News: social justice

Last week a South Carolina court absolved the Friendship Nine of their “trespassing” conviction of 54 years ago for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter. We see this as an apt way to start this year’s celebrations of Black History Month.

Assistant Professor Courtney D. Cogburn has been selected to receive a Provost’s Grants Program Award for Junior Faculty who Contribute to the Diversity Goals of the University, for a project titled “Black Face to Ferguson: A Mixed Methodological Examination of Media Racism, Media Activism and Health.”

In the wake of the Grand Jury decisions not to indict the police officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown, members of the CSSW community have issued a statement speaking out against racism and oppression in our country and its criminal justice system.

The protest marches on behalf of Ferguson are a “statement about the long overdue need to confront and eradicate racism and to fix institutions, among them the criminal justice system,” says Dean Jeanette Takamura in this statement.

Professor Vicki Lens converses with Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Harry Gantz, who was the keynote speaker at this year’s Capstone Workshop. He and his brother, Joe, created the documentary “American Winter,” which tells the stories of eight middle class families in Portland, Oregon, who were hit hard after the economic downturn of 2007.

Lilliam Barrios-Paoli was the graduation speaker for the School of Social Work’s Class of 2014. She serves as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services under NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio. We have posted the full text of her address. Congratulations, 2014 graduates!

In an op-ed for the Montreal Gazette, second-year student Gabrielle Cole argues that Quebec’s values charter would encourage exclusion at home and hurt its image elsewhere. She developed these ideas in a Contemporary Social Issues class.

We offer a collection of tributes and reflections on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, from several members of the Columbia School of Social Work community—some of whom were there!

We have an important role as social workers to remind everyone that the actions of a few, however horrendous, should not be used to justify condemnations or raise suspicions about Chechens or about other immigrants to the U.S., just because they are different.

William T. Gormley, a recent visiting scholar at CUSSW, and a University Professor and professor of government and public policy at Georgetown, presents the premise of his latest book, that child advocates should take care in choosing their rhetoric and “issue frame.”