Striving Toward Racial Justice Issue #2 - Targeted Universalism

For organizations who strive to focus on racial justice, the challenge of where to begin can seem daunting. Targeted policies may be perceived by stakeholders as more favoring to a particular group rather than the entire community. As an alternative to targeted policies, a universal approach – often portrayed as race neutral – may be implemented as a method to increase positive outcomes for everyone.

But a universal approach often discards the reality of historically oppressed groups, in that they are often disenfranchised from accessing social resources.

Both targeted and universal approaches can be controversial since they appear to either favor certain groups and/or neglect historical inequities. An alternative to either a universal or a targeted approach is targeted universalism.

Targeted universalism is a framework for designing strategy that acknowledges the overall goals of an organization, while simultaneously addressing the disparity in access between differently-situated groups, such as quality education, well paying work, fair mortgages and more. To transform structural injustice into structural opportunity, strategies need to address these contrasts and measure success based on outcomes.

Targeted universalism requires intentional, goal-oriented steps. The Haas Institute Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society identifies these steps as:

1. Establishing a universal goal based upon a broadly shared recognition of a societal problem and collective aspirations.

2. Assessing the general population performance relative to the universal goal.

3. Identifying groups and places that are performing differently with respect to the goal. Groups should be disaggregated

4. Assessing and understanding the structures that support or impede each group or community from achieving the universal goal

5. Developing and implementing targeted strategies for each group to reach the universal goal.

It is with the upmost admiration, respect and appreciation that we thank the authors for their critical contribution to this call-to action. In addition to their daily tireless commitment and relentless dedication to achieving racial justice in our community, they lent their expertise and passion to the hopeful notion that local organizations are willing to better serve their clients and better support their staff. Each of you makes our community a more just place.

Claudia Powell
Casey Chimneystar Limón-Condit
Marisol Flores-Aguirre
Anna Harper-Guerrero
Mildred Manuel
Andrés Portela III
Claudio Rodriguez