2020-21 Task Forces

Our Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 Task Forces

Throughout the 2020-21 academic year, the Young Initiative strengthened its collaboration with the City of Los Angeles through our ongoing city-academic research partnerships. With faculty support, 33 Oxy students participated in task force projects based on the Young Initiative’s commitment to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030 Agenda.

Task Force on Ensuring Equity During Decarbonization

This yearlong task force led by Professor Mijin Cha of the Urban and Environmental Policy Department focused on an L.A.-based just transition away from fossil fuels. Five task force students sought to answer the question: What strategies can the City of Los Angeles implement to ensure a successful and equitable just transition for workers and communities? In addition, the research team sought to define the meaning and scope of a just transition in Los Angeles—who and what will be impacted by decarbonization and who and what should be included in just transition planning. Cha’s students worked for the L.A. Mayor’s Sustainability Office. The ultimate goal of the research was to provide the City of Los Angeles with a set of strategies to advance a successful and equitable just transition.

Task Force on Gender Equity

Professor Madeline Baer supervised a spring task force where students worked in consultation with the Mayor’s Office of the City of Los Angeles to implement SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The task force proposed a set of gender equity indicators for Los Angeles and the newly launched global network of cities (City Hub and Network for Gender Equity, or CHANGE), of which Los Angeles is a founding member. The data collected from these indicators will inform cities on their progress toward gender equity. The proposed indicators explicitly recognize intersecting inequalities predicated upon race, religion, ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression.

Task Force on Truth and Reconciliation

In cooperation with the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, its Chief Equity Office, and the Mayor’s Office of International Affairs, Professor Anthony Tirado Chase led the spring 2021 Young Initiative Task Force on how to stimulate a truth and accountability process around racial injustice in Los Angeles. Student research produced the report Truth in Los Angeles: Addressing Racial Injustice Through Recognition, Responsibility, and Repair. This report and its policy recommendations came from researching models around the globe that connect truth-telling to transitional, restorative, and transformative justice. Engaging with these models, their theoreticians, and their practitioners led the task force to its essential task: recommendations to the L.A. Mayor’s Office under the leadership of its chief equity officer, Brenda Shockley ’68, on how in practice the City can adapt such models in a manner suitable to advancing a truth and accountability process around L.A.’s distinct realities and histories of racial injustice.