Equity

About the Office of Equity

The Office of Equity is a unit of the County Administrator’s Office which leads collaborative efforts to keep equity at the center of County projects, programs, systems, and day-to-day work. The Office of Equity coordinates systemwide processes and advances the County’s Equity Vision and Mission.

Equity Vision Statement

We envision a county where every individual—across our workforce and communities—has equitable access to the resources, opportunities, and information needed to reach their full potential. We place equity at the core of all operations, ensuring fair practices and just processes to improve outcomes for all.

Equity Mission Statement

The County of Alameda strives to eliminate disparate outcomes with an understanding of past and current impacts of inequitable policies, practices, and procedures. When engaging our workforce and communities, we apply an equity lens to decision making, service delivery, and prioritization of resources. The County is committed to closing gaps with innovative solutions, quality improvement, equity data analysis, and continuous learning.

Framework for Operationalizing Equity

Read below to learn how the County approaches structural change through its equity framework.

Categories for Strategic Action

Categories for Strategic Action define groupings where equity needs might. They include internal and external settings. These categories reflect a comprehensive approach to advancing equity in County of Alameda operations.

Equitable Workforce and Workplace

Equitable Workforce and Workplace focuses on fair, inclusive, and supportive work environments where all County staff—permanent, temporary, and contracted—feel they belong. It emphasizes the use of workforce data to eliminate disparities, as well as staff and leadership development to increase cultural competence.

Equitable Services and Systems

Equitable Services and Systems highlights the importance of using equity to shape how public systems work, as well as how services are designed and delivered so that all residents, regardless of race, gender, zip code, economic status, or circumstance, have a fair opportunity to thrive.

Operational Areas of Impact

While the Categories for Strategic Action describe where equity is focused, the Operational Areas of Impact define how equity is advanced through essential functions, tools, and practices. Together, they form a strategic equity framework that guides the County of Alameda in transforming systems to be more equitable, accessible, and culturally responsive for both residents and employees.

  • Equitable Engagement, Access, and Input ensures that historically underserved communities and County staff have meaningful, culturally relevant opportunities to shape decisions, access opportunities, and inform systems change.
  • Equity Data and Reporting makes disparities visible and actionable through systematic data collection, disaggregation, analysis, and transparency that inform targeted, accountable interventions.
  • Policy, Process, and Practice Improvement drives systems transformation by redesigning institutional policies and practices to eliminate structural barriers and embed equity into daily operations.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) & Language Access (LA)

Commitment to Public Access

The County of Alameda is proud to promote accessibility, inclusion, and equity for all members of our community. We are committed to making sure that everyone can take part in County meetings, programs, facilities, and services.

We follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title II, which means we are committed to supporting public access regardless on one’s ability status. We also follow the Dymally‑Alatorre Bilingual Services Act which sets language access standards in California.

The County works to remove barriers and provide reasonable accommodation, so that people with disabilities and/or who speak language other than English can access our programs, services, and information.

When asked, the County will provide aids or services such as assisted listening devices, interpreters, documents in accessible formats, translated materials, or other tools to help with effective communication. We will also make reasonable changes to policies, facilities, and programs when needed to allow full participation.

Key Definitions

 Getting Specific with Common Terminology. Shared language is foundational to shared action. To advance racial equity and eliminate disparities, there is a need for clarity and understanding of terminology. Specificity helps prevent misinterpretation, supports accountability, and makes equity efforts actionable.

 Why Clarity in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Belonging (DEIJB) Terminology is Important. Clarity is not optional, it is a condition for progress. When terms like “equity,” “diversity,” “hegemony,” and “anti-Blackness” are misunderstood or misused, it distracts from the realities of those most impacted by inequity. Defining diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging (DEIJB) terms with care builds a foundation for alignment, action, and culture change.

Diversity

The presence of differences within a given setting. This includes demographic and social characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, ability status, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic status, religion, housing status, documentation status, and more.

Equity

Equity is the concept of ensuring that everyone has fair and just access to opportunities so everyone can thrive and prosper regardless of how they identify themselves. Equity involves identifying and addressing systemic and structural barriers to ensure the fair distribution of power and resources.

Belonging

Belonging is more than being included. It is a feeling of safety and acceptance that comes when people can be their authentic selves and feel valued as a full member of a team, organization, or community.

Inclusion

Making sure people from different backgrounds have access and are included in decision making in a way that shares power; especially those who have been left out in the past.

Justice

Removing systemic barriers like racism, sexism, ableism, and classism, and rebuilding systems to be fair for everyone. It means addressing root causes, repairing past harm, uplifting marginalized voices, and changing the structures that keep inequities in place.

Intersectionality

A framework coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw that examines how social identities, such as race, gender, and class, overlap and compound to create interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

Structural Racism

A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural norms, and other norms work in reinforce one another to foster racial discrimination through systems such as housing, education, employment, credit, media, health care, and criminal justice.

Racialization/
Ethnicization

A sociological concept used to describe the intent and processes by which ethnic or racial identities are systematically constructed within a society.

Sources (APA Format)

  1. Adapted from National Academies of Sciences E, Medicine. Advancing Antiracism. The National Academies Press; Washington, DC: 2023. Diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM organizations: beyond broadening participation.
  2. Adapted from NAFSA: Association of International Educators, NAFSA’s DEI Terminology.
  3. Adapted from the Othering and Belonging Institute, Glossary of Terms; NAFSA: Association of International Educators, NAFSA’s DEI Terminology; and Cornell University, DEI Glossary.
  4. Adapted from the San Francisco Office of Racial Equity, Citywide Racial Equity Framework.
  5. Adapted from Early Childhood Counsil Leadership Alliance, Justice, Equity, and Belonging; and Kiwi Partners, An Overview of the Differences Between DEI & JEDI.
  6. Adapted from the San Francisco Office of Racial Equity, Citywide Racial Equity Framework; and Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, 1994.
  7. Adapted from Early Childhood Counsil Leadership Alliance, Justice, Equity, and Belonging; and Kiwi Partners, An Overview of the Differences Between DEI & JEDI.
  8. Omi, Michael; Winant, Howard (1986). Racial Formation in the United States / From the 1960s to the 1980s. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-7102-0970-2.