Standing Against Racism

Standing Against Racism and Injustice

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other recent events – including the resulting protests and police responses – have highlighted longstanding injustices experienced by people of color in the United States.

hands raised and clasped in unity In a June 8 message to students, faculty and classified professional staff, De Anza Interim President Christina G. Espinosa-Pieb announced some initial steps the college is taking to increase support for Black students. This followed her May 29 statement of support for all Black and underrepresented students and colleagues at the college.

You can read those emails here and then scroll down or click on these links to find information about

Upcoming events and activities
De Anza resources and other organizations
Additional statements in solidarity
Reading list and learning tools
NEW BFSA Student Award Recipients

Video: Student-Athletes take a Stand

Some Initial Steps for Our Black Students at De Anza

Message From Interim President Christina Espinosa-Pieb

June 8, 2020

Dear Students,

This has been a wrenching time for our Black students, faculty and staff, and for all Black Americans.

I know you join me in in feeling sadness and anger about the death of George Floyd, and every other horrific act of racism and violence perpetrated against those who are Black. Many of us have been participating in peaceful protests across the Bay Area, while watching similar efforts unfold across the country.

It has also been a time of listening for our senior staff at De Anza College. In group meetings and individual conversations, we have been hearing from students, program representatives and community members, as well as the Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators Network (BFSA) at De Anza.

In response to what we have heard, we are announcing today that we will establish a full-time, tenure-track counselor/coordinator position for the Umoja program to serve our Black students. The hiring process will begin immediately.

We also will fund – through donations to the De Anza President's Fund – a scholarship that BFSA will name and award, based on criteria they will develop.

We know these are small steps, and simply a beginning. Our listening will continue, as will our follow-up. This cannot be said too many times: We stand with – and for – our Black students and community.

Later this week, on Wednesday, BFSA will host an online forum for Black students. You can find more information and resources on the new Standing Against Racism webpage in the Office of Equity section of the college website.

We also want to make sure you’re aware that counseling support is available to you during this time of extraordinary stress. In addition to one-on-one counseling, our Psychological Services office is hosting a series of online group discussions for students this week and next. This information can also be found on the new webpage at deanza.edu/equityoffice/against-racism, and we will continue to add updates and additional resources to that page.

Please do take care of yourself.

Kindly,
Christina

Christina G. Espinosa-Pieb
(Pronouns: She/Her/Hers/Herself/Ella)
Interim President

[The message above was sent via email to all students. A similar message was emailed to De Anza's faculty and classified professional staff members.]
Standing With Our African American Students and Colleagues

May 29, 2020

Dear Students and Colleagues,

Racism continues to be deeply embedded in this country, and I am proud it is something De Anza College has long worked against. I know we all deplore the violent death of yet another African American person at the hands of police, and that our hearts go out to the family and friends of George Floyd, and to the African American community.

We know that our African American students, faculty and staff are in pain – a pain I imagine must feel both never-ending and yet recurring, with each death. We know this pain is compounded by each act of racism, such as this week's reprehensible incident in Central Park – just one of so many similar occurrences.

Today, I want each of you to know that we stand with and by our African American and all underrepresented students, at a college that holds true equity as a central value.

Kindly,
Christina

Christina G. Espinosa-Pieb
(Pronouns: She/Her/Hers/Herself/Ella)
Interim President

[The above message was sent via email to all De Anza students, faculty and classified professional staff.]

Student Grad Speaker and BFSA Awards

Tamara Williams

This year, at the invitation of the President’s Office, the Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators Network (BFSA) selected Tamara Williams as the student speaker for De Anza's 53rd Annual Commencement.

Watch Tamara's speech

In addition, the BFSA selected four graduating students to receive newly established Du Bois and Sankofa awards for academic achievement. Each received $1,000 provided by donors through the President's Fund.

