INCLUSION
An intrinsic commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
At the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2), we’re preparing the next generation of changemakers to work tirelessly for social innovation, justice, and impact.
Throughout its history, the School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) at the University of Pennsylvania has dedicated itself to understanding and embracing diversity in its countless forms. Today, our historic commitment to racial and economic justice intersects with a deep commitment to supporting individuals, families, and communities that are being marginalized along other axes of oppression. As the world’s understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion has evolved, we have, too.
SP2 strives to be a space of principled inclusivity, valuing differences of opinion and working to foster an institutional environment where we all think openly, honestly, reflectively, and deeply about questions and ideas that both unite and divide us. For our faculty, students, and staff, inclusion is a multifaceted and intersectional concept. It requires thoughtful examination of how differences related to race, sexuality, gender identity, religion, ideology, mental illness, ethnicity, class, age, and beyond systematically privilege some while marginalizing others. The topics that we grapple with every day—from homelessness and racism to prisoner re-entry and poverty, responsible philanthropy to economic mobility, aging and child welfare—are some of the biggest facing society. They can sometimes seem intractable, but we believe that addressing them through a truly diverse and inclusive lens empowers us to work together to reimagine and rebuild our social world.
Task Force on Race and Social Justice
The Task Force on Race and Social Justice was convened between March 2019 and December 2019 to reexamine our efforts and recommit ourselves to this work. The Task Force met with members of the SP2 community, identifying our strengths and challenges in the areas of race and social justice. This work culminated in a series of recommendations and goals for improving the School’s structure and leadership, school climate, training, curriculum, and admissions and financial aid. In fall 2020, the Standing Committee on Race and Social Justice was established with faculty, staff, and students from each of the five degree programs to provide the infrastructure to develop and steer the plan for implementing SP2’s inclusion goals.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Students
Our students join us from around the world, bringing with them a host of perspectives, lived experiences, and embodying SP2’s commitment to anti-racism, anti-oppression, intersectionality, inclusion, diversity in its various forms, and social justice. During their time here they engage in innovative research and meaningful fieldwork, striving every day to make lasting change and meaningful impact in Philadelphia and beyond.
“A central imperative for social work, policy, and practice is the fundamental need to think inclusively about the individuals, groups, and communities these disciplines will affect most. We are resolute in our intention to educate students of social policy and practice to embrace diversity and intersectionality in all its dimensions, and to create cutting-edge scholarship that enables our field to more effectively promote social justice.”
– Sara S. Bachman, PhD, Dean
Program Curriculums
Our focus on social justice demands a multifaceted approach to recognizing and celebrating the many identities, experiences, histories, and aspirations that animate our local and global community. This commitment permeates all five of our rigorous degree programs (MSW, MSSP, NPL, PhD, and DSW), helping bind these programs to SP2’s overarching mission: producing the best social service providers, policymakers, and nonprofit leaders in the world.
The Penn Experience: Racism, Reconciliation, and Engagement
Launched in 2020, a non-credit asynchronous online course at SP2 aims to establish common basic language and concepts for incoming graduate and professional students to facilitate subsequent difficult conversations about race, racism, and difference in the classroom and beyond.
Visiting Scholars
Since 1908, the School has served as a temporary home for hundreds of Visiting Scholars joining us from around the world. This tradition of welcoming the best and brightest from abroad continues today, and many international scholars regard SP2 as their research home while in the United States.
“One Book, One SP2” Program
To facilitate cross-program dialogue about the forces that maintain and perpetuate structural racism and oppression, we implemented a “One Book, One SP2” common read in 2019. The current selection is “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing,” a memoir by Ben Jealous, a civil rights activist and professor of practice at SP2 and Annenberg School for Communication.
