Item 3.5 Amendment to Chapter 2.04 of Title 2 of the San José Municipal Code for the Office of Racial and Social Equity and Amendment to the County Policy to Add Equity Values and Standards Policy

May 13, 2024

VIA EMAIL

Mayor Matt Mahan
Councilmember Rosemary Kamei
Councilmember Sergio Jimenez
Councilmember Omar Torres
Councilmember David Cohen
Councilmember Peter Ortiz
Councilmember Devora Davis
Councilmember Bien Doan
Councilmember Domingo Candelas
Councilmember Pam Foley
Councilmember Arjun Batra

RE: Item 3.5 Amendment to Chapter 2.04 of Title 2 of the San José Municipal Code for the Office of Racial and Social Equity and Amendment to the County Policy to Add Equity Values and Standards Policy

Dear Mayor and City Council Members:

Sadly, I cannot fully support Council Policy №0–22, “Equity Values and Standards Policy,” as it inadvertently marginalizes people with disabilities by excluding their needs and voices. Despite broad support, this policy highlights a gap in understanding that underscores the need for disability awareness and structural change in San José.

Changes have already been submitted to the Office of Racial Equity and the Disability Affairs Officer, who were open to the feedback. However, due to understandable time constraints, limited action was possible. Their efforts are appreciated and essential to this ongoing work.

I want to emphasize that the Disability Affairs Officer has made essential progress toward expanding awareness of disability issues. However, structural barriers have created significant limitations that will hopefully be improved with the support of the Office of Racial and Social Equity.

The City of San José still lacks an understanding of the diverse experiences within the disability community, complicating efforts to combat discrimination and ensure equity. Ableism intersects with various factors, creating a complex issue that very few outside of those impacted by disability understand.

Throughout history, individuals with disabilities have faced systemic discrimination, exclusion, and mistreatment, known as Systemic Ableism. Institutions meant to provide care often subjected them to neglect and confinement, denying them their basic rights. Instances like forced sterilization and the enforcement of “ugly laws” further reinforced stigma and exclusion. Access to public spaces, transportation, and education was restricted, while challenges in accessing services and adaptive aids compounded these difficulties. Although explicit discriminatory laws have been repealed, discrimination persists in various forms, such as how disability was only mentioned 1 time in the 147-page Final Report of the Charter Review Commission Draft of November 28, 2021. Racial and Social Equity is still defined as it was in that report.

Disability intersects with race/ethnicity, color, gender, age, language, citizenship/immigration, sexual identity, religion, and all economic and educational levels, further underscoring the importance of the definition of racial and social equity. And because disability is intersectional, there is significant overlap between systemic ableism and all other types of systemic oppression, especially racism.

To rectify ongoing structural ableism in this policy:

• Define Institutional Ableism and other forms of oppression
• Improve the definition of Racial and Social Equity to encompass all oppressed identity groups based on racial equity
• Recognize the limited outreach to the disability community
• Adjust outcomes to reflect equity achieved when race and other oppressed group identities no longer predict life outcomes

The City of Seattle uses a framework that focuses on race while stating those efforts alone are insufficient. So, like the City of Seattle, the City of San José must “lead with race” while also working on institutionalized sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and other oppressions which I feel is the intention of this policy and memo. My question is if it is intentional enough. “Just as institutions work to the benefit of white people, they also work to the benefit of men, heterosexuals, non-disabled people and so on.”

While race equity is paramount for rectifying historical injustices, the exclusion of disability perspectives in this policy perpetuates harm across all group identities. As presented by US Representative Ayanna Pressley and Rebecca Cokley in the Winter 2022 Stanford Social Innovation Review, disability must also be centered to create a just society that is more accessible and inclusive for everyone. The disability community continues to experience above-average rates of poverty, incarceration, disenfranchisement, and social segregation. And until disability is included, the inequities experienced by people of color will remain unchanged. The COVID-19 pandemic also revealed existing inequities with a clear impact on the disability community in addition to communities of color and other marginalized groups

However, the intentional inclusion of the disability community has been lacking, persisting even through the pandemic. The exclusion was evident during the Charter Review Commission, where this definition of racial and social equity originated. When disability is hidden or obscured, whether intentionally or inadvertently, harm and systemic discrimination occurs.

