Category: Social inequality & justice

Call for Proposals: Fall 2013 Five College Social Justice Practitioner-in-Residence

Post author By policy
Post date April 10, 2012

Do you know a seasoned public policy practitioner who advocates tirelessly for socially just laws and regulations? If so, nominate him or her to be the fall 2013 Five College Social Justice Policy Practitioner-in-Resident. Applications are due May 31, 2012.

The Social Justice Practitioner-in-Residence program gives Five College students and faculty unique opportunities to engage with and learn from individuals who have hands-on policymaking experience. By offering occasions to interact with those who have chosen lives of service, the residency program helps students imagine careers of their own that might advance the common good.

During their stay, residents offer public lectures or workshops; participate in classes, seminars or working groups; and meet with Five College students and faculty. Funds are available for a semester-long residency, with the expectation that the resident will teach or co-teach a course. Proposals for short-term (one- or two-week) residencies will also be considered.

Proposals should be for residents whose work has aimed to advance social justice goals in the U.S. or abroad in any policy domain, including but not limited to economics, education, the environment, food, health, media, reproduction, sexuality and international human rights. Successful nominees will be from outside western Massachusetts and should be primarily affiliated with the policy world rather than academia. Competitive candidates could be former or current elected officials, high-level government appointees, or nonprofit leaders with national or international reputations for influencing public policy.

This residency program is a central component of the Five College Public Policy Initiative, which was created to enhance collaboration among Five College faculty and students interested in curricula, research and outreach related to public policy. The initiative supports our institutions’ collective commitment to employing, informing and disseminating important public policy perspectives, and to raising the visibility of that commitment within and beyond the Five College area.

For more information about the residency program, including how to submit a proposal for the fall 2013 residence, click here.

Environmental policy Events Social inequality & justice

Five College Policy Resident Engages Community in Environmental Justice Issues

Post author By policy
Post date March 27, 2012

Earlier this month, environmental justice champion Nia Robinson engaged and energized about 200 Five College students, faculty members and community activists around issues having to do with race, the environment and reproductive rights.

Robinson was the inaugural Five College Social Justice Policy Practitioner-in-Residence. The residency program is part of a growing effort to enhance collaboration among Five College faculty and students interested in curricula, research and outreach related to public policy. It offers members of the local academic community unique opportunities to engage with and learn from individuals who have hands-on policymaking experience.

During Robinson’s two-week residency, she led a teach-in on race and the environment at Mount Holyoke College; spoke with a Hampshire College group about reproductive politics; gave a workshop during a Hampshire College student activism conference; participated in a panel discussion at UMass on race and the environment; was interviewed on WAMC’s Midday Magazine and WMUA’s TRGGR Radio; met with community activists in Springfield; and spoke during some classes at UMass, Hampshire and Smith colleges. Though the focus of each event was slightly different, Robinson worked throughout her residency to highlight the connections between racial justice, environmental justice and reproductive justice.

“Women of color and poor women need to no longer be the mules on which the rest of the world develops,” Robinson said during the climate justice panel, a public event that brought about 45 people from across the Five Colleges and the community to the Center for Public Policy and Administration.

Robinson currently works as the environmental justice representative for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. From 2006 to 2011, she served as director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, bringing the voices of low-income communities, people of color and indigenous communities to the debate over national climate policy. She is the co-author of A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. Robinson also has worked as part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Earth Tomorrow program and served as an organizer for the Service Employees International Union.

In October, Kim Gandy will serve as the next resident in this Five College program, which has been made possible by a generous grant from Five Colleges, Incorporated, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Gandy is the vice president and general counsel of the Feminist Majority and served as president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) from 2001 to 2009. More information about Gandy’s residency will be coming soon.

Faculty Research Social inequality & justice

Badgett Brings her Research to Australian Lawmakers Weighing Gay Marriage

Post author By policy
Post date March 14, 2012

CPPA Director M.V. Lee Badgett just returned from two weeks in Australia, where she spoke with government officials, activists, and public audiences about the potential economic benefits the country could reap by legalizing gay marriage.

Badgett’s trip coincided with a growing debate in the Australian Parliament about same-sex marriage. Last December the ruling Labor Party voted to adopt a position that favors allowing gay marriage across the country. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, however, opposes gay marriage. Currently a few Australian states allow civil unions. In Canberra, Badgett presented her research findings to an audience of community members and members of parliament from both sides of the aisle. She also spoke with smaller groups and in one-on-one consultations with senators and with members of the House of Representatives to answer questions about the American and European experiences with marriage equality.

