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Dear Community Member,
Our movement for equity made history last month, as the White House and 90 federal agencies rolled out the first-ever racial equity action plans in our country’s history.
This moment was never a given — it’s a marker of progress that we made happen. Heeding our movement’s calls, the Biden administration issued a day-one executive order that mandated federal agencies to reevaluate and rehaul their programs to advance racial equity. But, after a 2021 survey of federal employees found that over 50 percent were not prepared to do so, PolicyLink released For Love of Country
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to provide resources, tools, and a plan for the federal government to begin the long-term journey towards this goal.
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In the past year, we’ve partnered with the Biden Administration to implement these recommendations, working alongside agency leaders as they developed the nation’s first-ever plans for federal racial equity. Today we are pleased to share the initial learnings
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from these pilot programs.
Equipped with these learnings, we, together with our partners, will continue to design a new set of equity standards that will both support and hold the federal government accountable to implement these plans. In practical terms, that means we’re establishing shared metrics for accountability so that our movements can drive, track, and accelerate the federal government’s progress. I was honored to share about some of the tenets of this work at a recent White House convening
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, which include three foundational areas:
Establish shared equity standards: Equity cannot be an add-on or afterthought in government systems –– it must be core to the design of every program, policy, and regulation. The PolicyLink equity standards set the bar for how the federal government should center communities of color and serve all our communities, and equip federal government employees with the tools to implement and monitor these standards. In the past year alone, we, together with Race Forward, worked with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to assess the impact of their policies and practices on communities of color. We also conducted equity trainings for their employees to better deliver on their mission, and we applaud the willingness and excitement of many federal leaders to accelerate these plans.
Design racial equity legislative scoring: To create a more accountable, responsive democracy, we need shared metrics for progress. To do so, we’re developing a methodology to assess how, and how well, federal legislation is designed to advance racially equitable outcomes, helping to advance policies that reduce racial gaps and stop policies that widen them.
Innovate on legal strategies to deliver landmark equity legislation: We’re convening racial justice movement leaders, attorneys, and government officials to develop new legal strategies and tools that center racial equity in policy and program development. Together, we’ll craft the next generation of landmark federal equity legislation.
To learn more about our partnership with the federal government, be sure to check out more details from our just released report Partnering with Federal Agencies to Advance Racial Equity
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.
As we celebrate the historic nature of these first federal racial equity plans, we also recognize the enormity of the transformation required ahead. The federal government has been an architect and arbiter of the structural racism and exploitation steeped into the founding of our nation. It will take generations more of our collective work to build a flourishing multiracial democracy that honors the struggle and sacrifices of our ancestors.
At PolicyLink, we are excited to be a bridge for accountable partnership between the federal government and our movement to deliver on the promise of equity for all of our communities.
In solidarity,
Michael McAfee
President and CEO, PolicyLink
Copyright © 2022 PolicyLink.
All rights reserved.
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