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OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF THE URBAN PLANNING PROGRAM COUNCIL March 4, 2004 The Urban Planning program, part of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, wishes to express its position with regard to issues of racial and cultural justice on the university campus. The recent high profile and heated discussion about questions of race and diversity on campus have brought into the open conversations that too often take place behind closed doors, if at all. The realities, origins, and workings of systemic racism and discrimination demand honest and comprehensive confrontation. Those who have access to significant resources - like those afforded to us as Columbia University students - are particularly responsible for initiating this process. In light of this, we write to share our gratitude and express our pride in the work that has been done to speak out for social justice here and beyond our gates. Being trained in a discipline that approaches urbanism in its entirety as a complex phenomenon of social, economic and political systems, we as planners have an obligation to dismantle and remedy the arrangements that make possible the profound disparities that are visible nationally and internationally. The efforts to address racism and multicultural issues on campus are indeed a crucial part of this immense undertaking. We are happy to report that recent actions have provoked some introspection in our department. We are thinking about how to further our commitment to engage this struggle that belongs to all of us. Our first effort will be a conference in the fall that will address the topic of “Race and The City”. With this we hope to get students talking from the moment they join our program about how the social categories and lived experiences of race influence our perspectives on the work we do. This is only the beginning.
Sincerely - |