While the national government debates whether to recognize gay marriage at the federal level, some activists and policymakers in the state of Tasmania want to consider legalizing gay marriage on its own, if only at the state level. In a report released last month by the UCLA Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy, Badgett and MPPA candidate Jennifer Smith show that the Australian economy would likely see a boost to the tune of $161 million over a three-year period if same-sex marriage were legalized nationwide. If Tasmania legalized the act first, an estimated $96 million would flow into that state’s economy, according to the study.

In addition to discussions with Tasmanian policymakers, Badgett also talked with members of parliament in the state of New South Wales as they prepared to debate a bill to support in principle the idea of marriage equality at the federal level. Badgett’s public appearances in the two states and in Canberra, along with the release of the Williams Institute report, garnered significant attention from Australian media outlets. Highlights include an interview with Badgett on Sydney’s Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio station, and an op-ed that she wrote for ABC.

Care policy Faculty Research Governance Policy Viewpoints Social inequality & justice

Badgett Authors New York Times Op-Ed About Workplace Discrimination

Post author By policy
Post date February 7, 2012

CPPA Director M.V. Lee Badgett (economics) has penned an editorial published in the Feb. 7, 2012, edition of the New York Times. The op-ed, titled “What Obama Should Do About Workplace Discrimination,” highlights how presidents dating back to Franklin D. Roosevelt have used executive orders to strengthen anti-discrimination standards for workers employed by federal contractors.

In addition to heading the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Badgett is the research director at UCLA’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy. The New York Times op-ed comes on the heels of a study Badgett just released titled “The Impact of Extending Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Non-Discrimination Requirements to Federal Contractors.”

According to the study, between 14.3 and 15.3 million additional workers could offer health care benefits to their same-sex domestic partners if federal contractors were required to provide coverage for same-sex partners. Badgett points out, however, that employers would not likely incur large increases in their health care costs, as “only 40,000 to 136,000 of these employees would sign up a same-sex partner for coverage, and they would be spread out across tens of thousands of federal contractors.”

The New York Times piece appears in the wake of recent news that defense contractor DynCorp International changed its policies and now bans discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Read Badgett’s full piece here.

Environmental policy Events Grants Social inequality & justice

Inaugural Five College Public Policy Resident to Focus on Environmental Justice

Post author By policy
Post date January 19, 2012

Environmental justice champion Nia Robinson will kick off the Five College collaborative public policy practitioner residency program this semester. Robinson will spend the first two weeks of March on the campuses of each of the five colleges, offering lectures, participating in panel discussions and leading teach-ins.

The Social Justice Public Policy Practitioner-in-Residence program was created to offer Five College students and faculty opportunities to engage with and learn from individuals who have hands-on policymaking experience. By offering occasions to interact with those who have chosen lives of service, the residency program will help students imagine careers of their own that might advance the common good.

Robinson is the first of the program’s four residents, who were chosen for their commitment to social justice and their tireless efforts to effect change through policy reform. She co-authored A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. and currently serves as the environmental justice representative for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

While a resident, Robinson will be hosted by the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College, to which she has long-standing ties. Robinson has spoken several times at the annual conference held at Hampshire that focuses on reproductive rights as one strand of the broader social justice tapestry. And last fall, she helped organize a national climate justice convention co-hosted by the Population and Development Program, SisterSong and the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Katie McKay Bryson, assistant director of the Population and Development Program, said she and her colleagues were “excited by the opportunity to nominate Nia Robinson for this residency because of the innovative way that she approaches the intersections between environmental and climate challenges, reproductive health and racial justice. She lives these connections herself, and so can make them come alive for other activists and students.”

The residency program is one component of the Five College Public Policy Initiative, a collaboration that includes the UMass Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA). This budding partnership aims to enhance collaboration among Five College faculty and students who are interested in curricula, research and outreach related to public policy. The residency program was made possible by a generous grant from Five Colleges, Incorporated, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

CPPA is the hub of interdisciplinary public policy research, teaching and engagement at UMass Amherst. Its faculty and alumni are effective policy leaders, from the local to the global levels, in addressing topics such as family and care policy, environmental issues, emerging technologies, social inequalities and governance. The CPPA program is the 2011 recipient of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration’s Social Equity Award, created to honor a public administration, affairs or policy program with a comprehensive approach to integrating social equity into its academic and practical work.

