>> Hello. My name is John Bickers. I'm a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. I'm a PhD candidate in the History Department. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion would like to acknowledge that the land, The Ohio State University occupies is the ancestral and contemporary territory of the Miami, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Delaware, Peoria, Seneca, Wyandotte, Ojibwe and Cherokee peoples.
Specifically, the university resides on land ceded in the 1795 Treaty of Greeneville and the removal of tribes through the Indian Removal Act of 1830. We want to honour the resiliency of these tribal nations and recognize the historical contexts that have, and continue to affect the Indigenous peoples of this land.
>> To all hall of Fame inductees, family and friends, special guests and my fellow Buckeye alumni. I am honored to welcome you to the 2022 Office of Diversity and Inclusion hall of Fame awards ceremony. My name is Tracy Townsend of Ten TV and as a proud Buckeye alumna, this is a special night for me.
Tonight we are joining together to honor four transformational figures with Ohio state ties, who have made integral and sustained contributions in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. These are pioneers and agents of change who personify the core values of inclusive excellence, collaboration, respect and civility as they seek greater justice and equity.
Tonight, we honor Judge Yvette McGee Brown, Doctor Frederick Aldama, Miss Monica Ramirez, and Doctor Quinn Capers IV. This quartet that we will get to know better tonight includes a former state supreme court justice, an educator, a lawyer for farmworkers, and a cardiologist. While they each have their own unique story, they share a common thread of working tirelessly to promote inclusive excellence.
As we get this party started, we turn first to the man behind this special night, Doctor James L Moore III, the vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at the Ohio State University. Doctor Moore, take it away.
>> Thank you to everyone for joining us tonight.
My name is James Moore and I am the vice provost and chief diversity officer at the Ohio State University. We are proud tonight to be inducting, the second class of honorees in our office of Diversity Inclusion hall of Fame. They join the twelve icons that made up our inaugural class.
As we will learn tonight, our four honorees each have done so much to help change our world for the better. Tonight, we honor a pop culture professor, who worked tirelessly to expand educational opportunities for Latinx students. A trailblazing Ohio Supreme Court justice, who started innovative programs to curb sexual abuse, drug dependency and school truancy.
A young lawyer who saw the pain of sexual violence up close, and started the first legal project to help farm worker women. A cardiologist who sparked a revolution in medical school admissions, that opened doors on our campus and across the country to a more diverse group of student doctors.
Each has a distinct story, but all are bound together by the desire to make change after seeing family members heard. As one of tonight's honorees, Doctor Frederick O'Donnell, said recently, I quote, we have to remember the superheroes in our own family and community that have overcome big challenges for us, they are with us and all around us, end quote.
So this is about these four men and women, flesh and blood, who walk among us. But it is also about the people and places that influenced them in the past, that they were propelled down by the obstacles their family members face. These individuals serve as an inspiration and a reminder that we too can succeed in the face of the challenges in our own lives.
In a country where we are often divided and mistrustful of each other, the urgency of our work has never been greater. We must hold America to her promises of equality and justice for all by seeking to change the systemic inequalities, that confront our country. We must understand that while the struggle is inevitable, progress is not.
Thus, we must continue to find new ways to shatter the status quo and lift up those who have been left behind. I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank our hall of Fame co chairs, Kimberly Lowe Michaela and Yolanda Zappetta, as well as ODI's advancement team, for all of the hard work that they put into making tonight a success.
They make us all look good here at ODI, And I am very proud of how this ceremony highlights, the profound accomplishments of our honorees. We are going to hear next from a transformational leader, who's moving us forward towards a brighter future, Ohio State President Christina M Johnson. She knows, as I do, that our beloved university has such power that our actions, like her recent plan to offer debt free undergraduate degrees, can shape the very foundation of higher education.
President Johnson, the floor is yours.
>> Thank you, Doctor Moore. And congratulations to the four newest members of the Ohio State Office of Diversity and Inclusion hall of Fame. As we celebrate your incredible contributions, I extend my gratitude to the hall of Fame co chairs and the entire team at ODI.
Your work on tonight's event and your tireless efforts each day are making us an even more inclusive community. As Doctor Moore said, the Ohio State University has the power to shake the very foundations of higher education. It's true. Together, we can reimagine the promise of a college degree and the purpose of a university, for our time.
How can we accomplish this? By doubling down on our founding mission of service. By facing challenges in our own community and in those we serve with clarity and compassion. And by leveraging Ohio State's incredible size, scale and spirit to be the absolute model of a land grant university for the 21st century.
An example of this in action is the scarlet and gray advantage program, which will create pathways for our undergraduates to earn their degrees debt free. This will have a profound impact on every buckeye who participates and our first generation and minority students. Students in particular, we're forging partnerships like the Steam Rising Initiative, in which Ohio State, the city of Columbus, Columbus city schools, and Columbus State Community College are helping young people in our city achieve success in science, technology, engineering, the arts, mathematics, and medicine.
