Activism

Dr. Kimberly Mayfield Working to Bring a ‘Black-Affirming University’ (HBCU) to Oakland

The goal, according to Mayfield, is to “create a Black-serving institution in Oakland, which means that 50% or more of the student body would be African American.” The Oakland program could either be an HBCU, which is preferable, or a Black-serving institution unaffiliated with other HBCUs. The program itself could become a stand-alone institution or an assemblage of different programs on a single campus.

Published

4 months ago

January 11, 2025

Ken Epstein

Dr. Kimberly Mayfield. Official photo.

By Ken Epstein

Dr. Kimberly Mayfield, who, until recently served as deputy mayor of Oakland, has been working for several years with educators and community groups to create a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) or other Black-serving institution of higher education in Oakland — potentially on the fully operational campus of Holy Names University in East Oakland, which went out of business in 2023.

The goal, according to Mayfield, is to “create a Black-serving institution in Oakland, which means that 50% or more of the student body would be African American.”

The Oakland program could either be an HBCU, which is preferable, or a Black-serving institution unaffiliated with other HBCUs. The program itself could become a stand-alone institution or an assemblage of different programs on a single campus.

“It could be a consortium model where programs from existing HBCUs locate in Oakland,” similar to the Atlanta Union Center in Georgia, which offers courses from Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown, and Clark Atlanta HBCUs, she said.

“There are four different institutions at Atlanta Union, and students can take classes from the different schools. They’re all based in the same place, but the programs are run by different institutions,” said Mayfield.

Key to the program would be the culture of the school, which would be “Black affirming,” offering students a supportive environment that recognizes them as individuals, she said. The program would be campus-based and include online course offerings.

Courses could be offered in downtown Oakland in office buildings in the Black Business and Arts District as well as at the Holy Names site, which was sold to developers for $64 million and is presently for sale.

Holy Names was a private Roman Catholic university in Oakland founded in 1868 by the Canada-based Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary with whom the university remained affiliated until it closed after facing several years of budget shortfalls.

Before serving as Deputy Mayor, Dr. Mayfield began her career as an educator in the Oakland Unified School District and served as dean of the School of Education and Liberal Arts and the vice president for external relations and strategic partnerships at Holy Names.

She said she has already found a lot of interest from various sources for donating funds to start the school, she said. “We have reached out to the East Bay Community Foundation, to set up the necessary structures to receive money to help with strategic planning,” and all other aspects investors want to see, including an internet presence.

The team working on the initiative has 16 members and is led by Mayfield, Councilmember Carroll Fife, and retired attorney Kim Thompson. They recently attended a conference of HBCU leaders held by the United Negro College Fund, where the Oakland proposal was greeted with enthusiasm.

Mayfield emphasized that the goal of bringing an HBCU is something that has broad support in Oakland and has been a subject of growing interest for several decades.

“This is a community-driven initiative. While former Mayor Sheng Thao’s support was important and allowed us to get organized in a certain way, it doesn’t end with her leadership” she said, adding that outgoing Congresswoman Barbara Lee and other mayoral candidates have expressed support for this initiative.

Mayfield said she and her team have been in conversations with leaders of some HBCUs, which are interested in expanding to the West Coast but face financial constraints.

“It’s the racial wealth gap, which affects HBCUs,” the same as the rest of Black America, she said. “They just don’t have the same financial resources that predominantly white institutions have. It’s hard for them to think about a completely separate, sustained campus, when they have to deal with preserving the infrastructure on their main campus.”

She said Holy Names University had 1,400 students at its largest enrollment, with no online component. “We could easily have 1,000 students matriculating on campus, and another online population of students, virtually.”

“We’d like all the virtual students to be close enough to come to campus and participate in the campus culture,” because that’s the difference an HBCU makes, Mayfield said. “It cares for students, sees you as a person, not a number, in touch with wraparound services, calling you if you’re not in class.”

“We want to have an institution that knows who the students are,” she said. “You know their brilliance when they walk in, and you’re doing everything possible academically for them to succeed and thrive.”

Ken Epstein

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Activism

Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

52 minutes ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

Oakland Post

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Activism

California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

1 hour ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Shutterstock

By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

Oakland Post

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Activism

California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

Published

2 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Shutterstock

By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”