Creative Economy/Springfield Initiatve Grants Social inequality & justice Springfield Initiative

Wellspring Initiative Keeps Growing

Post author By policy
Post date January 12, 2012

The Wellspring Initiative, the Springfield economic development project led by the Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA) and the Center for Popular Economics (CPE), has received a $12,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.

This is the third award the initiative has received so far this academic year. The funding will pay for the research and planning needed to move the initiative from a concept into a reality.

Wellspring is coordinating with the region’s largest employers to identify key areas where the purchase of goods and services could be shifted to new worker-owned businesses in Springfield neighborhoods. These businesses would provide entry-level jobs and valuable skills to unemployed and underemployed city residents. Worker-owned businesses would not only offer inner-city residents the opportunity of steady employment; they would also help revitalize Springfield, one of the poorest cities in the United States.

This winter, Wellspring partners plan to identify the first of three business models to pursue. The Community Foundation grant will support Wellspring’s market research into the type of cooperative businesses that would be most likely to succeed in Springfield.

The Wellspring Initiative was one of 86 projects to receive funding from the Community Foundation in 2011. This award comes through the Community Foundation from the Eugene A. Dexter Charitable Fund administered by Bank of America, Trustee.

CPPA & university administration Faculty Honors & Awards Faculty Research Social inequality & justice

CPPA Program Wins National Social Equity Award

Post author By policy
Post date October 25, 2011

The Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA) has been recognized as top in country when it comes to social equity research, teaching and service.

The distinction comes from the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. Its Social Equity Award, new this year, was created to honor a public affairs, public administration and/or public policy program with a comprehensive approach to integrating social equity into its academic and practical work.

“We are very honored to be the first program to receive this award from our professional association,” says CPPA Director M.V. Lee Badgett. “CPPA’s students, staff and faculty build a social justice component into everything we do: our courses, our research and our public engagement. We’re not here only to study public policy; we want our work to make a difference in people’s lives.”

The Center’s research spans many disciplines. Much of that scholarship examines existing social inequities, such as environmental harms, employment discrimination, health disparities, gender inequalities, marriage access inequalities, and the digital divide. But CPPA’s faculty members go beyond studying these fields; they proactively seek possible policy remedies for these inequities.

For example, political science and public policy professor Jane Fountain chaired the Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government for the World Economic Forum in 2010 and 2011. She has worked with leaders from nongovernmental organizations around the world on such social equity issues as government openness and citizen engagement, as well as social enterprise models for economic development across the globe.

Badgett is widely recognized as an authority on civil rights protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. She was the first economist to publish an article identifying the gay wage gap. In 2009 Badgett’s award-winning book When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage was published, and the following year she testified as an expert witness in the federal Proposition 8 trial related to same-sex marriage in California.

Scholarship from CPPA faculty and staff also includes: examining educational equity, by Kathryn A. McDermott and Brenda Bushouse; analyzing the economics of environmental issues and class-based health disparities, by Michael Ash, Krista Harper and Sylvia Brandt; studying the role of technology in public life across the globe, by Martha Fuentes-Bautista and Charles Schweik; and looking at various forms of economic and political inequality throughout the world, by Joya Misra, Nancy Folbre and David Mednicoff.

In addition to the faculty’s research, the Center works to advance social justice goals on the UMass Amherst campus and throughout the region. Through its Springfield Initiative, CPPA lecturer Fred Rose is working with community leaders to establish an economic development process that would create worker cooperatives, offering inner-city residents well-paying entry-level jobs.

Students are also actively engaged in CPPA’s social equity endeavors. For example, they collaborate with faculty and staff on the Center’s Diversity and Social Justice Committee, which works to ensure that CPPA events and operations engage the wider community in social justice issues. The committee has helped with efforts such as recruiting a diverse student body and incorporating social justice themes in the curriculum.

Since its founding in 1998, CPPA has placed a strong focus on issues of social justice and diversity. “Our mission includes promoting social change and solving problems for the common good,” Badgett says.

The award lends prestige not only to CPPA, but also to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), which houses the Center. “I am so proud that CPPA has won this award. Congratulations to Lee for her fine leadership,” says SBS Dean Robert S. Feldman.