2008-2016
2008-2014: Broadening the Scope
next phase of RSJI following the 2008 report.
Document 9170, Seattle Municipal Archives
In 2007, RSJI underwent an assessment to evaluate accomplishments and challenges, and to reflect on the effectiveness of current activities, structures, and processes. A report was published in 2008 outlining how the initiative should move forward. RSJI would continue to focus on internal racial disparities, while also addressing them externally in partnership with outside institutions and community members.
SOCR conducted its first citywide RSJI employee survey in 2008 to help measure employee understanding of the initiative as well as to gather ideas for improvement, develop future RSJI work plans and communication strategies, and establish a baseline to track progress over time. Results pointed to strong support of RSJI by City employees and a high rate of work plan implementation across City departments. However, while a strong foundation for capacity building was laid through Change Teams, the Core Team, and the RSJI Sub-Cabinet, the latter two were underutilized, and departmental implementation was inconsistent. Feedback also indicated that communications should be improved.
A second employee survey was done in 2010 and the results published in 2011. Intended to inform the RSJI 2012-2014 strategic plan, the survey also aimed to measure progress made since the first survey. Over half of City employees responded, including a 30% increase in participation by members of the Seattle Police Department. The survey results showed positive results for departmental Change Teams and that awareness of RSJI was improving. Communication remained an area in need of improvement, but the increase in respondents meant RSJI reached more people, signaling progress in terms of building capacity.
RSJI ENews, April 2014. Record Series
9910-02, Seattle Municipal Archives
One of the goals of RSJI's 2012-2014 strategic plan was to survey Seattle residents to measure attitudes toward issues related to racial equity. The first RSJI Community Survey was conducted in 2013 and contacted 3,500 Seattle residents using phone, web, and paper surveys. Results showed widespread support for the City's efforts to prioritize addressing racial gaps in jobs, health, housing, and other areas. They also highlighted concerns related to housing affordability.
In 2014, RSJI staff conducted 37 listening sessions with City employees and community members to learn which racial equity issues they considered the most important, and to gather ideas for how RSJI could address them. Themes that emerged from the listening sessions centered around the continued need for prioritizing equitable development, education, and criminal justice and public safety.
john a. powell at the 2011 RSJI Summit. Powell
was Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for
the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio
State University.
Image courtesy SOCR
In March 2014, Patricia Lally became the director of SOCR. She soon began working with incoming Mayor Ed Murray to develop an executive order to expand the initiative. Mayor Murray signed the order on April 3, 2014, affirming and expanding RSJI and requiring city staff to use RSJI tools to help address racial equity progress in both work outcomes and internal practices. It also called on the City to prioritize education, equitable development, and community-led racial justice work, and emphasized the City's accountability to the community.
RSJI in Action: Priority Hire
Pledge Arena project
2020 Priority Hire Annual Report, Clerk
File 321987, Seattle Municipal Archives
The Priority Hire program (Ordinance 124690) was launched in 2015. The initiative created a Community Workforce Agreement prioritizing hiring workers from disadvantaged populations for large City projects as a strategy to lower rates of unemployment in distressed Seattle communities. Its creation was based on 2014 recommendations from an advisory group of community worker advocates, labor unions, minority contractors, and others. The program was expanded in 2017 to include public/private partnership projects with significant City investment. Climate Pledge Arena was one of the City's largest Priority Hire projects. With the support of SOCR, by 2022 community organizations recruited 326 people into construction jobs, while union, apprenticeship, and contractor partners placed another 776 trained pre-apprentices and Priority Hire clients
2015-2016: Building Capacity
RSJI built capacity and deepened trainings offered to the City and the community over the next few years. The 2013 Community Survey provided the City with baseline data to measure efforts to achieve racial equity and create opportunities for both employees and the community. Information from the Community Survey and the 2014 listening sessions informed the 2015-2017 RSJI Strategic Plan. The key strategies were:
- ensure racial equity in City programs and services
- work with community-based organizations to support the movement to end structural racism
- help lead regional and national networks for racial equity
In the 1994 Comprehensive Plan, social equity was listed as one of its core values. The 2015 Comprehensive Plan, Seattle 2035: Your City, Your Future, renamed this value the race and equity value. Resolution 31577, discussed at a 2015 presentation to the Planning, Land Use and Sustainability Committee, identified major updates to the Plan, better defining equitable development and connecting historical decisions to current conditions. A Displacement Risk Index and Access to Opportunity Index were provided in the presentation. An outgrowth of the 2014 Executive Order was the Equitable Development Initiative, an interdepartmental effort led by the Department of Planning and Development and SOCR to create communities of opportunities for everyone regardless of race or means, and this effort fostered the renaming of the equity value in the Comprehensive Plan.