Taken together, these programs will encourage more students from diverse backgrounds to pursue a college degree, to earn it without taking on debt, and to graduate ready to achieve their dreams. There's no truer expression of our commitment to help all people achieve the extraordinary. We are proud of our work, yet we know there's so much more to do.
I'm deeply grateful to have the examples of our four honorees to guide us. Justice Yvette Magee Brown, a pioneering jurist, lawyer and public servant. Miss Monica Ramirez, an attorney and activist dedicated to giving a voice to those society often ignores. Doctor Frederick Louise Aldama, a scholar whose work is making sure everyone knows they can be a hero.
And Dr.Quinn Capers IV, who is committed to remaking the way we think about admissions and bias in healthcare and higher education. Each of you is an inspiration, you give us the courage to do what is right, and the conviction to endure for as long as it takes. Thank you, and congratulations once again, we are honored to call ourselves buckeyes because of you.
>> Thank you, President Johnson, and Doctor Moore. We turn next to a young artist, Atlas, the poet, who will be performing an original spoken word piece honoring inductees, judge Yvette Magee Brown and Doctor Quinn Capers IV. Atlas powerful piece reflects on their legacy of activism, and how they were able to challenge society's preconceived narratives.
Atlas, the stage is yours.
>> They question, who advocates for those forced to walk the tightrope? Balancing hyper visibility and exclusion, those left homeless and framed as outliers, outcasted by society, coerced and consumed in the vacuum of people's perception. This cycle of abuse, we've seen rinse and repeat across communities and legislation, where we are judged by the establishment's lack of imagination, how quickly they'll dismiss facts, unable to be illuminated by the light.
And how it is chiseled by the dark, are resolve testing, in a medical apartheid where brown black bodies are battlefields for implicit bias, where words become bullets, policies tattooed skin deep, leaving charred fragments we pull from our hearts so we don't recreate the malice. It is this experience that makes us the best teachers, purveyors of mind, body and soul.
Still, we go against narratives of how society purports black men, black women, it is baffling to them that we too, are masters of matters of the heart. That we too interpret law fair and justly, leaving no doubt that black girl is human, instead of intrinsically addict, leaving no doubt that black boy is human, instead of inherently criminal, stereotype shells we were forced to wear as flesh.
It took a first of many, the first black woman justice on the Ohio supreme court, a black man leading and furthering discussions on prejudice in the medical field. Centering margins who are suppressed by the quiet, with the belief we will not be turned down forever, together birthing a vision of diversity and inclusion, wrestling history, the past and present for the future, no longer waiting for tomorrow, today we exist.
In a perfect sentence our stories matter, and they were ordained by God. This is the supreme justice, to acknowledge, we didn't stumble upon excellence. We were made in its rigor, and its practice persisted when tears danced on cheeks, trailblazed our own paths, on forks and roads, providing education and opportunities for people who look like we.
Because we Doctor Quinn Capers the Honorable Yvette McGee Brown advocates for us.
>> Thank you, Atlas, for your stirring words. Our first honoree tonight is Judge Yvette McGee Brown, who made history as the first black woman named to the Ohio Supreme Court. Let's learn more about her journey from the east side of Columbus to the state's highest court.
>> Born to a teenage single mom on Columbus's east side in 1960, Yvette McGee Brown grew up in a home dominated by two strong women, her mother Sylvia, and her maternal grandmother Eunice. Their influence on me was pretty profound, they didn't accept excuses and told me to always be the best prepared person in the room.
Life is tough, it's not a spectator's sport. If you want to be on a leadership level, you need to prepare yourself for that leadership level, said McGee Brown during a recent interview. As a senior at Mifflin High School, Magee Brown audaciously cold, called US District Court Judge Robert Duncan, a 2021 ODI hall of fame inductee.
For a class assignment, asking him to explain his recent landmark Columbus Public Schools desegregation decision, he spent over an hour patiently answering my questions, and we developed a friendship. He was just the epitome of grace and intellect and a really powerful role model. After graduating from Ohio University in 1982, McGee Brown headed to the Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.
After a stint working in the Ohio Attorney General's Office, the 32 year old lawyer was recruited by local democrats to run for juvenile court judge in 1992. Against the odds, McGee Brown won a victory, launching a career in public service, that has spanned decades. Choosing to go to Ohio State was probably the best decision of my life, I found a community of support there that really helped me to have the courage to do everything I've done in Ohio and Columbus.
While on the juvenile court bench, McGee Brown broke new ground by starting a family drug court initiative as well as an innovative school truancy intervention program. I wanted to be somebody who could help prevent kids from ending up in front of me. Worn down after nearly a decade on the bench, McGee Brown founded the center for Child and Family Advocacy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in 2002.