Read about the award recipients

W.E.B. Du Bois Award Recipients

Alaric Hill

De'Von Johnson

Sankofa Award Recipients

Abdelkareem Khogali

Artie McNeal

Statements in Solidarity

Read these statements from De Anza College employees and programs

African American Studies

To the Black students of De Anza College, your Black life matters. FULL STOP.

We, the professors in the African American Studies Department, stand by you. We see you. We know your pain, we share that pain. We know you’re tired of systems refusing to change, we are exhausted right there with you.

We understand what you are dealing with, in the midst of an historic and global pandemic, which is over-impacting our community. We are now bombarded with countless images of death and violence on bodies that look like us, our sisters and brothers, our transfamily members, our aunts and uncles, and we are overwhelmed, angry, and hurting.

We understand your frustration and need to be seen, heard, and affirmed in your humanity. We see you, we affirm you, and again, your life matters. Our lives matter.

We shouldn’t have to make statements of solidarity, because solidarity is an on-going and lived experience. We also know that often that has not been your experience on this campus. We share in that experience as well.

We ask our fellow students, staff, faculty, and campus community members to do more than make a statement of solidarity for us. Rather, we urge you to take the time to do some serious self-reflection and create a plan of action for confronting and irradicating anti-Blackness and white supremacist structure models inherent within the infastructure of higher education and on the campus of De Anza college.

We call upon our Associated Student Body to create a student-led coalition on eradicating anti-Blackness policies and procedures on the campus and within the district. If we ever want to truly live to our greatest capacity as human beings then Black lives have to matter to you.

In solidarity with all oppressed peoples around the world! #BlackLivesMatter

This statement was shared by Julie Keiffer-Lewis and Jess D. Hamilton, co-creators of the Black Leadership Collective, on behalf of the African American Studies Department.
Asian and Asian American Studies / Asian Pacific American Staff Association
Asian and Asian American Studies (ASAM) and Asian Pacific American Staff Association (APASA) raise our collective voices in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and Black communities:

As classified professionals, faculty, alumni, and former employees at De Anza College, while many of us cannot know or understand how it feels to be Black in America, we are enraged about the fact that yet another solidarity statement must be written because George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other Black lives have died at the hands of police.

It is also unacceptable that people are still protesting the continuous systemic injustices that continue to harm black and brown bodies in this country.

ASAM and APASA recognize the importance and urgency of showing up for and being a part of those actively resisting police violence and racism towards communities of color, both of which are a part of the legacy of white supremacy.

“Enough is enough!” THEREFORE:
- We refuse to stand by, watch and be complicit with police violence, killings, and racism
- We refuse to hide behind the model minority stereotype that places Asian Americans in proximity to whiteness because we know that dismantling white supremacy depends on it
- We believe that Asian American and Pacific Islander communities need to talk about anti-Black racism and confront the internalized oppression in our families in an effort to dismantle white supremacy
- We encourage members of our own Asian American and Pacific Islander community to engage in anti-racist/Black education so that we may become truly effective allies and build solidarity with the Black community and alongside all oppressed groups in our shared fight against racism and hate
- We acknowledge that without the sacrifices, commitment and struggles that the Black community has historically fought for and continue to do so today, that our own fight for equity, inclusion and social justice would have never culminated
- We stand in strong solidarity with our Black and Brown colleagues, students and community members at De Anza College
- We stand in strong solidarity with those on the streets protesting these injustices and refuse to characterize peaceful protests as looting and riots without calling out the presence of white supremacists and terrorists who have appropriated those collective cries for justice
- We demand the dismantling of any forms of institutionalized racist systems that require groups to pit against rather than support one another, and
- We denounce Trump’s derogatory and racist rhetoric that has only served to inflame and degrade what is already a volatile situation
We stand with Black Communities in solidarity!

