About Office of Racial Equity

The Office of Racial Equity defends equal access to City jobs and public services from racial injustice. We provide data analysis, policy guidance, citywide technical assistance, and public trust building.

We see across all City departments to identify emerging risks, challenges, and solutions. We provide policy expertise and a systemic perspective that cannot exist within each individual department.

City ordinance requires ORE to:

• Analyze racial equity impacts of pending ordinances.
• Establish a citywide racial equity framework and racial equity indicators.
• Direct all departments to develop and implement mandated racial equity action plans and provide annual progress reports.
• Provide training, technical assistance, and capacity building to departments on racial equity strategies.
• Create tools for departments to assess racial equity in budget decisions.
• Recommend policy priorities for racial equity to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors.

Additionally, all City departments are required to:

• Designate staff racial equity leaders as liaisons to ORE (if annual budget is over $10 million, department must submit a staffing plan to ORE and designate at least one racial equity leader per division).
• Provide staff racial equity leaders with dedicated time for racial equity work and protect them from retaliation.
• Develop racial equity action plans to close disparities in their department workforce and public services
• Department of Human Resources: Work with ORE to release annual race/ethnicity and gender data about the City’s workforce.
• Controller’s Office and City Administrator: Work with ORE to develop processes and systems to gather race/ethnicity and gender about the City’s contracts.

San Francisco does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, national origin, creed, ethnicity, age, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, ancestry, color, medical condition, genetic characteristics, gender identity, marital or domestic partner status, parental status, veteran status, height, weight, or any other basis protected by law.

Equity Advisory Committee

The Equity Advisory Committee (EAC) is a community advisory committee for the Human Rights Commission. It includes up to 15 members who live or work in San Francisco. The EAC provides recommendations on equitable City programs and policies. Its purpose is to ensure community perspectives are reflected in decisions by the Commission, Mayor's Office, and Board of Supervisors.

Citywide Racial Equity Strategy Table

The Citywide Racial Equity Strategy Table (CREST or Strategy Table) is a staff advisory committee for the Office of Racial Equity. Its core membership includes up to 20 senior staff from City departments. The Strategy Table advises and supports ORE in delivering initiatives required by law and analyzing the racial equity impacts of pending legislation.

With the establishment of ORE, San Francisco joins a national movement for local and state governments to remedy the inequitable outcomes they have created and to prevent racial injustice throughout our society.

In response to persistent racial disparities in San Francisco, the City and County of San Francisco established the Office of Racial Equity (ORE) as a division of the Human Rights Commission in July 2019.

The authorizing legislation for ORE was passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors and Mayor under the leadership of Supervisors Sandra Lee Fewer and Vallie Brown. This was the result of successful advocacy and organizing by Black City workers, labor leaders, and community members.

We are guided by a commitment to human rights and racial justice:

• We act with integrity and center our shared humanity.
• We dig for root causes and look upstream for lasting solutions.
• We ground truth with the people closest to the problem and pain.
• We lead with rigorous, thoughtful, and high-quality data and analysis.
• We drive individual and institutional self-examination for continuous improvement.
• We hold institutions accountable to dismantling racism.
• We daylight racial disparities and monitor progress toward collective liberation.

Our work will be successful when the City:

• Feels like home for everyone, from the newly arrived to legacy communities of color.
• Respects, trusts, and invests in community expertise, wisdom, and self-determination.
• Reconciles historic wounds by repairing government sanctioned racial harm.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." — James Baldwin