Past “One Book, One SP2” selections:
- 2023: Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, edited by Alice Wong
- 2022: The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, Nikole Hannah-Jones
- 2021: Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson
- 2020: Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions, Valeria Luiselli and There There, Tommy Orange
- 2019: Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, Charlene Carruthers
Immigration Resources | Related to “Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions”
Compiled by Jennifer Bulcock, Race and Social Justice Fellow, 2020 – 2021
Know Your Rights
Know Your Rights – National Lawyers Guild
Non-Profit Organizations Providing Immigration Legal Services in Philadelphia Area
Catholic Social Services
Immigration legal services and other social support programs
Esperanza
Immigration legal services; educational, art, and community economic development services
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
Provides social, legal, and citizenship services to immigrants
Justice at Work (Friend of Farmworkers)
Provide free legal aid, community education, and advocacy for farmworkers
Justice for Our Neighbors of the Delaware Valley
Low-cost and free immigration legal services
Nationalities Service Center (NSC)
Provides comprehensive services for immigrants and refugees
Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center (PIRC Law)
For immigration legal services in York, PA
Locate pro bono legal service providers nationally
Legal Clinics Serving Immigrants and Refugees in Philadelphia Area
Clinic for Asylum, Refugee, and Emigrant Services (CARES)
Sheller Center for Social Justice
Border Organizations
National Organizations
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)
National Immigrant Justice Center
The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES)
Philadelphia Organizations
National Advocacy Organizations
National Korean American Service & Education Consortium
Advocacy Initiatives in Pennsylvania
Driving PA Forward: advocating for driver’s licenses for all regardless of immigration status
Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania
Shut Down Berks: advocating for the permanent closure of Berks Family Detention Facility
For Social Workers
Child Migrant Protection Toolkit: National Association of Social Workers
How to be an Advocate for Immigrants and Refugees
Immigration and Racial Justice Resources, National Association of Social Workers
For Students
Guide to College for Undocumented Students
25 Scholarships for Immigrants and First Generation Americans
Scholarships for Undocumented Students
Scholarships.com: Refugee & Immigrant Scholarships
Art & Culture
Center for Culture, Art, Training, and Education
Harvey Finkle, Faces of Courage
Documentaries/Docuseries
Immigration Resources – Books | Related to “Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions”
Compiled by Jennifer Bulcock, Race and Social Justice Fellow, 2020 – 2021
General Immigration Issues
- Debating Immigration (Carol M. Swain)
- International Population Movements in the Modern World (Hein de Haas, Stephen Castles, & Mark J. Miller)
- “They Take Our Jobs!”: And 20 Other Myths about Immigration (Aviva Chomsky)
US Interventions in Latin America & Forced Migration
- Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (Juan González)
- Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent Eduardo Galeano)
History
- Making Foreigners: Immigration and Citizenship Law in America, 1600-2000 (Kunal Parker)
- Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy (Katherine Benton-Cohen)
- Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez, 1893-1923 (David Dorado Romo)
- The Law that Changed the Face of America: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Margaret Sands Orchowski)
Ethics, Morality, & Political Theory
- Against Borders: Why the World Needs Free Movement of People (Alex Sager)
- Migration in Political Theory: The Ethics of Movement and Membership (Sarah Fine & Lea Ypi)
- The Moral and Political Philosophy of Immigration: Liberty, Security, and Equality (José Jorge Mendoza)
- Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration (David Miller)
Memoirs & Testimonials
- Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Gloria Anzaldúa)
- Dreams & Nightmares / Sueños y Pesadillas (Liliana Velásquez)
- Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen (Jose Antonio Vargas)
- No Human is Illegal: An Attorney on the Front Lines of the Immigration War (J. J. Mulligan Sepulveda)
- Tell Me How It Ends: A Essay in 40 Questions (Valeria Luiselli)
- The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands (Margaret Regan)
- The Distance Between Us: A Memoir (Reyna Grande)
- The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border (Francisco Cantú)
