriginal Elder Lilla Watson The CFA Council for Racial and Social Justice has played an integral part in the union’s concerted transformation toward Anti-racism and Social Justice efforts in all things CFA, beginning with the recognition that racism and white supremacy are institutionalized in our organization and a commitment to Anti-Racism Social Justice Transformation.
The books, articles, videos and podcast listed here are a reflection of the intersectional framework that informed the development of the anti-racist and social justice lens we presently apply to our work as a social justice union.
We seek to respond to the “resurgence of racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-labor, and White supremacist discourses in the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential election” and to build upon the resistance expressed by progressive activists across the country. The times have called for us to connect for co-liberation a merging of the notions of belonging and bridging (cf John Powell, Facing Race) and of redefining difference as a source of power (Audre Lorde). Our oppressions are linked in a matrix of domination, therefore, so too are our freedoms. This envisioning inspires us to call on CFA members to organize in a new, distinctive way. Instead of working within individual caucuses (e.g., Asian/Pacific Islander, Women’s, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender, Chicanx/Latinx, Indigenous Peoples, Disability, African American and Teacher Education) our caucuses are digging in for co-liberation.
The study hall tools listed here are organized first by three key intersectional themes that informed the CFA 2020 equity conference followed by links to our caucuses and resources they identified. We hope you will find these resources helpful as you too embark on the journey for co-liberation.
We look forward to working with you to create the world where we all thrive.
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