I think the thread that runs through my career is that I really care about the community, I wanted something different for the kids that grew up like me. After losing a bid for lieutenant governor, as governor Ted Strickland's running mate in 2010, McGee Brown was named to an open seat on the Ohio Supreme Court, becoming the court's first black female justice.
McGee Brown said her lived experiences brought a new perspective to the back room discussions of the court. I know it made a difference, I could talk about the impact of our decision on people out. In the community in a way that the other six justices couldn't. A lawyer for the past nine years with the powerhouse firm of Jones Day, McGee Brown still leans on the lessons her mother and grandmother taught her long ago.
It's amazing how lucky you get when you're prepared, learn your craft, work hard, and opportunities will present themselves. I'm enormously grateful for where I am and the small contributions that I've been able to make. Supported all along by her husband Tony, and their three adult children, Belinda, Laura, and David, McGee Brown sees a rising generation of lawyers of color who are pushing for more representation and authority in high powered legal circles.
I think back to when I was a young lawyer, being the only one in the room, and now we've raised a generation of young people who have gone to the best schools. They are used to having diversity around them, they are not willing to accept being the only one in the room.
>> What does this award mean to me? I know Judge Duncan received this honor, and he was a mentor of mine. In fact, he was the first black man I saw in my community who had a position of authority. And when I took my oath for the Ohio Supreme Court, Judge Duncan came up to me and he said, I could not be more proud of you if you were my daughter.
And so for me, being in a space where he is, like joining the hall of fame where he is, it's humbling, first of all, but really, it's just an honor. I meet so many young people who say, I wanna be a leader, I wanna be an elected official.
And I go, why? What's your why, right? Why are you doing this? You can't aspire to leadership because it's about you, you've gotta one, prepare yourself, and then what you do is let your passion lead you. But you gotta make sure that you are the person you wanna be.
Because if you're going to lead, you gotta have something to say, and you gotta have people willing to follow you. So take the time, prepare yourself, the future is long, and you'll have a chance to add your voice, but you need to be able to do it from a place where there is respect for who you are, right?
That people believe in why you're doing it, and that they want to follow. My decision to go to Ohio State, best decision I ever made, not only did I have an excellent legal education, but I found community. And you can't say that at every school, right? I found community, people who supported me, not just in law school, but as I launched my career.
It's why I continue to pay forward. I'd like to thank, my grandmother's not alive, but I'd like to thank her, I mean, I think that she was a strong woman, she gave me strength, she gave my mother strength. My mother was a teenage mother, she didn't know anything about being a parent.
And my grandmother gave her the strength to raise me and my two younger brothers. I really wanna thank Barbara Rich and Dean Henderson and the deans that have come after them. I love the dean that we have now, Dean Davies and Dean Michaels, Dean Allen Michaels before him.
Those people have kept the Law School focused on diversity in challenging times. I never wanted to be just a judge, just a judge sentencing people, if I couldn't make a difference, I didn't wanna be there.
>> As the first African-American woman to serve on the state Supreme Court, as well as the first African-American woman to be elected to the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, you have shown our students what is possible.
At the same time, your devotion and commitment to advocating for the marginalized and to pursuing the value that diversity is, excellence is unmatched. Yvette, you are not just a friend of the college, you are an advocate for the college, serving on our national council and our time and change campaign.
And showing others what it really means to advance the college's interests, and that those interests and the interests of diversity and inclusion and equity are one and the same. I couldn't be happier for you, Yvette, I couldn't be prouder to have you as an alum and as a friend.
Congratulations, you're the best.
>> Yvette, your contributions to the Morris community have been boundless. The impact you've made on the college by funding scholarships, advocating for diversity, and mentoring law students has shifted the culture in the College of Law. Because of your long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion and your fight for visibility and equity in the groups you represent.
I see diverse individuals ranging from students to faculty throughout the Law School building. I wanna take this time to once again say thank you for all that you've done for me and others in the community. The legacy you leave behind will continue to inspire the next generation of leaders.
Thank you.
>> You have showed black girls everywhere that there is nowhere we can't go. And beyond being the example you have lifted as you climbed, you're a champion and a resource to so many so that while you were the first, you won't be the last. You have inspired me and showed me how to be a great lawyer and leader, thank you, and congratulations.
>> From the first day that I met you, I knew you were someone special, and I honestly can say that a lot of people probably feel the same way that I do. And having you as a mentor and friend has truly inspired me to continue to better myself.
Your advocacy and legacy at OSU, specifically at Moritz, will never, ever be forgotten. You have entirely shifted the culture where everyone has an equal opportunity, and I think it's fair to say that, honestly, without you, I might not be sitting here. So I really hope to one day follow in your footsteps and continue to just advocate for the visibility and equity for minorities.
And just congratulations again on this well-deserved award.
