Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Accessibility (DEIAA) Statement
The California Community Colleges (CCC) Library Services Platform (LSP) Governance Committee and the consortium of CCC LSP member institutions embrace diversity among students, staff, faculty, and the communities we serve. We are committed to intentionally creating and maintaining safe, equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist environments and actively challenging systems of oppression.
We acknowledge that our libraries are not neutral and may have served–sometimes inadvertently and other times intentionally–as instruments of exclusion, colonialism, and assimilation. We commit to implementing policies and taking concrete steps, large and small, to undo this harm and lead to systemic changes.
To that end, we pledge to:
1. Raise the visibility of the LSP Community’s commitment to ending racism, anti-Blackness, classism, ableism, and gender inequities while advocating for systemic change
2. Embed a DEI lens into all LSP Governance Committee and work group activities
3. Reduce the harm caused by policies and practices originating out of historical legacies of colonialism
4. Reimagine the LSP as a model of diversity, equity, and inclusion
5. Evaluate our progress, adjust our goals as needed, and recommit to our statement and pledge on an annual basis
Source: https://caccleague.libguides.com/LSP/deiaa_statement
In July 2021, the LSP Governance Committee voted to incorporate a diversity, equity, and inclusion standing agenda item - in future Governance Committee meetings - as an intentional way to center and expand on current LSP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) efforts, and actively identify future opportunities to continue to support these initiatives through the LSP program.
Additionally, at the July 2021 Meeting, the Committee voted to form a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Task Force to draft specific DEIA-focused deliverables: 1. initial LSP operating process to identify and collect potentially offensive terms discovered in bibliographic records and 2. LSP DEI statement reaffirming our commitment to DEI efforts. The LSP DEI Task force worked on deliverables between October 2021- April 2022, with final recommendations presented at the May 6, 2022 Governance Committee meeting. Concurrently, from September 2021 - July 2022, the Governance Committee reflected, discussed, and identified existing LSP diversity, equity, and inclusion successes, and future opportunities to expand these initiatives. A bulleted list was created documenting these efforts and ideas were collected at every regular Governance Committee meeting. The Governance Committee Co-Chairs led these discussions and empowered other voting Committee members to contribute their ideas.
In July 2022 the Governance Committee approved to adopt the LSP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Accessibility (DEIAA) Statement, a statement drafted by the LSP DEI Task force that highlights and advances diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and accessibility throughout the LSP.
Though the DEI Task Force has discontinued as a result of their deliverables being submitted to the Governance Committee in May 2022, the work continues and has served as an impetus for a new standing work group for 2022-23, the LSP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Accessibility work group.
Present
As diversity and equity is an ongoing process, the Governance Committee - at the 2022 Summer Retreat- voted to adopt Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism and Accessibility (DEIAA), to better align with the goals and initiatives of the California Community Colleges, Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, and the Student Senate for California Community Colleges.
Additionally, the committee requested that the Governance Committee Meeting DEIAA standing agenda item’s supporting document (i.e., bulleted list) be reformatted and updated to reflect the present state of the LSP as it relates to the 2022 LSP DEIAA Statement, and thus, is reformatted to a table by the LSP Task Force, for immediate use, starting with the September 2022 Governance Committee meeting.
Note: The intention of this DEIAA standing agenda item is not created to remain siloed from other agenda items or discussions but rather, it is an opportunity for the Committee to be strategic and collaborative about developing a DEIAA vision, and setting goals that align with those of the California Community Colleges.
As the LSP DEIAA Statement has successfully been approved by the Governance Committee, 2023 and hereafter provides an opportunity to support principles critical to creating and maintaining a diverse, equitable, inclusive, anti-racist, and accessible LSP community and assess progress related to DEIAA-related actions and goals.
Each LSP work group provides self-evaluations, in the form of a summary table, highlighting their unique efforts of DEIAA in their work group reports to the Governance Committee– starting with February 2023.
The self-evaluation by each work group will help the LSP Governance Committee determine the following: