May 20, 2021
A year ago we also joined forces as the EDI department (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) and we agreed that although the current solidarity is reassuring, we are committed to long-term systemic change. Any system that produces different results in historically underrepresented communities needs to be scrutinized, disrupted and replaced with just systems that produce just results. Sustainable change requires that we acknowledge how complicit we have been and define how we commit ourselves to building another reality.
We’re trying to model our call to action. One example was the creation of the George Floyd Memorial Fund to support students and programs that work to advance the interests of aspiring black leaders. We know that transformative solutions can only be found if we increase the experience of those most affected by injustice.
With your support, we are pleased to announce the start of Operation SUCCESS, supported by the George Floyd Memorial Fund. This competitive, application-based program provides a platform to nurture and inspire the next generation of black executives by equipping them with the tools they need to implement the solutions implicitly contained therein.
Our work must be as comprehensive as the injustice we are working against. Earlier this year, the University of Utah Health (U Health) partnered with other Utah health organizations to identify racism as a public health threat and to eradicate health inequalities. On May 25, U Health will host a panel with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed with the title “Ending Public Health Inequality”. This panel is part of a tiered approach that continues the conversation and practice of increasing the needs of historically marginalized communities.
George Floyd’s family asked all of us to have an Enlightenment Day to commemorate his death. This year and every year we should reconsider and update our call to action and review what we have personally and collectively done to advance this work so that his death, and the deaths of so many others, is not in vain. We are expressly committed to working together to eliminate inequalities in our policies, practices and systems. Our job is not done.
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