>> Our next honoree tonight is Doctor Frederick Aldama, a longtime Ohio state professor who has helped generations of Latinx students reach their dreams. Let's learn more about how a young man born in Mexico City landed in the classrooms of higher education.
>> Growing up in the mid-1970s in rural California after immigrating from Mexico, young Frederick Aldama began to make sense of his puzzling new world in the pages of comic books. Not only did comics like X-Men and the Fantastic Four allow Aldama to build his English vocabulary, but they served as a safe harbor from a hostile Anglo world that told him he didn't belong.
Those comics were really important because they showed superheroes that were a little bit different. These were superheroes that society had decided didn't fit in. For someone who had been made to feel different, to suddenly encounter these great characters made a huge difference. Also making a huge difference for Aldama was his single mother, Charlotte, a schoolteacher who defied state law by teaching migrant children in Spanish and English in a poor rural school district.
How could you not want to carry that forward? She ended up getting sick from all of the pesticides on the fields there. She really gave her life to making a difference for children and education. There is no bigger inspiration for me than my late mom. Driven by his mother's example, Aldama built a career as an educator around his love for comic books and other pop culture phenomenon, while never forgetting his background as a Mexican immigrant.
After coming to Ohio State as a faculty member in the mid 2000s, after getting his PhD at Stanford, Aldama created the Latinx space for Enrichment and Research pathways program, also known as LASER. Internship programs for Latinx students and the SOL-CON Latinx Comic Fest. Throughout a storied academic career, Aldama's calling has always been to help young people.
Making a difference is a big driver for me, role modeling and mentoring, but also in all of my scholarship, opening doors for people to see our stories and understand that our representation matters. LASER, which featured a 3-tiered mentoring program that began at the high school level, became a pipeline for Latinx students, as well as a community.
Where students from a variety of disciplines met regularly to solve everyday issues facing the diverse Latinx population. I saw all of these really talented young people, and they weren't where they needed to be, Aldama said. They weren't in a great educational environment like OSU. They were being told to go work in factories.
Across his 15 years as a professor at Ohio State, Aldama credits the support of ODI leadership for believing in his vision for expanding educational opportunities for students of color. By believing in me and supporting me, we were able to move mountains and create something absolutely incredible. In 2021, Aldama announced a new direction for his career, heading to Austin, Texas, where he will be chair of the humanities department as well as director of the Latinx Pop Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.
After dozens of scholarly books focused on Latino comics, as well as other media like TV, film, and graphic novels, Aldama earned his own superhero nickname, Professor Latinx. For the Latinx comics community to christen me, that was just like the biggest honor ever, he said. A prolific writer and editor, Aldama has even branched out in new directions, writing a celebrated children's book, the Adventures of Chupacabra Charlie, as well as authoring a young adult novel.
Meanwhile, the Latino graphics book series edited by Aldama continues to bring the voice of emerging Latinx authors to the world. For Aldama, his work as a teacher and as an advocate for Latinx voices has the same goal, seeking new ways to make a positive difference in the world.
When asked what keeps him motivated and inspired, Aldama said, I wake up to and even go to sleep and dream about the ways that I can transform the world that I live in.
>> This award means to me, the world, of course. And it is a huge, huge honor to be recognized at this level.
Hall of Fame, the Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion, it is the pinnacle, it's the summa, it's the top of the mountain, really. So, gosh, I mean, it was surprising to hear, and it's a huge honor to be recognized by this award. The advice I would give to future generations of agents, activists, those who want to make tomorrow a better place, is that we are constantly faced with challenges and roadblocks.
Things that are thrown in our way to stop us from actually doing the things that we want to do to make a better tomorrow, but not to give up, but to think of ways to work around the roadblocks, or under, or over. Whenever anybody says no, it's a no in their mind, but we have to be creative, and we need to think and imagine of ways that we can turn that no into a yes.
Going back to some of the key leadership figures that were in my life very actively, Valerie Lee, Dr. James Moore, Yolanda Zepetta, others on the campus who, when I brought them a vision of change, they didn't say no. They saw the vision and they opened the doors for the possibility for me to actually make that vision happen through resources.
And those figures at OSU really, really prepared me for that kind of conversation with upper administration, with those who can allow us to do and make change.
>> Frederick is an incredible teacher, and he is an outstanding professor who is really differentiated from the rest of professors I've known, because Frederick genuinely cares about students, and he puts students first.
He brings student work to the forefront, and he's especially interested in bringing minority students to the table. He always stands by his students and helps them get ahead and believe in themselves, and that's what makes Frederick a really great nominee for this award, thanks.
>> I think what's sort of most foundational to Dr. Aldama's impact with graduate students, and for me especially, is his willingness to be a very generous collaborator.
