This seminar contemplates and reimagines the role of the American university and how it can be a site of social justice and equity. Black studies can lead these efforts in thinking about and creating the conditions for the university to be more engaged with communities to create a more just world.

Bishop Yvette Flunder is founder and senior pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ in in Oakland, California.

The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity is a co-sponsor of The Sawyer Seminar Series, convened by Department of African and African American Studies and the Center for the Humanities.

The series examines how Black studies can help sustain academic freedom and reimagine democratic higher education. The seminar unfolds through a yearlong series of themed conversations that bring together faculty, students, community partners and national leaders. For a full list of programming please visit: