Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

John Jay seeks to strengthen the awareness and education of our community regarding all types of discrimination. We seek to empower our community members to acknowledge, confront, and combat religious discrimination, ethnic discrimination and racism. We wish to promote productive and courageous dialogue to build a climate of civility, respect and inclusion for all community members. We are committed to continuing our work to combat antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of discrimination.
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Sampling of John Jay’s Initiatives to Cement a Culture of Anti-Hate, Community, & Civil Discourse 

The Office of Compliance and Diversity offers trainings on an on-going basis as part of the College’s continued efforts to strengthen the College climate and respond to reports, concerns, complaints and/or feedback received involving all non-discrimination policies. In addition, the collective efforts of the College community, primarily based in Compliance and Diversity, the Division of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, and the Office of the Provost, have culminated in a series of events/workshops that we have shared with our campus community that has encouraged us to curate diverse perspectives on racism, discrimination, hate, and antisemitism including

  • Addressing Antisemitism, January 2022: The Teaching and Learning Center provided a student-led session during Faculty Development Day to help faculty recognize, identify, and address Antisemitism in and out of the classroom. Faculty learned to identify rhetoric and language that is pervasive in society that is harmful to Jewish students, faculty, and staff.
  • Addressing Islamophobia, January 2022: The Teaching and Learning Center provided a student-led session during Faculty Development Day to help faculty recognize, identify, and address Islamophobia in and out of the classroom. Faculty learned to identify rhetoric and language that is pervasive in society that is harmful to Muslim students, faculty, and staff.
  • Scholars as Bridge Builders, April 2022: Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodriquez led a delegation of CUNY college presidents, including John Jay President Karol Mason, on a visit to Israel organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC-NY). The delegation explored education’s role in addressing challenges and finding common ground in a climate of complex political and religious significance.
  • Introduction to the History of Antisemitism, April 2022: Members of the President’s Leadership Council attended a presentation by John Jay’s Hillel Student Club and Hillel Director Ilya Bratman on the history of Antisemitism. Hillel students also provided their perspectives on Jewish life on campus.
  • Reading and Discussion of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist, July 2022: Members of the President’s Leadership Council read the book over the summer 2022. In the fall 2022 semester, DEI facilitator Ama Karikari-Yawson, Esq. and her team at Milestales Publishing and Education Consulting led a discussion around the key takeaways of the book to facilitate a community understanding of anti-racism. 
  • Student Faithfull Fellowship, Spring 2023 & Fall 2023: As part of Hillel’s Campus Climate Initiative, John Jay Created the Student Faithful Fellowship where students met once a week with the goal of representing various religions, traditions and denominations. Students built rapport, knowledge, sensitivity, and community by exploring commonalties and differences among religions, including prayer, food traditions, societal roles, culture, celebrations, holidays, language and areas of shared interests and understanding. 
    Group photo of Faculty members
     
  • Let’s Talk Civility, February 2023: Presented by the Institute for Civility in Government, this training emphasized the need for a new understanding of civility. Over the course of the 2-hour program, participants learned how to become ambassadors of civility in any situation. By underscoring self-awareness, individual responsibility, and respect for the lived experience of others, the curriculum equipped attendees with the tools and techniques they need to deconstruct the system of attack and defense and construct a welcoming approach.
  • Psychology of Hate and the Pathways to Healing, April 2023: DEI facilitator Ama Karikari-Yawson, Esq. and her team at Milestales Publishing and Education Consulting led a discussion on the impact of hate and bigotry. Whether the hate is rooted in Antisemitism, anti-Blackness, Asian hate, or any other racial hatred, individuals who exhibit extreme bigotry are often fearful and/or angry, and they believe that a certain group is to blame. During the lecture portion of the training, participants learned about the psychology of hate by exploring phenomena including fear of the other, fear of ourselves, and confirmation bias. Afterwards, participants formed restorative justice circles and practiced empathy, compassion, and mindfulness while reflecting on the lecture.
Psychology of Hate

 

