The Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice at Hofstra University

 The 2024 presidential election proved to be most interesting, and perhaps somewhat confusing.  While voters’ perception of the economy — especially inflation and its lingering effects — likely had the largest single impact on voters, racial and ethnic identities also mattered.  In general, as it relates to race and ethnicity, the following conclusions are reasonable:  1) Latino/Hispanic voters have never voted routinely as a bloc, with 2024 suggesting that even more diverse patterns in voting are on the horizon; 2) Black voters, which have typically voted as a bloc, would seem to have voted less as a bloc for Harris in 2024 (turnout may also have played a role here, too, but I don’t dive into that). To understand why requires a (small) amount of knowledge about how statistics work, specifically as it relates to distributions.  Distributions are a fancy way of saying “this is how a trait is spread among the population.”  While many distributions can describ...

As directors of the Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice, we seek to frame the recent re-election of Donald Trump as a social justice issue at the intersections of “race,” culture, religion, and politics. We are disheartened to discover that the United States of America chose a white male, 34-count convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, psychopathic narcissist, and a pathological liar over a highly qualified Black woman of Asian descent with a clean record of criminal or civil liability. In fact, sitting Vice President Kamala Harris had the highest level of elected office experience of anyone who has sought the presidency during the last 65 years. We posit that finger pointing and blaming does little good without an understanding of the historical, social, and political contexts that yielded such results. The United States of America was founded on white supremacy, Indigenous people’s genocide, African people’s enslavement, and female oppression. The vast majority of Donald’s...

  In “ The Politics of Citation ,” Annabel Kim envisions this titular convention as “the map of a process, not the map of a territory.” She barrels onward, arguing for citation not as a site of accruing intellectual capital where the rich get richer and the stars get brighter while the precariat writing against erasure gets forgotten and poorer, but as a jubilee that levels the fields in which we write so that we might accrue an extravagant set of debts resulting not in intellectual bondage but in intellectual freedom. I’m a writing scholar, so I know quite well that writing is situational, dependent on rhetorical purpose, audience, kairos, and so on, that it flexes across genres and adapts itself to various ethical schema. But just because this is an observed truth in my discipline doesn’t mean it should be fundamentalized. The goal of writing studies and composition is to acclimate students to the idea that writing is an essential object unto ...

Aloha! My name is Dr. Jonathan Lightfoot, and I am the Founding Director of the Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice. I begin by giving respect to and acknowledging the 13 Algonquin tribes of Long Island whose land we occupy. Today we celebrate our 7th anniversary of service to Hofstra University and the larger Hofstra community. Numerologically, the number 7 represents knowledge, intellectual curiosity, and a search for the truth. It is an opportunity to reflect on the impact we have had on Hofstra. Attorney Gloria Browne Marshall gave us our initial charge when we launched on March 8, 2017. She encouraged us to consider our shared history as part of a blueprint to follow as we looked forward with hope for fulfilling our mission in the future. Thanks to our current associate director, Dr. Veronica Lippencott, our current six (6) student fellows, President Susan Poser, Provost Charlie Riordan, Vice Provost Comila Shahani-Denning, past associate directors, Benita Sampedro and S...

  Diversity at a university is not merely a goal to be achieved but a fundamental necessity for holistic growth and learning. Embracing diversity enriches the academic environment by exposing students to a multitude of perspectives, experiences, and ways of thinking. As individuals from diverse backgrounds come together, they bring with them unique insights and cultural nuances that challenge conventional wisdom and encourage critical thinking. This melting pot of diversity fosters creativity and empathy. Hofstra University’s mission is to prepar e students to navigate the complexities of an interconnected world. This particular project allowed me to uncover the international community here at our university. In addition, I was able to draw connections as to why our international student population is growing. My findings, through conversations with department chairs and Hofstra websites, indicate that some campus units specifically target international students and this has...