- Trails of Hope and Terror: Testimonies on Immigration (Miguel A. De La Torre)
Refugee Experience
- On the Margins of the World: The Refugee Experience Today (Michel Agier)
- The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You (Dina Nayeri)
Black & African Immigrants
- Immigration and the Remaking of Black America (Tod G. Hamilton)
- Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire (Annette Joseph-Gabriel)
DACA/Dreamers & Living Undocume
- Perchance to DREAM: A Legal and Political History of the DREAM Act and DACA (Michael A. Olivas)
- Socially Undocumented: Identity and Immigration Justice (Amy Reed-Sandoval)
Immigration Law & Policy
- Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump (Shob Sivaprasad Wadhia)
- Reform without Justice: Latino Migrant Politics and the Homeland Security State (Alfonso González)
- The Immigration Crucible: Transforming Race, Nation, and the Limits of the Law (Philip Kretsedemas)
- The President and Immigration Law (Adam B. Cox & Cristina M. Rodríguez)
Crimmigation & Criminalizing Immigrants
- Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (David Bacon)
- No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants (Alina Das)
- Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines (Doris Marie Provine, Monica W. Varsanyi, Paul G. Lewis, & Scott H. Decker)
- Protect, Serve, and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement (Amada Armenta)
- Race, Criminal Justice, and Migration Control: Enforcing the Boundaries of Belonging (eds. Mary Bosworth, Alpa Parmar, & Yolanda Vasquez)
- Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected (Lisa Marie Cacho)
- Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal (Aviva Chomsky)
Immigration Detention & Deportation
- Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in American (Philip Schrag)
- Border Watch: Cultures of Immigration, Detention, and Control (Alexandra Hall)
- Caging Borders and Carceral States: Incarcerations, Immigration Detentions, and Resistance (Robert T. Chase)
- Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism (Tonya Maria Golash-Boza)
- Extreme Punishment: Comparative Studies in Detention, Incarceration, and Solitary Confinement (eds. Keramet Reiter & Alexa Koenig)
- Forever Prisoners: How the United States Made the World’s Largest Immigrant Detention System (Elliot Young)
- Inside Immigration Detention (Mary Bosworth)
- Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants (César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández)
Social Work
- Social Work with Latinos: Social, Economic, Political, and Cultural Perspectives (Melvin Delgado)
- Social Work with Immigrants and Refugees: Legal Issues, Clinical Skills, and Advocacy (eds. Fernando Chang-Muy & Elaine Congress)
Past DEI Events
As part of SP2’s commitment to the principles of anti-racism, anti-oppression, intersectionality, inclusion, diversity, and social justice, the School offers events that center diversity and inclusion. Recordings of past events can be found below, while details for upcoming events are available on the SP2 calendar.
SP2 Speaker Series: Confronting Racial Injustice and the Inequities of the Pandemic
Hosted by Ben Jealous, Visiting Scholar, Annenberg School for Communication, Carey Law School, and School of Social Policy & Practice and President, People for the American Way, this four-part series will focus on how data-informed social policy and evidence-based practice in social work are being used to identify and design solutions for the complex social problems in America today.
“Race, AI & the New Frontier for Civil Rights”
January 13, 2021
The first event of the series, “Race, AI & the New Frontier for Civil Rights,” featured SP2 Associate Professor Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, PhD and Mutale Nkonde, CEO of AI for the People.
“The Pandemic Economy: Strategies for Economic & Social Mobility”
February 16, 2021
Former City of Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter and SP2’s assistant professor and economist Ioana Marinescu discussed economic and social mobility in an event moderated by Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way.
Racism Sequence
February 16, 2021
Former City of Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter and SP2’s assistant professor and economist Ioana Marinescu discussed economic and social mobility in an event moderated by Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way.
Events
12/18
2024 End of Year Celebration for Faculty & Staff
News
Gifts & Giving
12/03
Penn Receives $5 Million to Create the First-of-its-Kind Professorship in Philanthropy
The Wieler Family Professorship in the field of philanthropy will hold a primary appointment in Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice and a secondary appointment in the Wharton School.
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