This statement was read aloud at the June 2 district Board of Trustees meeting by Christine Chai and Dawn Lee Tu on behalf of ASAM and APASA.
De Anza Latinx Association

The De Anza Latinx Association (DALA), a staff, faculty and administrators association stands in solidarity with our African American students, faculty, staff, and the Black community at large. The recent police violence, hate crimes, and vitriol against members of the Black community – George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, D’Andre Campbell, Tony McDade, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Ahmaud Arbery, Christian Cooper and many others who we simply are not aware of – has been a visceral kick in the gut, a felt stab in the heart, bringing into stark relief the reality of the ongoing terror and racism that has been with us for hundreds of years. We wrestle with our own rage and anguish as we grieve the loss of untold innocent lives within the Black community; these are our brothers and sisters – our relatives.

These tragedies come during an unprecedented pandemic that, once again, because of systemic racism disproportionately affects the lives of African Americans; a community that has suffered unemployment, morbidity and death at a higher rate than white communities.

This must change. Systems that create and uphold racist impacts must be dismantled. We must each do our part, individually and more importantly collectively, to dismantle exploitive and unjust laws, policies and practices. We, of DALA, commit to doing our work to question and root out anti-Blackness both within our own individual consciousness, within the Latinx community, and anywhere that we see it manifest. We acknowledge that we have all been infected by the virus of racism and anti-Blackness and that we must always be vigilant against the ways in which we have all internalized harmful racial attitudes, sentiments and practices. While this work is just and moral, it is also the work of cleansing and healing needed to liberate and reclaim our own humanity as we free ourselves from this yoke of internalized oppression.

In pain and in grief, we stand in solidarity with the Black community and all our relations ready to do our part in the difficult work of systemic transformation toward a truly just and loving world, a world where Black lives will always matter and be held as precious by everyone.

To accomplish the work of systemic transformation, the De Anza Latinx Association calls for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District to strengthen the equity commitment and direct the colleges to engage in humanizing education and anti-racism education institutionally, in curriculum and in services. Specifically we ask that the board supports De Anza College to fully fund the Umoja program including a full-time tenure-track Coordinator/Counselor position.

In Solidarity,
De Anza Latinx Association

A version of this statement was read aloud at the June 2 district Board of Trustees meeting by Veronica Acevedo Avila and Edmundo Norte on behalf of DALA.
Foothill-De Anza Police Officers' Association

The members of the Foothill-De Anza College Police Officers Association have all watched in horror the video recorded murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis Police Officer. Seeing his fellow Minneapolis Officers stand by and watch for several minutes as George Floyd's last moments on earth are spent gasping for air is utterly unexplainable. The failure to act as a police officer is a crime in itself. To this fact, the world has witnessed the public lynching of George Floyd at the hands of 4 police officers. There are no words that can justify or explain the actions of these officers. They have been arrested and charged for this crime. Let justice be served.

Our nation is now hearing from George Floyd when you speak for him and others who have suffered a similar fate at the hands of police. As Police Officers, we are listening to your voices.

The Foothill-De Anza Police Officers Association condemns systemic racism, acts of police brutality, racial profiling, and the use of excessive and militarized force throughout the country and it's potential in the California Community College System.

When Chief Acosta was appointed as Chief in 2018, he reviewed our police department's use of force policy and removed the use of the carotid neck restraint, before this tragedy even occurred. Chief Acosta also had our Police Officers sit down with leaders within our Foothill-De Anza Community for principled policing training for procedural justice and implicit bias, with Dean of lntercultural/lnternational Studies Edmundo Notre, Dean of EOPS Michele LeBleu Burns, and Academic Program Coordinator for the Office of Equity and Social Justice, Tony Santa Ana.

We as Police Officers are here to serve you the Foothill De Anza Community. I have recently listened to members of this community discuss racism challenges on our campuses. I heard from a staff member who struggles to support our black student community with academic success. Her extraordinary efforts are being oppressed not by just the police but other members of our community.

She is struggling in her mission to serve the black student community by giving them support for things most of us take for granted. Our community is hurting and now is the time for our community to work together to shine a light on the ugliness of racism and find new ways to support our black student community to achieve academic and life success.

