by Carolyn Bick
Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed a slew of budgeting measures meant to address racial injustice across a broad swath of areas. These proposals, totaling $365 million, target everything from healthcare inequities — which the current novel coronavirus pandemic has laid bare — and environmental disparities to homelessness and even how insurance companies handle clients.
Continue reading Inslee Announces $365 Million in Equity Budgeting for 2021by Charlene Angeles
“How dark is the color of its skin,
As that will define its struggles within
Is it a boy or is it a girl is asked, as if to define its life’s task
Will it stay or will it go, the answer its parents needs to know
From the day that it was born, its very essence society scorned
From birth society coded its future to do
It hacked the code and redirected its future to zoom
Silent it could never be, because it ladies and gentlemen, is me.”
—Justice Grace Helen Whitener, “Claiming Your Identity by Understanding Your Self-Worth.” TEDxPortofSpain.
In mid-April, with a global pandemic raging, the state of Washington quietly made history. Without much fanfare, Governor Jay Inslee appointed Grace Helen Whitener to the state supreme court — and by doing so, made Washington’s highest court likely the most diverse the United States has ever seen.
Continue reading First Black Woman Makes Washington’s Supreme Court Most Diverse Everby Maya Leshikar
Larin McLaughlin has always worked with diverse books at the University of Washington Press, but she’s noticed her peers in the publishing world don’t always represent the variety of what is published.
Continue reading UW Press Diversifies Staff with $1.2 Million Grant
by Melia LaCour
As educators grapple with inequitable systems responsible for undercutting the success of black and brown students, the State of Washington Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) is taking bold leadership to tackle one of the state’s biggest culprits: systemic failure to retain teachers of color. Currently, only 11 percent of the teaching workforce are teachers of color despite a rapidly growing diverse student population.
Continue reading PESB Convenes Education Stakeholders to Tackle Educator Diversity