  • NORC focus groups, Spring 2023: As part of Hillel’s Campus Climate Initiative to confront religious, ethnic and other forms of discrimination, the College hosted three separate focus groups for our Jewish identifying staff, faculty and students to gain a better understanding of the experience of our Jewish community members. The focus groups were led by NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent, non-partisan research institution that helps governments, non-profits, businesses and universities make better decisions through data and analysis. NORC researchers asked the participants about their experience at John Jay College and about the current campus climate.  NORC provided key findings that will be used in conjunction with the NORC survey to implement programming with ultimate goal of achieving widespread multicultural/interfaith sensitivity and eliminating prejudiced behavior.
  • Seder at John Jay, April 2023: John Jay hosted a Chocolate Unity Seder for the larger CUNY community. Attendees, including Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and John Jay President Karol Mason, celebrated Passover and learned about shared and distinct Jewish traditions.
  • Understanding Jewish Experiences and Antisemitism, April 2023: Presented by the New York City Commission on Human Rights, this workshop promoted understanding of the City’s diverse Jewish communities, addressed Antisemitism, and analyzed its impact on Jewish New Yorkers and on society at large. It introduced Jewish history and practices, and elaborated on the protections for Jewish New Yorkers against discrimination, under the City Human Rights Law. The training consisted of three parts: 1) What is antisemitism and how does it manifest; 2) Learning about diverse Jewish cultures and identities; and 3) Identifying strategies for interrupting Antisemitism alongside other forms of oppression.
Understanding Jewish Experiences
  • Understanding Muslim Experiences & Anti-Muslim Bias, May 2023: Presented by the New York City Commission on Human Rights Participants explored Muslim history, culture and anti-Muslim bias through a human rights lens with a special focus on our local New York City Muslim communities. The program 1) introduced Muslim beliefs and practices; 2) promoted understanding of our local diverse Muslim communities; and 3) addressed anti-Muslim racism and protections under the New York City Human Rights Laws.
Understanding Muslim Experiences
  • Racial Equity in Pedagogy: Putting Theory into Practice, August 2023: A seminar developed and delivered by our own John Jay faculty on the history and ongoing impact of systemic racism in the United States and exploration of what this means for us as individuals and as educators or staff at John Jay.
  • Harassment vs. Free Speech, January 2024: Presented to faculty by the Office of Compliance and Diversity, in partnership with the Office of the Provost, this workshop educated faculty on First Amendment rights and limits to free speech as well as provided faculty with practical tools to address incidents that arise in the classroom and encourage respectful dialogue.

 

  • Bystander Intervention Training, March 2024: Bystander intervention is built on the idea that we all play a role in creating safe public spaces for each other when we face bias, discrimination, or harassment. The NYC Commission on Human Rights provided participants (comprised of faculty, staff and students) with tools and strategies to safely respond to bias incidents and discrimination, with a specific focus on current trends of hate directed at Jewish, Muslim and Asian communities. Participants learned verbal and behavioral de-escalation strategies to non-violently intervene to disrupt hate-violence or hate speech. The training also explored the meaning of safety, of being an effective ally, and how identity plays a role in the ways we choose to intervene.

 

  • Disability Awareness and Inclusion, March 2024: A three-part workshop where participants received a comprehensive overview of disability law, legal compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the ADA, and best practices for complex academic accommodations to provide practical tools that create a more inclusive culture for individuals with disabilities.

 

  • Understanding Our LGBTQ+ Students Workshop Series, March-April 2024: The Office of Compliance and Diversity in partnership with the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, the Teaching and Learning Center and the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault hosted: Unpacking Gender 101, Support Survivors for Faculty & Staff, Understanding Trauma 101, Understanding Trauma 201, and Allyship Training: Embrace Diversity in Building LGBTQ+ Inclusivity. These workshops covered a variety of topics including gender-affirming language, debunking false information around gender and sexuality expansiveness, supporting individuals who may have experienced sexual violence, the impact of trauma, best practices for trauma-informed pedagogy, improving our proficiency in gender-inclusivity, identifying and repairing common mistakes in an inclusive and supportive manner, developing a clear understanding of current policy requirements to support LGBTQI+ students on campus, and clarify our role in creating an LGBTQI+ inclusive environment.

 

  • My Asian, April 2024: This session will be composed of a screening of the film My Asian, a lyrical short by Emmy-award winning poet, actor and lawyer, Suzen Baraka. The film is a “poetic rallying cry, highlighting the horrific miscarriages of justice that Asian-Americans and Asians in America are, and have historically been subjected to: from day-to-day micro-aggressions to actual acts of violence and terror.” Following the screening, Ms. Baraka discussed her own experience to bring awareness to the history and present manifestations of Anti-Asian hate.

