During Wednesday’s first installment of OpenSky’s Policy and Equity Webinar Series, Dr. Cheryl Logan, Superintendent of Omaha Public Schools, recounted addressing the principals in her district and telling them that as a person of color, she doesn’t always feel safe in Omaha.

“There are places that my family says, ‘Don’t go to those places or don’t go off the beaten path,’” said Dr. Logan, who noted that she became the first person of color in her neighborhood when she arrived in Nebraska in 2018. “My neighbors are fantastic but I doubt that they feel unsafe.”

During the webinar, Dr. Logan was part of a panel discussion that explored how disparities by racial and ethnic groups in education, housing, health care and corrections have intersected to create an environment where Nebraskans of color are unable to access the same level of opportunity and general sense of safety as their white counterparts.

In Nebraska, 21% of residents now identify as a racial or ethnic minority, up from just 7% in 1990, said Dr. Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga, with the University of Nebraska-Omaha. This segment of the population is significantly less likely to own a home, have health insurance or graduate high school. Nebraskans of color are more likely to be arrested and disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

These disparities play out in any number of ways throughout the state, but especially with regard to health care, housing, corrections and education, the panel agreed. For example, historical housing policies like redlining have confined many Black Nebraskans to formerly redlined districts while their white counterparts moved to the suburbs, said Dr. Erin Feichtinger of Together Omaha. These formerly redlined areas now have high rates of code violations and evictions, leading to depressed property values and conditions that reaffirm racist stereotypes that are founded on a long history of racist housing policies.

“Black people and communities of color didn’t just decide not to move to the suburbs,” along with white Nebraskans, “they were excluded from doing so” by these policies, Dr. Feichtinger said.

A lack of stable housing can also impact access to education, Dr. Logan said. Schools don’t have the ability to ignore community conditions and so housing and public health issues must be considered in ensuring children can get to school, even when those matters are entirely out of the district’s control.

With regard to public investment in health care, Dr. Donna Polk of the Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition, said that, while communities of color are disproportionately underrepresented when it comes to health coverage, she’s optimistic that Medicaid expansion will help those who are eligible to access care, especially mental health care.

A lack of access to mental health care and a long history of “failed policies” like the “War on Drugs” have resulted in the mass incarceration of people of color, who are disproportionately represented in Nebraska’s correctional system, said former Sen. Danielle Conrad, now of ACLU-Nebraska. High incarceration rates come at a significant fiscal cost to the state, Sen. Conrad said.

“Every dollar that’s put into our correctional system and juvenile justice system is a dollar we’re not sending to the schools, it’s a dollar we’re not investing in economic opportunity or health outcomes, or building stable housing,” she said.

You can watch a recording of the webinar here and you can download a PDF version of Dr. Gomez-Aguinaga’s slide presentation here.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, you can still register for the remaining webinars in our Policy and Equity Series, which will be held every Wednesday in October at 10 a.m. Next Wednesday’s webinar will take a look back at historical policies in the areas of housing, corrections, worker protections and taxes featuring:

  • Dr. Palma Joy Strand, Professor at the Creighton University Law School;
  • Dr. Mark Foxall, Community Service Associate at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and former Director of the Douglas County Corrections Department;
  • Michael Leachman, Vice President for State Fiscal Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and
  • Abbie Kretz, Lead Organizer at the Heartland Workers Center.

More about this webinar will be published soon.