The only way we will ever get beyond the historical and structural ableism in our policies and practices is through the representation of and equitable engagement with the diverse community of people with disabilities, their families, and other allies. Disability must be embraced as the intersectional equity value to remove bias and understand the community’s diversity. This shift in the office name to include social equity should not perpetuate structural ableism and racism in any form. It is time to move beyond confining people with a disability to a narrow accessibility portfolio that primarily serves business interests. Embracing disability as a core aspect of intersectional equity requires reevaluating societal structures for genuine inclusivity and dismantling systemic barriers.

Together let’s create and build upon this intersectional Racial and Social Equity lens that ensures everyone can prosper and thrive.

Sincerely,

Michele Mashburn
Disability Advocate

Table: Definitions/other changes emailed to Office of Racial Equity

Change 1 —Add
Exhibit A — Definitions

Institutional Ableism refers specifically to the ways in which institutional policies and practices based on the idea that disabled people have less value create different outcomes for this group. Disability is intersectional with significant overlap between systemic ableism and systemic racism, sexism, and homophobia. People with disabilities who are also part of other marginalized groups can face compounded stigmas creating advantages for non-disabled people and reinforced disadvantages for people with disabilities resulting in further oppression.

Change 2 — Redefine
Exhibit A — Definitions, page 8

Racial and Social Equity. The condition that would be achieved if one’s group identity — based on categorizations that have experienced discrimination including race, aspects of neurodiversity, religion, and gender expression — no longer predicted, in a statistical sense, how one fared in society.

Racial and Social Equity. The condition that would be achieved if one’s group identity — based on categorizations that have experienced discrimination including race/ethnicity, color, disability, neurodivergence, religion, age, citizenship/immigration status, gender expression, sexuality — no longer predicted, in a statistical sense, how one fared in society.

Racial and Social Equity explicitly prioritizes communities that have been economically deprived and underserved and establishes a practice for creating psychologically safe spaces for not only racial groups, but other groups that have been most negatively impacted by policies and practices. It is action that prioritizes liberation and measurable change and focuses on lived experiences of all impacted groups. It requires the setting of goals and measures to track progress, with the recognition that strategies must be targeted to close the gaps.

As an outcome, racial and social equity is achieved when race/ethnicity, color, disability, neurodivergence, age, language, citizenship/immigration status, gender expression, sexuality, and income can no longer be used to predict life outcomes and everyone can prosper and thrive.

Change 3 — Suggestion
Memo, Page 3

As part of this process, City staff met with numerous external partners, such as the Race Equity Action Leadership Coalition and the San José for All Community Advisory Group, as well as City leadership and racial equity practitioners from multiple departments.

Acknowledge the limited outreach and awareness about disability issues within these groups at the time of the outreach process resulting in a gap of knowledge on disability equity.

Change 4 — Expand
Exhibit A, Page 1

The City acknowledges historical structural and institutional racism that resulted in measurable gaps in well-being and quality of life for these communities.

Add: Institutional Ableism and/or other systemic oppressions here.

“The City acknowledges historical structural and institutional ableism and other systemic oppression that resulted in measurable gaps in well-being and quality of life for these communities, especially those also impacted by structural racism.”

Change 5 — Expand
Exhibit A, Page 1

The City will have achieved equity when race can no longer be used to predict life outcomes, and everyone can prosper and thrive.

The City will have achieved equity when race and other oppressed group identities can no longer be used to predict life outcomes, and everyone can prosper and thrive.

Change 6 — Expand
Exhibit A — Equity Standards, Page 3

Outcomes include:

a) Race can no longer be used to predict life outcomes, and everyone can prosper and thrive

Add:

b) Group identity — based on intersectionality can no longer be used to predict life outcomes, and everyone can prosper and thrive