2017-2024
2017-2019: SOCR Structure Questioned
By 2017, the RSJI was larger than an initiative - it represented a movement for transformative, systemic change.
An upsurge of discrimination and workplace harassment across the nation in 2016 prompted the creation of an Anti-Harassment Interdepartmental Team (IDT) in 2017 to address the City’s policies and recommend changes. The IDT was composed of 21 members, including RSJI Change Team members and SOCR staff. The work of the IDT resulted in Executive Order 2018-04 which specified the establishment and implementation of Citywide workplace expectations, creation of an investigation unit within SDHR for workplace misconduct investigations, and creation of an Office of the Employee Ombud to support employees experiencing a workplace at odds with the City's workplace expectations. SOCR created mandatory anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training for employees.
In 2017, calls for SOCR and RSJI to be an independent office arose from the desire to safeguard the City's foundational work in equity. Some Councilmembers requested that Central Staff research whether making SOCR more independent from the executive branch would increase its authority and effectiveness. The resulting report called out the tension between questioning leadership to make systemic change and keeping one's job. The report concluded that structural independence could solve some but not all of SOCR's problems, and suggested a variety of approaches.
During the end of Mayor Murray's term in 2017, tensions between SOCR and the Executive increased. The hookah lounge incident, his use of SOCR in monitoring homeless encampment removals, a reluctance to support SOCR's response for anti-harassment actions, and his lack of support for increasing SOCR's commissions from 16 to 21 members, led RSJI staff to meet with City Council and the Mayor. After the Mayor’s interference in a flyer and event related to the fatal shooting of Charleena Lyles in 2017, SOCR’s director raised her concerns over mayoral influence with Councilmember Lisa Herbold and suggested SOCR become an independent entity. After Mayor Murray left office, Ordinance 125470 was passed requiring an RET analysis to be done on SOCR. The ordinance also specified that the SOCR director could not be dismissed "at will" but rather "for cause."
When Mayor Jenny Durkan took office in 2017, Lally stepped down as SOCR director. Mariko Lockhart was named interim director in January 2018 and appointed as the permanent director in April 2019.
On her first day in office, Mayor Durkan signed Executive Order 2017-13 to affirm the City's commitment to RSJI, and workforce equity. The Executive Order also committed to reviewing implementation of the RSJI within the first 100 days of the administration and committed the Mayor's office and the Mayor to participating in implicit bias training in 2018. The review was to include reviews of the City's current RSJI efforts, including areas of focus and recommendations for areas needing additional work; the 2015-2017 RSJI Strategic Plan, including accomplishments and lessons learned; the 2016 RSJI survey and other related quantitative and qualitative data, and engagement efforts for community stakeholders and City personnel.
An update to EO 2017-13 was provided on October 31, 2018, and reported that there was an inconsistent commitment to racial equity outcomes among City leadership, resulting in structural barriers in the implementation of strategies to reduce inequities. Challenges were found in developing and maintaining accountable community relationships as well. The report said an inadequate formalized structure existed between City equity leaders, leading to isolation and under sourced work. Recommendations included developing accountability agreements with department directors and decision-makers, maintaining the Directors Forum, investing in community outreach and engagement, and developing accountability mechanisms to hold departments responsible for addressing community harm. Creation of a cross-city "Equity Think Tank" was suggested to foster communication between City equity leaders, as well as increased training and application of a racial equity framework in policy and operational decisions.
The first Workforce Equity Accountability Report was issued jointly by SDHR and SOCR in July 2018, also in response to Mayor Durkan's EO 2017-13. It reviewed implementation of the Workforce Equity Strategic Plan and established baseline workforce equity metrics. The report found that although the City workforce was representative of people of color, they were underrepresented in upper levels of employment. Women were also underrepresented at all except the bottom levels of supervisory authority and wages. Trainings and other programs were put in place to work towards an inclusive, safe, and equitable workforce. The first Workforce Equity Strategic Plan was created in July 2016 from a partnership between SDHR and SOCR; work that began with Executive Order 2015-02 , it put an RSJI lens on City employees. The Workforce Equity Planning and Advisory Committee (WEPAC) supported work to dismantle institutional and structural barriers to racial equity in the workplace.
Hookah Lounge Racial Equity Toolkit Report.
Mike O'Brien Electronic Subject Files
(Record Series 4665-02), Seattle
Municipal Archives
In response to Ordinance 125470, an RET Team formed to perform the analysis on SOCR. The team included community-affiliated team members, the Government Alliance and Race and Equity (GARE), and an RSJI position funded specifically to manage the SOCR RET. One of GARE's founding members was Julie Nelson, a previous SOCR director. One of the community members on the RET Team was Tammy Morales, who would run for office in 2019 and assume office as a Councilmember in 2020.
