Become a JEDI Master: Journey Toward a More Equitable Future

This grant will fund the creation of a toolkit and resources that will provide a starting point for interrogating the causes of inequity in American society, specifically as it relates to racial, environmental, gender, and economic oppression. Too often organizations propagate diversity for diversity's sake and focus on feel-good narratives and leadership training that are absent of historical and theoretical analyses. The products generated from this grant will fill a gap in available and accessible resources — specifically, educational products that provide a theoretical and historical context for inequity as well as articulate how historical systems of oppression influence contemporary environmental and global justice movements.

This toolkit will highlight the importance of climate and environmental justice and how those movements are inextricably linked to the Black Lives Matter and other global social justice movements. Urgent action without analysis of structural inequity and oppression causes harm, by alienating white staff members, and oversimplifying the lived experiences of marginalized staff members. The rush to produce haphazard diversity training often perpetuates social and organizational inequities. Hence, this toolkit will be a catalyst for shifting culture and policies in our professional and academic institutions. It will include 1) two 90-minute seminars with facilitator guides and scripts, 2) breakout session guides to supplement each module, 3) office team building exercise guides, 4) a how-to guide on conducting an equity audit and recommendations for external auditors, and 5) a Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Resource Library with links to free, accessible information. Both seminars will have supplemental resource guides to help facilitate these seminars in person or via webinar.