A new voter-backed Commission on Racial Equity has unveiled an initial set of goals to guide the city’s efforts to reduce racial disparities in health, policing, education and a range of areas across the five boroughs.
The list of 16 preliminary goals released on Monday includes eliminating tuition for most CUNY colleges, transforming jails into “rehabilitation centers” and adding more health and mental health centers. New Yorkers are invited to weigh in on the commission’s website, in forthcoming social media surveys and in-person sessions over the summer, before the list is finalized in the fall.
The commission serves as an accountability vehicle for the public in a new city infrastructure and planning process that voters overwhelmingly approved in ballot proposals in November 2022. Its charge is to elevate racial equity as a priority for local lawmakers.
The commission’s community equity priorities will shape the creation of a biennial racial equity plan, the first of which is set for release in November. The plan will enshrine the city’s goals and strategies to promote racial equity, including metrics to track progress.
“We see New Yorkers day in and day out organize and activate for change and hold their elected officials accountable,” said Linda Tigani, who was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams as chair and executive director of the commission in October. “We’re here to increase their voice. We will be as strong as our partnerships with community.”
After the release of the city’s racial equity plan, the commission will monitor for progress, including whether officials are following the community’s priorities. The commission will update the community priorities every two years, Tigani said.
The 11-member panel was appointed by the mayor, City Council speaker, comptroller and public advocate. By charter, the commissioners represent a range of marginalized and underrepresented communities and all five boroughs. Adams will appoint another three commissioners in the coming months, for a total of 14 members.
The city’s racial equity planning process has been marked by delays. Under the charter rules, the initial citywide equity plan was supposed to be drafted by Jan. 16 and finalized by April 26, in step with the release of the mayor’s preliminary and executive budgets.
Sideya Sherman, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice, which is tasked with finalizing the plan, has attributed the delays to city officials’ need to be thoughtful, engage the public and “ensure we get this right.”
The new racial equity bureaucracy was the brainchild of an 11-person Racial Justice Commission launched by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2021, after the national racial reckoning and protests in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. The now-defunct panel crafted two other ballot proposals overwhelmingly backed by voters.
One measure added a preamble to the City Charter, calling on agencies and officials to promote a “just and equitable city for all,” including with an Indigenous land acknowledgment and a recognition of the “grave injustices and atrocities” of slavery. The other required the city to create and annually report a “true cost of living” metric — intended to guide policymaking — that accounted for the costs of housing, child care, transportation, medical care and other household expenses.
Under the charter rules, the city is supposed to start publishing the metric this year. The final true-cost-of-living measure will be published in March 2025, according to the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice’s website.
The commission appointees include a police officer who is also an imam; a hospital executive; a Pentecostal minister; multiple immigrant advocates; and city workers tackling equity issues in their jobs.
Per city rules, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams appointed five people to the commission, including Adama Bah, head of the nonprofit group Afrikana, which helps Black migrants in the city, and a vocal critic of the Adams’ administration handling of the migrant influx.
Bah said she won’t “tone down” her activism due to the new role and that she accepted the position to uplift community voices in the city’s decision-making processes. She said she was optimistic about the commission’s power to push for change.
“Why aren’t we being heard?” said Bah, a Guinean immigrant who lives in the Bronx. “It’s because we’re not at the table.”
Several of the listed goals call on the city to “increase and appropriately fund” different city programs, including police and city oversight bodies, school districts “suffering from racial and class segregation,” and legal and financial supports for families facing eviction.
Other priorities include reducing the city’s jail and prison population, eliminating fees for government services when possible and closing racial and gender gaps in municipal workforce positions and salaries.
Yesenia Mata, another of the speaker’s appointees to the commission and director of the Staten Island-based immigrant rights center La Colmena, previously served on the racial justice panel that crafted the city’s racial equity planning process.
“It’s going to take a lot of work,” she said of the new commission’s duty to monitor progress on the city’s racial equity goals. “This is why we need to ensure that we continue pushing to ensure that these priorities … are funded properly based on the need.”
Arya Sundaram
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