from presentation to to City Council, May 5, 2015
RSJI work was integrated into many City functions. In tandem with the updated comprehensive plan, Mayor Murray launched the Equity and Environment Initiative in 2015. Designed to advance racial equity in Seattle's environmental policies, programs, and outcomes, its agenda included four strategies for environmental justice: health environments for all; jobs, local economies and youth pathways; equity in City environmental programs, and environmental narrative and community leadership. Projects included clean transportation, environmental justice in the Duwamish Valley, and affordable fruit and vegetable bags for low-income preschoolers.
When the Neighborhood Advisory Council system ended in 2015, SOCR began working with DON to develop a racially-equitable, accountable community engagement framework. Through Executive Order 2016-06, Mayor Murray directed DON to establish public engagement efforts for "that reaffirm the City's commitment to inclusive participation." A Community Involvement Commission was established in 2016 to support this effort. A Racial Equity Implementation Framework was approved in 2017 directing SOCR and the RSJI team to support community outreach and engagement efforts that advance racial equity. A year later, DON reported that 27 departments had completed Community Involvement Plans.
The Summit took place at the Seattle
Center over two days and featured in-depth
workshops, art, and presentations about
The State of Race and Justice in Seattle.
SOCR 2018 Annual Report,
Box 1, Folder 6, Series 1802-G9,
Seattle Municipal Archives
A key part of RSJI work was training and education to support City employees and the community working to achieve racial justice. RSJI staff were assigned specific departments and supported their Change Teams. New workshops were offered to employees in 2016, including Implicit Bias, covering strategies to interrupt unconscious biases, and Leading with Race, explaining why the City of Seattle centered race and racism to achieve equity. New employees continued to be required to take the Race: The Power of an Illusion training; the curriculum was updated in 2017 to make it more interactive. A new training was introduced in 2017 on White Privilege and Building White Allyship. RSJI staff provided 94 trainings in 2018.
By 2015, fourteen departments had completed the four required annual RETs. The SOCR conducted a RET on the King County youth detention facility in 2015 and brought together community leaders, City departments, the Municipal Court, the City Attorney's Office, and King County to address racial disparities and contradictions in the criminal justice system.
Community and institutional partnerships continued in 2016, with RSJI providing training to the UW Law School, UW Evans School, Washington State agencies, and Leadership Tomorrow. In a continuing partnership with the Office of Arts & Culture, RSJI supported arts groups translating their racial equity commitment into actions for change. The Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Seattle Art Museum and other smaller arts organizations used RSJI trainings to develop racial equity plans within their own organizations.
RSJI in Action: Hookah Lounges
Mayor Murray announced that he would close the city's eleven hookah lounges in August 2015, citing violation of the indoor smoking ban and health dangers related to smoking. He also linked the lounges to violent illegal activity. After owners claimed discrimination, SOCR conducted an RET at the Mayor's request to examine the racial equity impact of enforcement actions against hookah lounges and related underlying issues. Over seventy community members and stakeholders were included in interviews. The report emphasized the systemic racial inequities facing the African American and East African communities, such as housing unaffordability, wealth and income gaps, and low high school graduation rates, as root causes of the violent disturbances, not the lounges themselves. The Mayor did not close the hookah lounges and the City worked with owners to comply with health regulations.