I so appreciate the ways in which he has created spaces for me and others to have so many professionalization opportunities. I'm so glad to see that Dr. Aldama is being recognized in the Hall of Fame. I'm so grateful for his impact on me and just for the legacy that he has in general, for really being so committed to the work that so many of us aspire to do as well.
So thank you, Dr. Aldama, I really appreciate you.
>> Dr. Aldama Fredrick, congratulations. You have made such a difference in my life, and I will be celebrating that throughout my professional career at every level. And when I turn around and figure out if there's something that I can do for a student, if there is a door that I pass through and I can figure out how to widen it.
That's the kind of thing that, I get to pay forward because of the kind of mentorship that you offered me, and I will value that forever, congratulations. Frederick Luis Aldama's legacy has been a true inspiration to me as a Latina PhD student studying in the humanities at the Ohio State University.
He continuously makes room for the next generation of Latinx voices to be heard and seen in historically challenging spaces. His dedication to helping BIPOC scholars, artists, writers, editors, filmmakers, and illustrators flourish is a beacon of hope for social justice and culturally diverse change. I can only hope to one day generate as much of an impact for Latinx youth.
In the United States as he has.
>> We're already halfway through our celebration of our four honorees tonight. For a halftime show, we turn next to the captivating Javier Sanchez, an author, performer, and speaker. Javier has written an original spoken word piece celebrating the deep and abiding commitment of our honorees to social justice, take it away, Javier.
>> Scary stories aren't just told in the dark. They are intentionally told in the light. Bright screens beam images of scary stories about 21st century savages. Stories being told on global stages and political halls, and by fair and balanced commentators, ivory tower pontificators who make sport of being spectators and fear escalators.
Escalating scary stories of brown bodies being nothing more than couriers of COVID, crime, and drugs. Of brown bodies only being capable of rape, murder, and acts of terror. Be afraid, be very afraid of scary brown bodies from scary brown countries. And if you see brown bodies at the border, never forget the scary story that their koofy, turban, or hijab was probably torn off in the brush.
That brown bodies could come from anywhere. But we'll never know, because all brown bodies, just like all black bodies, look alike, act alike, crook alike, attack alike, walk alike, talk alike, and in the darkness, they stalk alike. Brown bodies that glisten in the sun would be better off melting before they even reached the pot.
We built pyramids that kiss the sky, but brown bodies must never even try to reach the top. So scary stories are told in the light so that white bodies will think alike, chain-link alike, fear stoke alike, and hopefully, vote alike. But not tonight, tonight we glorify those brown bodies that defend the light.
Latinx men and women who sift through the shadows of mutated DNA found in dreams and dreamers. Yes, children who arrived and were promised deferred action are called dreamers. But let's not forget that dreams are where scary stories told in the light come to life. So we honor our dream warriors, our advocates, our torch bearers.
With fire and bone, pen in hand, passion and purpose in heart, they bring true light to life. Monica Ramirez isn't just shattering glass ceilings, she's shattering glass cages. Her love letters give name to the nameless and face to the faceless. Doctor Fredrick Aldama uses his Latin X-ray vision to see the unseeable, touch the untouchable, free the unfreeable, and love the unlovable.
We refuse to believe that our only not so superpower is invisibility. So we scream from South Africa to South and Central America, and everywhere in between. The Zulu greeting, which literally means I see you. Monica Ramirez, Doctor Fredrick Aldama, the Honorable Yvette Mcgee Brown, Doctor Quinn Capers, we see you, we feel you, we hear you, we are you.
We are warmed by your fire and forevermore emboldened by your not so scary stories being told in the light.
>> That was fantastic, Javier. Our third honoree tonight is Monica Ramirez, a lawyer who created the first legal project focused on addressing sexual harassment and other forms of gender discrimination against farmworker women.
Let's hear about her rise from growing up in small town Ohio to the forefront of the fight for farmworker rights.
>> Born into a family of former migrant workers in a small Ohio town, Monica Ramirez was 14 years old when an article in her local newspaper detailing the return of seasonal fishermen got her attention.
The teenager had a question for the paper's editors, why were migrant workers who were returning to town at the same time as the fishermen being ignored? I don't think I would have asked those kinds of questions without parents who encouraged me and my siblings to be curious and to be engaged in the community, Ramirez said.
I think today you would call us woke kids. Ramirez's challenging questions eventually led to freelance reporting for the paper and later regular opinion pieces in a column entitled the Voice of the People. That she wrote during her teenage years detailing the contributions of the migrant communities and Latinx community members in Northwestern Ohio.
And that column laid the foundation for a career in activism focused primarily on eliminating gender-based violence and securing gender equity for female migrant workers, Latinas, and immigrants. It wasn't enough to tell the stories in the newspaper, said this granddaughter and daughter of migrant workers during a recent interview.
