On Saturday, March 8th, SEEK students and faculty from a multitude of CUNY schools attended the annual SOMOS Inc. New York conference in downtown Albany. Attendees experienced panels of experts in fields such as healthcare, legislation and education, with the final panel having several assembly members present including Alex Bores, Gabriella Romero and Jonathan Rivera.
SOMOS, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that aims to address the needs of hispanic youth and communities. The SOMOS conference gave SEEK students the opportunity to interact and network with elected officials, learn from experts in educational equity and even visit the Capitol in Albany where Khaleel Anderson, a former SEEK student from Queens College, currently sits as the Assembly Member of Queens’ district 31.
Dissecting the theme “Justice in Action,” several panels discussed changes to state and federal legislation under the Trump administration, preserving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs in New York colleges and universities, accessing healthcare for all, protecting and defending immigrant rights, civic education and more.
“Wherever we have to go, we will fight the fight. DEI, if you remember nothing else, is constitutional. The vast majority of everything we do under the umbrella of DEI is constitutional — and noticeably absent from any of these executive orders, and any of these mandates, is the definition of DEI,” said Kapil Longani, Senior Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs and General Counsel for the State University of New York. “They want you to do their work for them. We aren’t going to define DEI for them.”
Longani, as well as other SUNY college administrators, spoke at the panel to defend DEI programs in schools. On Jan. 21st, newly sworn-in President Trump signed an executive order that effectively criminalized DEI practices in federal organizations on the basis of ending discrimination of race, sex, national origin and other identities to restore “merit-based opportunity.” Recipients of DEI advantages feel a shared anxiety that the federal policy passed may trickle down to the states. Thousands of students enrolled in these programs would be at risk — they could lose their college placements and, without state funding, would not be able to afford tuition to be a student through general admissions.
“When you look at the higher education landscape across the country, you’ve got 4,000 colleges over the last couple of years, more than hundred of them have closed … These are the connective tissue to these communities. In these communities, if you lose these colleges, you lose these jobs. [If] you lose these jobs, you lose the bakery down the street,” said Travis Proulx, vice president of external affairs at Fordham University, on the suffering of colleges and programs due to the DEI shutdown.
Since the Trump administration signed the executive order to ban DEI, colleges were instructed to close down any DEI initiatives or risk loss of funding. 265 colleges across 37 states have made changes or entirely shut down their DEI programs. 13 private nonprofit colleges have closed down since 2023, and the dissolution of DEI would contribute greatly to that number throughout the year.
“In public school, there were so many students who didn’t make it because they didn’t have the support systems they needed,” said Grant Valentine, a speaker at the DEI panel, the Deputy Mayor of the Village of Chestnut Ridge, another Queens College SEEK alumni. Valentine is an example of the success stories that students can potentially experience with DEI programs.
The Knight News also attended the panel titled Advancing Health Equity: Ensuring Access to Longer Acting HIV Prevention & Treatment Products.
“What we know is that New Yorkers with the lowest income are four times more likely to report poor health outcomes than New Yorkers with high income. Black, Brown, and Hispanic populations residing in New York experience higher rates of chronic disease and illness such as high blood pressure, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and premature death,” said Veronica Torres, the project director in health equity at United Way of New York City (UWNYC). Also speaking at this panel were Lyndel Urbano, the senior director of public policy & government relations at Amida Care and Dr. Dee Green, a self-employed Holistic Practitioner.
“It’s an opportunity to build relationships, connect with fellow students, policy-makers, change agents as well as an opportunity to get involved on issues important to them and fellow New Yorkers,” said Kristy Perez, director of the SEEK Program at Baruch College. With the shifting political climate in the United States, it is more important than ever for students to remain active and involved in their communities to make the change they want to see.
