RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy » Newsletter

Building Equity for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and Paralympics

As Los Angeles looks towards the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic games, the Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy is working with partners in the community to bring a focus on infrastructure equity and sports.

Center advisory board members Giovanna Brasfield and Judy Friedman, with partners from the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles and the Urban Land Institute Los Angeles, last month launched the Infrastructure Equity series of events focused on Infrastructure Equity, Sport, and Community.

Americans are passionate about sports, so the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LA28) provide an opportunity for the center to meet people where they are and engage a wide range of people in conversations about infrastructure equity as it relates to sports.

At the November 2022 launch event with LA28 and other partners, participants explored opportunities to advance infrastructure equity in the design and execution of the games, including:

• Highlighting Los Angeles' diverse neighborhoods and cultures with activity and treasure maps
• Supporting access to business opportunities for marginalized communities
• Conducting research to measure impact across industries
• "Baking in" equity throughout the process by bringing in different voices
• Communicating findings equitably for different stakeholders

This series on infrastructure equity, including examining the impact of LA28, continues. Contact racialequity@rand.org to learn more.

advancing equity in

Research + Policy

RAND’s work in racial equity extends across social and economic policy and national security. These snapshots show where RAND's work is having impact.

Current Projects

To Help African Americans Gain Generational Wealth, Look to the Housing Market

African American families have significantly less wealth than White families, even after reaching the middle class. Home ownership is, for most Americans, the primary vehicle for accruing wealth and passing it down through generations. In this commentary supported by the center, Jessica Welburn Paige writes that this is a crucial time for policymakers to consider policies that focus on improving home ownership rates for African Americans. Read more in RAND's series of reports on the racial wealth gap.

Measuring Civic Infrastructure

What constitutes a framework for defining civic infrastructure in the United States and other democratic nations? A new report by Julia H. Kaufman and others offers a potential framework and presents some measures that provide information to help monitor civic infrastructure across the United States, in individual states, in communities, and across diverse populations. The authors specifically define civic infrastructure as the places, policies, programs, and practices that undergird strong communities and foster civic engagement.

advancing equity in

Our Communities

We're committed to connecting research to civic action and cultivating leaders, who can advance equity in systems and policies.

Current Projects

Announcing the Iguchi Initiative Social Justice Fellowship

The RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy is pleased to announce the Iguchi Initiative in honor of Martin Iguchi, a groundbreaking leader who pioneered work on issues of racial equity and underserved populations. Iguchi was a true humanitarian who deeply understood the importance of diversifying the field of policy analysis and the need to apply RAND research to real community issues.

The initiative builds on Iguchi's legacy to champion dialogue and engagement between social justice leaders, underserved populations, and RAND policy analysts. Social justice leaders design and mobilize social change that can bring insights to policy analysis, but too often, these voices are not included in policy research.

In that spirit, the center is soliciting short applications from social justice leaders to engage with RAND over three months in the winter/spring of 2023. Leaders can represent community-based organizations of varying sizes or operate independently.

Read more about the Iguchi Initiative »

Center Director Rhianna Rogers Represents CAREP at the United Nations

This month center director Rhianna Rogers was in Geneva, Switzerland, and spoke at the 14th Geneva Forum. Her presentation, "Building Equity through Participatory Action Research" highlighted the center's accomplishments and lessons learned to members of the 6th Annual International Conference on Participatory Research, Citizen Sciences, Crowd-Innovation, and Fab Labs Forum.

advancing equity at

Our commitment to advance racial equity policy is not simply an external collaboration. We’re doing the work internally, too.

RAND Updates

Fellow Feature

Our first fellow in social media equity, Abbie Richards, is focused on the ways that disinformation, conspiracies, and extremism spread on social media, particularly TikTok, and how to best bridge the divide between evidence-based research and the public. Her video reel highlighting RAND's Truth Decay Initiative surpassed 100,000 views on Instagram. She was also named in Forbes Magazine's 2023 30 Under 30 for her work in consumer technology.

National Coalition for Equity Impact (NCEI)

The center held a launch summit for the National Coalition for Equity Impact (NCEI) in October.

As many U.S. organizations have begun investing in equity impact work and policy change in the past few years, the pace of change in the field has led to a mixed story of progress and surfaced pitfalls.

The aim of NCEI is to create a set of standards of practice to advance equity impact in practice and policy through being equity-centered and intersectional, with the goal of changing systems, not just hearts and minds.

For those who could not attend, a recording of the main event (not including breakout sessions) is available. We look forward to collaborating more as the community grows and evolves.

Center Releases in 2022

CAREP is proud of the diversity of products developed over the past year – from methods papers and journal articles, to an Instagram video, digital art gallery, Open Educational Resource (OER), and socio-cultural games.

These pilot programs and their affiliated products have been a way to showcase the work of RAND colleagues and our collaborators and partnerships.

Abdurahaman, Z.F. (2022). A Promising Era for Women of Color in U.S. Elections, but Gains in Broader Workplace Remain Elusive. RAND Blog.

Abir, M. (2022). In Search of an Equity Lens: A Physician's Journey. RAND Blog.

Beaux, C. (2022). Using Safe and Brave Spaces to Bridge Divides. Journal of Engaged Research, Vol. 2.

Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy (CAREP), A.B.O. Comix, RAND LGBTQ+ ERG, and Sustainable Progress and Equality Collective (SPEC), 2022. Digital Expressions of Mass Incarceration – A Data Driven Art Exhibition by LGBTQ+ Prisoners. Journal of Engaged Research – Arts Equity Series.

Etchegaray, J. M., & Thomas, E. J. (2022). Equity, Where Art Thou? Opportunities to Improve Safety Culture Measurement. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 48(9), 425-426.

Golden, J. (2022). The Impacts of Prison Arts Programs on LGBTQ Inmate Attitudes, Identity and Rehabilitation. Journal of Engaged Research, Vol. 2.

Golden, J. (2022). A.B.O. Comix: Art by Prisoners, Support to Prisoners, Profits to Prisoners. Journal of Engaged Research, Vol. 2.

Jackson, J., Nasma B., Wilson N., Wolters, N., Adzemovic, T., Tsuchida, R. E., Newton, M., Burkhardt, J., Perry, M., Schulson, L. B., & Abir, M. (2022). Key Factors in Designing the Health System–Community Pathways Program for African American/Black Children and Young Adults. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

John, A. (2022) Police reform must start at the neighborhood level. The Hill.

Magnon, M., Breaux, C., Kirkpatrick, S., Silva, J., Rogers, R. & Drury, S. (2022). Deliberative Practices in an Everchanging Online World – Report on Partnership, Facilitation, and Deliberative Conversations. Journal of Engaged Research, Vol. 3.

Richards, A. (2022). Truth Decay - Just Some Historical Context to Ease Your Mind A Bit. Instagram.

Rogers, R. C., (2022). Centering Participatory Action Research in Racial Equity and Global Justice. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

Rogers, R. (2022). 7 Ways to Build a Truly Equitable DEI Strategy. Fast Company.

Tucker, S. & Rogers, R. (2022). How Do We Come Together If We Live So Far Apart. Challenger News – reposted in The Monroe Post.

Tucker, S. & Rogers, R. (2022). Buffalo Needs More Deliberations and Fewer Debates. Buffalo News.

Stay in Touch

For more information about the Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy or any topics covered in this newsletter, visit our website or email racialequity@rand.org