As someone who is privileged to serve you and your community for the past 25 years, please consider this. We are part of your community and we are deeply invested in the safety of this community. At any given time our police department has one police officer on duty at each of three campuses. Our police department relies on it's campus community of Faculty, Administrators, Staff and Students whom we work with to be problem solvers and community caretakers. We are trained in mental health crisis response, de-escalation practices and conflict resolution. We are also first responders to emergencies on campus such as medical events, traffic accidents, natural disasters and the ever present threat of an active assailant attack on our community. We as officers have a passion for working in this community. We want to keep it safe for our black student community that is seeking an education or vocational skill. We are angered by the tragic death of George Floyd. I would hope that we would all take the time now to think and act on the wisdom of the ages "In everything, do to others what you would want them to do to you."

The statement above was released on June 8 by Leif Nelson, president of the Foothill De Anza Community College District Police Officers' Association
De Anza College Academic Senate
The De Anza Academic Senate Executive Committee (noting that the De Anza Academic Senate includes ALL full-time and part-time De Anza faculty employed by the Foothill De Anza Community College District), publicly announces this statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the people who are part of this multiracial, multiethnic worldwide movement.

This movement addresses inequities faced by many segments of our college community, and our broader society. We also note that the BLM movement also includes activists who ARE our students.

Unquestionably, the outrageous murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 unleashed a torrent of longstanding frustrations and anger within American society, and throughout the world. The numerous unjustifiable deaths of other Black people, and other People of Color at the hands of municipal and state-funded law enforcement officers must cease.

The De Anza Academic Senate Executive Committee acknowledges the existence of social inequities that have their genesis in various forms of institutional racism. We affirm our awareness that Black and Brown and Indigenous people are also burdened with bearing the brunt of economic hardships, illnesses, and deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The De Anza Academic Senate Executive Committee acknowledges the collective pain and difficulties that our students and other members of our collective college and worldwide communities are facing.

The De Anza Academic Senate Executive Committee stands in solidarity and support with our students, staff, and faculty who are suffering physically, mentally, and emotionally as a result of this social strife and upheaval that has accelerated in Spring 2020. We also stand in solidarity with our students, staff, and faculty who are activists in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Accordingly, the De Anza Academic Senate Executive Committee solidly supports the goals and objectives of the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement; and with our Black Staff and Faculty Association (BFSA) and their demands for:
1. A Full-time Tenure-track Umoja Counselor
2. Support and visibility for our Black students/a safe physical space for our Black students
3. An Official Black Student Union (BSU)
4. The establishment of budgetary support for all programs directly affecting Black students
5. Securing Dr. Joy DeGruy as an Opening Day speaker
6. Recruitment of Black students, staff, and faculty
7. Increased opportunity for Black staff professional growth and advancement
8. Support and maintenance of established Black studies courses
In Solidarity,
De Anza College Academic Senate Executive Committee

The statement above was adopted unanimously by the Academic Senate on June 15.

Events and Activities

Share your upcoming event information! Please send details to communications@deanza.edu

Black Minds Matter

Webinar series on July 16, 23 and 30, Aug. 6 and 13 (five Thursdays) from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
J. Luke Wood and Donna Y. Ford will lead this five-part webinar series on issues facing Black students, by drawing parallels between the policing of Black lives and schooling of Black minds. Series is sponsored by the Center for Organizational Responsibility and Advancement (CORA).
Register to attend via Zoom

Juneteenth Information
- #HellaJuneteenth – a Bay Area collective's guide to Juneteenth resources
- A Celebration of Resistance – Juneteenth celebration by the National Museum of African American History and Culture
- 12 Things You Might Not Know About Juneteenth – by Stacy Conradt
- What is Juneteenth? – article by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Previous Events
Call to Action for California Community Colleges
- In this June 3 video roundtable, state Chancellor Eloy Oakley and college leaders from around California discussed ways the community college system can address structural racism and ensure equal access to education.
Watch the recorded session

