Racial Justice | Penn Today

Cartoon depicting Black Lives Matter images, a black fist, NO JUSTICE NO PEACE, and a statue of a horse.

National myths and monuments

Season two, episode four, of the OMNIA podcast “In These Times” features three faculty discussing the movement to reexamine monuments and the history and myths they symbolize, and how the public should think about the artworks in public squares.

Different religious leaders support racial justice movement

Integrating tough questions about the intersection of race, religion, and politics

Through student discussions and outside lectures, one SNF Paideia Program course examined the Jewish experience, the history of prejudice, and intersectionality in Jewish identity, among other topics.

Our America: The history of the model minority myth and its impact on Asian-American communities

Josephine Park of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the history of anti-Asian racism in the U.S. and the model-minority myth.

Wearing a suit and tie, Walter Palmer stands outside of Penn's School of Social Policy and Practice with his hands in his pockets.

Q&A

The world according to Walter Palmer

The educator, organizer, and alumnus discusses his six decades of activism, growing up in the Black Bottom, studying and teaching at Penn, his work at CHOP, the student strike of 1967, the Vietnam War, Frank Rizzo, Donald Trump, school choice, gun violence, the Chauvin trial, and why he thinks racism should be declared a national public health crisis.

Three women wearing face masks and office dress clothes stand on a pathway with a tree full of pink flowers behind them

Hope and help for wrongfully incarcerated Pennsylvanians

With Project HOPE, President’s Engagement Prize winners Carson Eckhard, Natalia Rommen, and Sarah Simon will address the lack of support to wrongfully incarcerated people in Philadelphia and across the state.

The fight for diverse, inclusive, antiracist, and just democracies

Ira Harkavy and Rita Hodges of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships and others co-wrote an op-ed about higher education and systemic oppression. “Just as many colleges and universities are reckoning with their own institutional histories of exclusion, higher education as a field must recognize where it has failed and come up short. Only then can it come honestly to tables with communities, governments, and citizens to build inclusive, antiracist democracies together,” they wrote.

A composite of Michae Jones, left, and Jelani Williams right. Both are standing outside of the Palestra. Williams, wearing a red Penn hoodie, leans against a tree with his arms folded. Jones stands with her hands on her hips.

Student-athletes for an anti-racist society

Junior Jelani Williams of the men’s basketball team and senior Michae Jones of the women’s basketball team are leaders among Penn’s student-athlete community in the fight for social justice and racial equality.

Curator Meg Onli wins inaugural prize aimed at advancing racial equity in the arts

The inaugural Figure Skating Prize, aimed at Black artists, curators and contemporary art scholars who are advancing equity and racial justice within the arts, has been awarded to Meg Onli of the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Relief, calm, and a sense that ‘justice was served’ as Philadelphia watches Chauvin’s guilty verdict

Krystal Strong, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Philly and assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education’s Literacy, Culture, and International Education Division, says justice was not obtained in the guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin. “Justice means that George Floyd would be here,” she says. According to Strong, a guilty verdict like the one reached Tuesday “can be used to deradicalize us, placate us, convince us the system is capable of reforming itself.” Strong, who advocates for abolition and divesting police funding to other community resources, also says the small number of officers charged or convicted in police killings shows that “the system cannot reform itself.”

Anger, anxiety, stress, relief: Therapists say it’s OK for Black people to feel it all

In addition to the next slate of trials for Chuavin’s colleagues, Philadelphians are still processing the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. and the city’s own checkered history of policing Black and other communities of color. Ariane Thomas of the Graduate School of Education comments on the importance of talking about feelings and leaning into their complexity.

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