The RET analysis was submitted to City Council in 2019. The RET was based on eleven Community Speaks workshops with the RET Team, nineteen interviews by GARE with City leadership, and interviews with former SOCR directors. The study also included a look at structures of 60 other jurisdictions. After a year of research, the RET Team made five recommendations: strengthen outreach, address resources/staffing needs of SOCR, establish a Community Oversight Board, strengthen autonomy of commissions, and invest in strengthening the RSJI toward independence.
After the RET analysis, staff and resources were added for increased outreach and RSJI efforts. Ordinance 126342 was passed by City Council on May 24, 2021; it adjusted the ending date of the SOCR director’s term, and removed the now outdated reference to applying the RET to SOCR. It was returned unsigned by the Mayor.
The City Council passed a Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI) OCR-002-A-003 in November 2020 for the 2021 budget, requesting that representatives from SOCR, the Mayor's Office, and members of the RSJI network participate in a Council-convened work group to review and determine how to implement the remaining recommendations in the RET report.
RSJI work rose to national scrutiny when the Department of Justice wrote to the City Attorney in 2020 questioning racial justice trainings. Other government entities, including the federal government, received similar scrutiny.
RSJI in Action: Seattle Public Utilities
Seattle Public Utilities, an early adopter of the initiative, issued a report on its RSJI accomplishments in 2022-2023 which included the four required RETs on the South Park Water Quality Facility, Cedar River Watershed Education Programs, Delridge/Longfellow Creek flooding, and a Project Management Methodology Manual. SPU also submitted 28 Racial Equity Action Plans which touched on people and culture, programs, and policies and planning.
2020-2024: Regaining Firm Footing
Both nationally and in Seattle, race-based harassment increased in the post-election climate after 2016. A change in the City's leadership with a new mayor in 2017, the death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, and then a shutdown of services due to COVID, provided both a window for change and an opportunity to rethink barriers to RSJI goals during 2020-2024.
On July 1, 2021, the OCR RET Workgroup responded to the November 2020 request for an assessment on how to implement the remaining RET report recommendations. The Workgroup did not recommend a new Office of Race and Social Justice, but did draft language for an ordinance that would institutionalize a racial equity lens into all the City does. The report stated:
The City still struggles with understanding what anti-racism work is but excels at using the language of anti-racism to express solidarity when politically expedient. It continues to struggle with a lack of understanding of structural racism, how power functions, willingness and intentionality to change, accountability to the communities it serves, acknowledging and addressing the harm it has done, compensating and resourcing its workers appropriately, and prioritizing politics over antiracism. New offices and structures are likely to only replicate the underlying problems in a new setting.
Training continued to be an important piece of RSJI work, even during this period of uncertainty. In 2021 RSJI produced a performance called "The Shape of Trust." Created by staff from Arts, SOCR, and SDHR and performed in partnership with ACT Theatre, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, and Benaroya Hall, the performance told stories of City employees, especially women of color, and illustrated how we operate in our institutional culture. RSJI provided a video facilitation guide that used arts and mindfulness to create organizational cultures rooted in well-being and belonging.
During COVID, the Department of Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) created the largest community vaccination clinic in the country. Even with this added body of work, FAS worked to center race in their ongoing work. Structurally, they hired an equity and policy director officer and embedded equity issues in hiring. Among their many RETs, the department initiated an RET on the licensing of cannabis businesses in 2018. Cannabis was legalized in 2015 but social equity in licensing was not considered at the time. The City's initial goal was focused solely on licensing, but after community input, it changed to a goal of eliminating racial disparities by building a new systemic structure for licensing and centering BIPOC communities through a variety of strategies. Community engagement was a key piece of the RET. The State initiated a State Social Equity in Cannabis licensing program in 2020 which was designed to help redress damage done by the War on Drugs and over policing. The City of Seattle's Cannabis Equity Program was created as a result of the RET. They began accepting social equity license applications in 2022, although Seattle only received two openings for licenses because of state limitations.
equity ordinances, 2022
Source: Mayor's Office website
Key changes from the initial cannabis policy included lowering licensing fees; providing grants, loans and technical assistance; mentorship and business planning, and working with the communities most impacted. The FAS team also advocated for filing a motion with King County Superior Court to vacate convictions and dismiss charges for felony cannabis possession. In 2023, Mayor Harrell signed three pieces of legislation to improve equity in the cannabis industry.
The 2022 RSJI Summit was a one-day virtual event on Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Day. Focused on transformative justice, discussions included the importance of an ordinance for RSJI, budgeting for racial equity, and a retrospective on race and social justice activism during the pandemic. Beginning as Resource Fairs in 2005, RSJI Summits were held for employees and eventually the community to share ideas and build skills, and are now held annually.
