Design Justice

The College of Design is committed to creating space, policies, and practices within our college that support the inclusion and retention of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and other historically underinvested communities.

Mission & Vision

Our mission is to create anti-racist design approaches through cross-collaboration. Our vision for design justice centers on intentional community relationships that support anti-racist culture shifts, decolonized pedagogy, and the liberation of historically underinvested communities within design academia and industry.

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Design Justice Fund
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Our fund supports design justice initiatives within the College of Design including; design justice courses, scholarships, and events.

Statement of Unity

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities is located on traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of the Dakota People, ceded in the Treaties of 1837 and 1851. We are committed to recognizing the complex history of this land by honoring the truth of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together now. We acknowledge the need to end the violence against missing and murdered Indigenous women– a local and national epidemic which can be traced back to the arrival of European colonizers across Turtle Island. We acknowledge and fight against the legacy of white supremacy and culture of anti-Black racism in our own community, which has led to the murders of Jamar Clark, Philando Castile, George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Winston Smith, and countless other Black Americans across this nation. Black lives matter. We stand with our Hmong, Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander communities against the rise of xenophobic violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognize that words are not enough and we remain committed to the work of eradicating the injustices against all Black, Indigenous, and people of color caused by systemic racism.

Minneapolis skyline