News & Announcements

The Center on Domestic Violence staff and volunteers are outraged over the Black lives recently lost to racism, white supremacy, and police brutality and grieve their deaths. We honor them in a tradition of solidarity; as we say their names, we claim their presence. We vow to continue our work to end violence in their names and in the name of all people of color lost to police brutality. 

George Floyd, ¡presente! 

Breonna Taylor, ¡presente! 

Elijah McClain, ¡presente! 

Ahmaud Arbery, ¡presente! 

Tony McDade, ¡presente!

The Center on Domestic Violence was founded on the belief that a world where no one would dream of dominating or dehumanizing another person is possible. As a society we have all we need to create that world; we need not wait. 

We believe that everyone has the right to live free from violence or the threat of violence—whether environmental, political, physical, or economic violence at the hands of an intimate partner, family member, religious leader, or police and military authority. Healing from violence and trauma, with support and compassion, is also a fundamental human right. 

We have the power to center the experiences and leadership of Black people and follow their lead.  

We understand history and can change the discourse that excuses homicidal violence directed at people of color, particularly the Black community. 

We can be brazenly honest about how all people of the global majority are targeted by white supremacy and analyze how non-Black people of color are groomed and used to perpetuate the subjugation and oppression of Black people. 

We know that interpersonal violence is intricately connected to every other form of violence. No community or home is safe when the murder of Black men, women, trans people, and children is normalized. 

Our obligation is to change culture and dismantle the institutions that perpetuate or excuse racism, white supremacy, and the violence they engender in whatever form the oppression takes. 

We stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement, protestors that have taken to the streets across our country and all those fighting for change. We renew our commitment to centering racial justice in our academic programming and our national technical assistance and local work with youth.  Immediate steps include: 

• We must begin with ourselves. The staff of the Center has committed to ongoing readings and rigorous discourse on racism to continue our work to unlearn all forms of oppression.
• We will deepen our exploration of the roles the Center can play in effecting change in partnership with allied individuals and organizations. 
• All academic curricula will be reviewed to ensure that racism, colonization, and white supremacy and their connections to gender-based violence are addressed directly. The goal is to prepare students to engage fully in critical conversations around race.
• On-boarding of all students, staff and volunteers of the Center will include required readings and training that speak to the history and impact of racism and white supremacy in our nation, highlighting the leadership of women of color in the movement to end gender-based violence.

Another world is possible. It is within our reach. 

See you on the streets!