A new interim director of OCR, Derrick Wheeler-Smith, began in February 2022, becoming the permanent director in June 2023.
Regrouping after COVID and the RET, and with a changed perspective on racial justice, a RSJI 2022-2026 Strategic Plan was developed. Embedding racial equity into City of Seattle policies and processes through accountability and identifying and analyzing manifestations of racism was the top priority. Support for departmental Change Teams was a key strategy; strengthening Citywide use of the RET and Racial Equity Action Plans were also very important.
Another goal in the strategic plan was to center racial justice, belonging, and well-being through racial equity trainings, promoting anti-racist organizing and increase collective organizing capacity. Support of community organizing and working towards transformational change was also cited as was collaborating.
The 2023 RSJI Summit focused on healing and belonging. A hybrid two-day event, it featured speakers Dr. Ben Danielson, filmmaker, Gilda Sheppard and Rachel Heaton, community leaders. Workshops and other events focused on improving life in Seattle as COVID ended.
On April 21, 2023, Ordinance 126799 was passed codifying RSJI work into law. This added RSJI principles and policies into the Seattle Municipal Code and made them more permanent and enforceable. The ordinance provided SOCR and RSJI more opportunity for accountability from City departments and will guide its work going forward. RSJI work was to include:
- Developing analytical tools to support the identification of equity impacts of policies, practices, and decision making, as well as ways to amplify positive impacts and mitigate negative impacts;
- Developing guidelines, which can be implemented Citywide, for outreach, communication, and community engagement to improve the scope and effectiveness of external City efforts to ensure that all communities receive information and have the opportunity to shape City policies and services;
- Identifying focus areas and making recommendations to relevant City departments for development of policies and actions that improve fairness and opportunity in City government organizational practices, including all employment practices such as hiring, training, retention, and promotion, and business practices such as contracting, procurement, and grant writing;
- Providing a forum for exchange of information and identification of opportunities for collaboration Citywide on racial equity and social justice foundational practices and framework;
- Supporting departments in identifying equity-related service gaps, setting measurable racial equity and social justice goals, creating departmental action plans to achieve them, and developing systems of accountability;
- Guiding equitable funding analysis and practices in departmental annual budgets in partnership with the City Budget Office; and
- Supporting City departments in developing an integrated external focus, working with community to assess community strengths, identify service gaps, and co-create plans that help the department reach its racial and social justice goals.
In 2024, RSJI started a new cross-departmental community of practice to break down silos in the City of Seattle. RSJI continues to partner with the City Budget Office to embed equitable budgeting practices into the City's budget processes, building on previous partnerships between RSJI and the Budget Office since RSJI was established in 2004.
RSJI in Action: OPCD and SDCI
Source: Hip Hop is Green Instagram
At a 2024 Land Use Committee, OPCD and SDCI provided a joint report on their accomplishments and goals and is a good illustration of using RSJI foundations to create new ways of working. The two departments were one before 2016 but as their work is very entwined, their Change Teams continued to work together after they were split into two. Their Leading with Equity Teams also continued to work closely together, although these teams focused more internally on office culture, the onboarding process, and other topics. Zoning, design review, and equity are all issues the Change Teams work together on.
The Equitable Development Initiative continued to award funds to community partners as an anti-displacement strategy. One of the recipients was Hip Hop is Green, an urban farming and education lab on land owned by the founder's grandparents in Seattle's Central District, supporting the holistic health and the economic transformation of urban communities.
One of OPCD's accomplishments was creation of a new indigenous planning strategist position and an update of the Racial and Social Equity Index map. SDCI changed their interview process as part of the workforce equity work. SDCI used RETs for a tree protection update and development of environmentally critical areas; OPCD used RETs in the comprehensive plan major update with an anti-displacement framework and equitable development zoning. Going forward, SDCI is focusing on changing the design review process to make it more equitable, as well as working on digital equity in partnership with Information Technology.
RSJI officially turned twenty years old in 2024 and maintains its solid foundation of change teams and racial equity trainings to challenge racism and other forms of oppression. Continuing as an annual event, the 2024 RSJI Summit celebrated the 20th anniversary of RSJI, bringing back Mickey Fearn and Julie Nelson and including current stakeholders such as the newest RSJI Division Director, Roderick Morrison. Morrison looked to the future at the 2024 RSJI Summit, stating, "The City of Seattle has a longstanding history of being innovative and fearless in addressing systemic inequities and eliminating oppressive barriers. Our strong foundation and steadfast visioning will continue to propel us forward as a nationwide leader in advancing racial justice and creating a safe and inclusive community for everyone who calls Seattle home." The 2023 ordinance ensures that Morrison’s vision and the RSJI work will continue for another twenty years and beyond.