Forum for Student-Athletes
- Student-athletes took part in a June 4 online discussion with Frank Ortega, African-American Studies lecturer at San José State University; Michele LeBleu-Burns, dean of Student Development and EOPS; and Melinda Hughes, faculty assistant director of EOPS; with support from William Firmender, Derrick Felton and Kristiana Guan of De Anza Psychological Services; Louise Madrigal, Athletics counselor; Dawn Lee Tu, faculty director of the Office of Professional Development; and Eric Mendoza, dean of Physical Education and Athletics.
Do Now: The Importance of Our Vulnerability
- Social Sciences and Humanities Dean Elvin Ramos hosted a June 8 faculty discussion with Albert Pearsall III, professor at the University of the District of Columbia, on addressing equity gaps, structural racism and the importance of vulnerability in the classroom.
Black Students Open Forum
- The Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators Network (BFSA) organized this June 10 online forum for Black students to come together and safely discuss feelings, concerns or fears.
Intersections of Anti-Blackness and Anti-Asian Harassment
- Sherry C. Wang, associate professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University, led a June 11 discussion on processing and confronting anti-Blackness in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. The event was organized by the Office of Equity, Asian and Asian American Studies (ASAM), Asian Pacific American Staff and Faculty Association (APASA) and the Office of Professional Development.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
- Administration of Justice students and faculty in the Social Sciences and Humanities Division took part in a June 16 online forum on cooperation and community alliances, featuring John Brown Childs, prison educator and distinguished emeritus professor of social sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The event was hosted by Elvin Ramos, dean of Social Sciences and Humanities, and Karina Castillo, instructor in Administration of Justice.
Black Graduation Celebration
- This June 19 event celebrated the accomplishments of Black students who are graduating from De Anza.
Addressing Anti-Blackness on Campus
- This June 24 webinar focused on strategies for addressing racism in schools, colleges and universities. Speakers included Frank Harris III, Lasana Hotep, Regina Stanback Stroud and J. Luke Wood. Sponsors included the American College Personnel Association, Equity Institute and CORA.
Revisiting the Characteristics of Systemic Racism
- Faculty members in the Social Sciences and Humanities Division took part in an online forum on June 25, discussing ways to address systemic racism with Judge Shelyna V. Brown of the Santa Clara County Superior Court and Elvin Ramos, dean of Social Sciences and Humanities.

De Anza Resources and Other Organizations

Feeling Stressed?

Students: Counseling is available through De Anza's Psychological Services office.
Employees: You can get support through the district's Employee Assistance Program.

De Anza College Groups and Programs

Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators (BFSA) Network
– contact Melinda Hughes at hughesmelinda@deanza.edu
Men of Color Community
Umoja

Foothill-De Anza Community College District

Equity Resources webpage

Local and National Organizations

Black Lives Matter
Collective Response to the Racial Violence Amidst COVID-19 – from a coalition of higher education groups working for equity in California's community colleges
VIDA list of action resources – De Anza's Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action (VIDA) has compiled this list of community groups and other organizations that you can join or support

New Video From Student-Athletes

De Anza’s student-athletes came together virtually to produce a new video in solidarity with the Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement. All told, 39 student-athletes took part by recording and submitting their own videos and collaborating on the opening and closing statements.

"This Is Something That's Got To Change"

Former President Barack Obama called for police reforms during a June 3 video roundtable, while voicing support for those protesting the killing of George Floyd.

"This is something that's got to change," Obama said. He told young people, "You matter. I want you to know that your lives matter, that your dreams matter."

Former Presidents Bush and Carter also issued statements about the protests.

"How to Make This Moment The Turning Point for Real Change" – Medium post by President Barack Obama
"It Is Time For Us To Listen" – statement by President George W. Bush
"We Need a Government As Good As Its People" – statement by President Jimmy Carter

Standing Against Racism

Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education