History of the Center
The Center for Equality and Justice grew out of a 2003-06 Irvine Foundation Campus Diversity Initiative grant of $400,000. That grant focused on transforming the campus into a welcoming, inclusive environment. While Irvine funding has ended, six faculty working groups were established by the Gender and Ethnic Studies Program (the precursor to the CEJ) to serve as interdisciplinary learning communities, promoting peer review and research collaboration on:
- Immigration and global cities
- Globalization and media
- Religion and global change
- Diversity and educational excellence
- Health and social change
- Violence and victimization
In October 2006, Gender and Ethnic Studies faculty attended the first Ventura County Women's Forum and were inspired to create a web-based community to house a countywide network of people committed to pursuing social justice. This idea, an online Ventura County Collaborative for Social Justice, reflects the Center's expanded vision to become a community service of CLU, inextricably tied to the County's needs and designed to support local grassroots efforts for positive social change.
The themes of the working groups reflect the current foci of a variety of grassroots groups, local agencies and community-based organizations. The Center aims to achieve social change by utilizing web-based technology to coordinate the university's community outreach efforts. By centralizing the teaching, service and research efforts of CLU and other academic partners focused on promoting equality and justice, the Center's activities foster collaborations to aid communities of Ventura County who may currently be disconnected but share common goals.