 

  • Building Interfaith Solidarity, Confronting and Countering Antisemitism and Islamophobia on College Campuses, April 2024: This in-person workshop led by Interfaith America provided approximately members of the President’s Leadership Council (comprised of faculty, staff and students) an overview of Antisemitism and Islamophobia in America and the ways they manifest on college campuses. Topics addressed included: the contemporary political and cultural forces driving these prejudices; the ways in which these prejudices both diverge and converge; religious bias in higher education, with particular attention to the experiences of Jews and Muslims; and interfaith strategies and skillsets that effectively counter religious bigotry and promote religious inclusion and pluralism on campuses.

 

  • Interfaith Bridge-Building June 2024 (2 sessions): These in-person workshops led by Interfaith America provided an overview of the changing religious demographics in America and in higher education, data on attitudes toward various religious communities, more recent data on how Jews and Muslims are experiencing the campus climate in the months after October 7th, and an introduction to basic interfaith methodology and knowledge for bridge-building on campus. This was followed by a discussion of one case study that pertains either to Antisemitism or Islamophobia, with a recognition that a case study that addresses one of these prejudices also raises comparable questions about how campuses are dealing with the other prejudice.

 

  • Antisemitism and DEI, June 2024: This virtual workshop led by mediator, facilitator, and licensed attorney Dorit Price-Levine, a Senior Consultant at the Consensus Building Institute, Senior Trainer Resetting the Table, and Coach with The Grand, equipped participants with a stronger sense of the history of Antisemitism and Islamaphobia, how this form of oppression shows up currently, and how they intersect with other forms of oppression, so that it may be integrated into DEI work. All CUNY Title IX Coordinators, Chief Diversity Officers and Student Life Directors were invited to participate.

 

  • Dual-Narratives, June 2024: This virtual workshop led by mediator, facilitator, and licensed attorney Dorit Price-Levine, a Senior Consultant at the Consensus Building Institute, Senior Trainer Resetting the Table, and Coach with The Grand, will focus on a dual narratives approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, looking at the roots of the conflict from the establishment of the state of Israel.  By understanding the lenses through which different communities understand history, participants will be better equipped to understand why certain terminology and slogans are perceived as offensive to some, yet deeply accurate and essential to others. In turn, this helped to better understand when and how to step in to bridge gaps where possible, and most importantly, to help all members of our communities feel seen and understood. All CUNY Title IX Coordinators, Chief Diversity Officers and Student Life Directors were invited to participate.
  • Shalom Hartman Institute 2022-2023: Former Vice President of the Division of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, Brian Kerr, participated in a 9-month program to support growth in Black-Jewish relations. The Program included a 5 day trip to Israel where he attended courses at the Shalom Hartman Institute. VP Kerr provided a briefing for the Senior Leadership Team on lessons learned from his experiences.
  • Hillel International Campus Climate Initiative, August 2022-February 2024: John Jay is one of seven CUNY campuses participating an 18-month program to build awareness, allyship, and action around Antisemitism, as part of a broader effort to address hate and bias on campus. This program involves education of campus administrators, data collection and collaboration among various stakeholders to create a positive campus climate in which Jewish students, and ultimately all students, feel comfortable expressing their identity and values, free of Antisemitism, harassment, or marginalization.
  • The Hillel CCI Members Retreat, Connecting Leaders for Campus Change, April 2023 and February 2024: Two members of John Jay’s leadership team attended CCI’s April 2023 and February 2024 gathering of campus administrators from across the country to participate in CCI’s immersive program, the Campus Cohort. Participants explored best practices, learned from new research, and benefited from dozens of diverse campus perspectives to improve the climate for Jewish students and all students in their campus communities.
  • Preventing Harassment and Discrimination and “Exploring F.I.E.R.C.E” sessions, September 2023 and February 2024: During new student orientation students learn about CUNY’s non-discrimination policies, campus resources and explore how to Foster Inclusive, Equitable and Respectful Communities for Everyone. 
Understanding Jewish Experiences