I wanted to be involved in a tangible way to win justice, her efforts to win justice, sparked in part by seeing the pain of sexual violence in her own family. Have been supported by a broad-based network of support for migrant worker women stretching from rural farm fields to Hollywood backlots.
Ramirez's quest for greater justice for farm worker women brought her to the Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law in the early 2000s, where she was one of only a handful of Latinx students in the program. While a law student, Ramirez began to do research that laid the groundwork for the migrant justice project.
The first legal project in the country focused on sexual harassment and other forms of gender discrimination against farmworker women. My professors really helped me to refine my goals and made sure the classes I was taking were relevant, she said. Farmworker women experience sexual harassment and violence at staggering rates.
For Ramirez, this societal problem has a personal face as she has seen family members and friends struggle from the impact of sexual violence. I knew farmworkers were experiencing this problem at high rates, but it didn't seem like anyone had been in a position to take it on in a systemic and wide scale manner.
Scaling up her initial project that she created with a postgraduate fellowship, Ramirez founded Esperanza, the immigrant women's legal initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center. As well as the Bandana Project, an art activism project to raise awareness about workplace sexual violence. She co-founded the first national farmworker women's initiative, Alianza Nacional De Campesinas, in 2012.
On the heels of helping to create this coalition in 2014, Ramirez founded Justice for Migrant Women, a national advocacy project focused on representing female farmworkers. The thread running through all of her efforts has been cultivating a sense of community and expanding the network of support for farmworker women into some unlikely places.
I live in rural Ohio, there aren't many Latinos where I live, I was always making bridges, that's just part of how I was brought up. I've spent my whole life building connection and community, I have worked to help people feel less isolated and feel less alone in the world.
While Ramirez had long been a leading advocate for farmworker women, her bridge building made the leap to the national stage. In 2017 when she wrote Dear Sisters, a letter of solidarity supporting actresses undergoing sexual violence in their industry, which sparked the time's up movement in elite Hollywood circles.
She wrote this letter in her capacity as the board president of Alianza, there's a world of difference between us in many ways, but we have this one thing that we both Understand, we realized that we could take that one thing and come together to use it to bring change, said Ramirez.
Since then, she has expanded her advocacy toolbox to include policy, storytelling and culture shift initiatives. As Ramirez looks to the future, she plans to seek new ways to bring attention and energy to her lifelong commitment to social justice for farm worker women, immigrants and Latinx community members. For those who want to support her work, Ramirez said they can begin by talking about the abuse migrant worker women face with their family and friends.
The truth is that change starts at home, she said. We're trying to change people's hearts and minds, and the most important hearts and minds that we can influence are those closest to us.
>> First of all, I'd love to thank the Ohio State University family for being such a wonderful family and kind of bringing me up in my education but as just the continuing support and for this award nomination, I'd love to thank the Law School and Doctor Faulas for thinking of me.
This award for me is an opportunity for other kids to see people like me continuing to thrive and follow our dreams. So this award for me isn't so much about me, it's about all the people who are looking up and dreaming so that they can see that they can do anything that they want to be no matter where they come from, no matter who their family is.
There are people who are breaking through and I'm proud to be an example of one of those people. The advice that I would give to advocates and agents of change who are coming up, first of all, we see you, you are changed now, don't let anybody tell you your tomorrow's change because your today's change.
And I would tell them to just keep opening doors and more importantly, to make sure that when they open a door that they don't close it, they leave it open and they bring others with them. Because none of us have set out to do what we do to be the first and only, we've set out to be the first and more.
I want people to see that I embrace my culture, I am proud of my culture. And most importantly, I want those little girls to see that, that we can be exactly who we are and be powerful, we don't have to change that, in fact, that is part of our power.
And so that's what I see, I see this huge responsibility to make sure that they see me showing up authentically, so that they know that they can show up authentically.
>> Congratulations on your induction to the Ohio State University's ODI Hall of Fame. When I was admitted to Moritz, I was asked who I wanted to be my mentor, the obvious answer was you.
Your induction into the ODI Hall of Fame is a testament to the work you've done advocating on behalf of our beautiful community. At the time you left Lawrence, no one else in the nation was committed to doing the work that you began, addressing sexual harassment and gender discrimination against farm worker women.
Your continued advocacy inspires me to keep fighting for the communities that made us who we are. Congratulations again. Thank you for all you've done.
>> Monica, congratulations on your induction into the Ohio State University's Diversity and Inclusion Hall of Fame. From the time you entered Moritz, committed to the causes of immigrant workers, to women especially, and to the challenges that they faced as a part of the migrant working population, your commitment was there in your application.
It continued throughout law school and clearly on into an important and wonderful advocacy career. Even at Moritz, your leadership abilities, your advocacy abilities were apparent as you led the student bar association, as you fostered community not just among other Latino law students, but throughout the college. I thank you for all that you have done and for carrying out the promise that you made to us when you first entered, that you wanted to make a difference in the lives of others, congratulations.
