Former Stoneleigh Fellow Nikki Smith-Kea spoke to The Marshall Project about federal efforts to roll back DEI initiatives, and about the benefits that DEI-rooted solutions can have for organizations and public safety.
After the murder of George Floyd, protests pushed some police agencies to bring in a new class of professionals like Colleen Jackson to help make departments more representative of and responsive to the communities they serve.
Hired as the first chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 2021, Jackson has assisted in a hiring process that swore in a class of women, Black and Asian American recruits and has surveyed residents on their experiences with the police. She is now organizing an event to bring together young residents and Black officers that she hopes will lead to safer interactions on the street.
“I hope what I do touches people’s hearts and that changes their behavior,” she said.
Yet, the threat of the Cleveland suburb losing a federal grant because of her work only becomes more palpable as her friends and colleagues in the field of DEI lose their jobs — and the work they’ve dedicated their lives to hemorrhages esteem. “I’m just not the person who’s gonna operate in fear,” she said. “But I am a person who operates in reality.”
