U of Texas's LBJ School Creates Office of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

The University of Texas at Austin's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs has renamed its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. It will now be known as the Office of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) with civil rights scholar Dr. Peniel Joseph and community leader Estevan Delgado serving as its inaugural associate dean and director for JEDI, respectively.

Dr. Peniel Joseph and Estevan DelgadoThe founding director of UT's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD), Joseph will serve on the dean's executive leadership team to uphold the LBJ School's commitments to JEDI, focusing on "teaching a diverse student body, attracting and retaining diverse faculty, and refining curriculum and pedagogical innovations that better enable students to study, recognize and reduce discrimination and inequity."

Joseph is known as a thought leader within Black Power studies, Africana studies, women's and ethnic studies as well as political science. He is the author of the award-winning book The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Delgado will work with Joseph and the Office of Student Affairs and Admissions to implement best practices across the LBJ School. He will also "oversee oversee a multipronged pipeline approach to recruiting underrepresented prospective students; design and curate thoughtful programming and town halls; and biannually evaluate JEDI progress across curriculum, composition and culture."

An alumnus of the LBJ School, Delgado previously managed the Hispanic Impact Fund.