>> Hi Monica. You really did a lot with your words and mostly with your actions to show me that you could do something really incredible with the Moritz degree. And I've been an enthusiastic fan following you online, seeing how you advocate for workers, for women, for the arts, for Latino folks throughout the world.
And I just think you're really great, and I'm glad Moritz is continuing to reiterate that point, congrats.
>> Our final honoree tonight is Doctor Quinn Capers IV, a cardiologist who has sparked a national movement to throw open the doors of medical schools more widely to a diverse student body.
Let's find out more about how he beat the odds to become a cardiologist and activist.
>> Born in Cleveland during the riot torn 1960s, Doctor Quinn Capers was a teenager when his black grandmother was diagnosed with dire medical problems that had gone unnoticed by white doctors in her small Alabama town.
When she went to a black doctor in Dayton, she was immediately diagnosed with things that it was very apparent she was not being diagnosed with in Talladega, Doctor Capers recalled. One way to advocate in the fight against racism and wanting to be a doctor as I did, was to work on these kinds of issues.
Decades later, the struggle his grandmother went through to find good medical care serves as the motivation and inspiration for doctor capers, a cardiologist by trade to fight for greater diversity among the ranks of doctors and other medical providers. It's an issue that the black graduate of Ohio State's medical school has brought national attention to as medical schools across the country revamp their admissions policies.
It all goes back to thinking about my grandmother not getting the healthcare she deserved as a human being, he said. After graduating from Ohio State in 1991 and serving a residency at Emory University, Doctor Capers returned to the university in the late 2000s to build his reputation as one of the nation's preeminent cardiologists.
While serving as the Associate Dean for Admissions at the College of Medicine, Doctor Capers led an effort to remake the admissions process aimed at getting more historically underrepresented minorities in the door in 2012. Just one year later, Ohio State's medical school had doubled the number of first-year students of color, a startling increase that has stayed steady over the past decade.
While the overhaul included a shift to a more holistic review of applicants that factored in life experiences more prominently, the single biggest change occurred after the entire admissions team was tested for unconscious racial bias. When the results came back showing most members had a significant bias against people of color and women, Doctor Capers had one of the world's leaders in uncovering unconscious bias on hand to explain the results.
And then the entire team was explicitly trained in how to find shared interest, counter stereotypes and take another's perspective, all key techniques in reducing unconscious bias. Finding out you have a bias or blind spot can be psychologically distressing, Capers said. The message has got to be that just because this is your unconscious mind doesn't mean you have discriminated or will discriminate, but it does mean that you need to try to do something about it.
The solution didn't mean admitting more prospective doctors of color, but instead to make those interviewing feel more comfortable with coming to Ohio State during the process, according to Doctor Capers. We think it's because we had trained our admissions team And how to combat unconscious bias by smiling, making eye contact more often and in conversation, really trying to recruit them to Ohio State.
These proactive steps to combating unconscious bias and cracking open the admissions door more widely have become a model emulated by dozens of other medical schools across the country who have taken notice of Ohio State's successful push for greater diversity. During his 13 years at Ohio State, Doctor Capers also ensured that every budding doctor learned about the impact of racial health disparities through an annual lecture he gave on the topic to first year students.
I feel proud that I introduced to Ohio State this thought that as we are teaching doctors the ABCs of medicine, we also need to teach them the impact of racism and bias. Now, the associate dean of faculty diversity at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Doctor Capers has mentored dozens of students of color during his career, a relationship that never materialized while he was in medical school.
I never had that, and that's why it's so important for me to be that, he said. As Doctor Capers looks to the future, he sees hope in how academic medical centers are beginning to join the fight for a more inclusive way of practicing medicine. We need to have in the curriculum things that are actively anti racist and lessons in how young doctors can fight racism and bias.
>> My time at Ohio State helped prepare me by showing me the and exposing me to the power of collaboration. So a lot of the things that I achieved, I was only able to achieve them because senior leadership gave me the room to be creative and gave me the thumbs up, gave me the green light to go and do what I felt needed to be done.
And also I had wonderful colleagues who bought into the mission, they believed in what we were doing. And many of the things that I must say that I'm given credit for was absolutely a group effort, a team effort. And so I'm very grateful that Ohio State taught me the power of working in teams.
The patients are my motivation to do the work that I do. Everybody deserves, for when they go to the doctor, when they're sick or they're frightened or they have a problem or something related to their health, they deserve to have a doctor that cares about them, that treats them like they are the most important person in the room, that listens to them intently.
And one way we can achieve this is for doctors to train in diverse environments. The more diversity we have in medicine, the more we'll have these random occurrences where a woman patient will get a woman doctor. Or a native American patient, will get a native American doctor. So my motivation are the patients getting their excellent care.
Advice that I would give to someone that's gonna be an agent of change is to get up every morning and kind of re energize yourself thinking about that one group or that one individual. It might just be one person that you visualize is going to be the recipient of your good works, is gonna be the person that benefits, that has an improved life.
So envision that population, that person that you wanna help, and let that be your motivation and do that often. So, of course, I would like to thank my mother. I would like to thank my wife, my children. I'd like to thank my teachers in the Dayton public school system where I grew up.
There were a couple in particular that took an interest in me and thought I could do something special. My professors at Howard University who prepared me for medical school, and my professors, and then later on, collaborators at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. And then so many people that are just too numerous to name.
>> As an aspiring physician and black man, doctor Caper's leadership and excellence in academic medicine and diversity has and continues to serve as a source of inspiration for me. Further, his dedication to mentorship has helped me, as well as many other first generation medical students, navigate the rigors and niceties of a medical education.
Thank you, Doctor Capers, for your continued commitment to academic excellence, diversity and leadership.
>> Congratulations, Doctor Capers, on this wonderful achievement that celebrates your incredible legacy at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. You helped change the face of medicine, literally. During your tenure, the college had a 44% increase in total medical school applications.
When you started in admissions, only 13% of our medical students were underrepresented in medicine. You grew that number to 26%, a number we continue to achieve year after year. Wherever you go, know that you are still a buckeye. Thank you for all that you have done.
>> Congratulations, Brother Doctor Quinn Capers, for your induction into the Ohio State University Hall of Fame.
It's well deserved. Your leading edge research about implicit bias mitigation serves as a blueprint for medical schools across the United States to inform the full implementation of holistic review.
>> So I applied to the College of Medicine, to Ohio State, simply and only because of Doctor Capers. His work in leadership, in diversity, equity, inclusion, one allowed me to enter medical school with faces and spaces of people who look like me, and that means the world of difference.
My goodness, Doctor Capers is a type of leader that I aspire to be, one who champions the cause of equity and inclusion, but then also who lifts as they climb. Doctor Capers, thank you for being the type of leader that inspires us all. You are more than deserving.
>> For our final performance of the evening, we will hear from Tyiesha Radford Shorts, an Ohio State graduate student in the Art Education Program, a former employee of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Tyiesha will perform a striking poem she composed for the occasion. It's all yours, Tyiesha.
>> And you know our name, children of the diaspora, we are the chosen ones, handpicked and dethroned by the finest thieves this side of creation. You call us afro, sun kissed skin, black as night sky. Watch as we absorb light. See the God in us. Mystical creatures, we are Christlike.
See how we glided on water to these shores. How we fasted for 40 days and 40 nights with no manna in sight. Wrestled with devils in the wilderness while our limbs were stretched and bound, our bodies pressed firmly against cross wood. We are the second coming, sent here to die for your sins.
Here, drink from this cup of unrighteousness. And eat of our flesh, do this in remembrance of us. In remembrance of we, Congolese royalty setting up kingdoms in two hemispheres we are international rulers, call us by our name. Your traitors burned Adinkra symbols into our skin, look close. This ain't no oppressor's mark, these are road maps.
Home watch as we take flight into the mountains, build castles out of thin air, nothingness, and memory. Then burn them to the ground without so much as a snap twig in our wake. We are magicians, making civilization appear out of thin air, making civilized nations appear out of thin air, take a good look.
You know our name? Nos llamas negro, with mouths too small and unholy to speak your native tongue. We secretly speak our mother tongue and yours, we are multilingual. Speak clearly, so we can hear you, call us by our name. You call us maroons, and even that is a name that we are too big for.
So we shake it off, like foremother did Massa's touch after unwanted visits, like forefathers did shackles at the tail end of a Chang Gang call us freedom. See how rebellion courses through our veins. We have been here before, traveling these lands long before criminal columbus and erecting wide nosed monuments in our footprints, call us giants.
Boundless like ocean waters on black sand, arms strong enough to hoist this world onto our shoulders and carry it toward progress call us future. We who know the unknown, the uncertain, we are omniscient and omnipotent. We pray to ourselves for deliverance, because we have always answered our prayers and yours.
Our name, will forever live in the pages of the griot's memory, you know our name, call us by our name.
>> Thank you, Tyiesha, for using your voice to speak truth to power. Well, folks, our time together is coming to an end as the 2022 ODI hall of Fame awards ceremony draws to a close.
I hope you've enjoyed the performances of our poets and learning about the inspirational actions of our inductees. As we close the program, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion would like to thank everyone who made this night possible, especially Judge McGee Brown, Professor Aldama, Miss Ramirez, and Doctor Capers.
The inspiring and passionate lives you've led light the way forward for us as we all work for a brighter and more inclusive future for our students, country, and world. We'll leave you tonight with a song that unites all buckeyes, Carmen Ohio, goodnight, everyone.