Updates

Design Justice Portland has been an active node of the international Design Justice Network (DJN) since its start in January 2023. Thanks to Victoria Barnett's help as the network coordinator, our local node was supported during its launch and early work. Over time, with Victoria's departure and a lack of activity from the network, the node became more isolated and less supported. We felt great gratitude for Rene Joy's continued support in posting and communicating about our events, and for the $2000 in funding that we received from the Care Pod team, lead by Denise Shanté, to continue and support our PDX node — but general node support wasn't continued at a network level. We learned a lot from our work on the ground and online, but still lacked the resources to keep up the momentum.  

In November 2024, activity began at the parent network level when members called a general assembly, and emails from members and the DJN Steering Committee with overdue updates and financial records began to circulate. The details felt unclear, but it was apparent that a tension was building over harm done to past contractors. Meanwhile, the Portland node transformed into a monthly meetup group with minimal programming to help keep the node alive with fewer resources and capacity while focusing on building relationships locally. 

The DJN Steering Committee shared its plan for 2025 with Gaby Tirta (Design Justice Portland's co-organizer) as part of the strategic planning outreach. After talking to members at a Portland meetup, the node shared feedback with the Steering Committee, prioritizing accountability for harm done to contractors. On April 30, the steering committee held a meeting to share the strategic plan. They quickly acknowledged the conflict and a plan to hold a separate forum to address it, however, the forum didn't appear in the plans presented. They showed no sign of apologies or regret. They promised to share a recording of the meeting, which hasn't been shared yet at the time of this statement.

Design Justice Portland stands in solidarity with the network's past contractors. The node is on an indefinite pause until the DJN Steering Committee takes steps towards true accountability and restoration of trust with contractors and members. Past contractors shared a collective letter detailing their experiences. There hasn’t been a response from the DJN Steering Committee. In this letter, the co-writers also shared hopes for collective change to help move us forward, which you can read an excerpt of below.

Design Justice Portland will only continue to exist as part of a Design Justice Network if the DJN steering committee honors the requests above and intentionally puts into practice the principles on which it is built. 

We know that organizing, designing, and being in relation with each other is often messy. It feels important to stay connected with each other to keep our network active during this time of fracture and division. We're doing our best to listen and learn from the current situation and not rush into action, which might be more destructive than constructive.

Right now, Design Justice Portland will focus on archiving our node experiences. The website will be updated with the latest news. Thank you for staying engaged and for your support. If you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, you can share them with us at hello@designjusticepdx.com.

Below are the collective change excerpts co-written by Victoria Barnett, Denise Shanté Brown and Rene Joy for your reflection and action:

“ Our hopes for collective change from DJN Steering Committee members and design justice movement space at large include:

• Practitioners of design justice bringing forward questions like ours in your own spaces to express your experiences applying Design Justice Principles within your communities beyond the Design Justice Network. We hope you:

• Move at the speed of trust and mutual care in your community practice, and as shared in the Design Justice Issue 3 zine, "Design Justice in Action" published by the Design Justice Network itself: "Distance yourself from those who work against your principles. Take time to inform yourself about a company or organization to ensure their values are aligned with yours, before committing to work together." (10 Ways Designers Can Support Social Justice, authored by Una Lee; also available as a post on DJN’s News page and on And Also Too’s studio journal)

• Seek out histories and lineages of this movement work that include embodied examples of liberatory, creative and collaborative practices alongside the names of those often erased—Black stewards, disabled, mad and chronically ill folks, queer and trans communities, and those who continue to be strategically marginalized.

• Resist vesting authority on design justice into individuals or exclusive groups, even in grassroots initiatives; communities impacted by design decide whether design justice principles have been applied in practice, an ongoing and always-emerging determination.

• Engage consistently when you take part in transformative movement trainings and cohorts like those provided by groups such as AORTA and Safer Movements Collective; this consistency is key to creating a culture of a collective understanding and embodied practice of design justice principles and other liberatory values. 

• Members of the Network sharing perspectives as additional portals that surface the impacts of organizing in the Design Justice Network. We hope you:

• Preserve histories and lineages of this movement work, like archiving, intentional memory making and memory keeping, confronting strategic erasure, naming contributors, and citing those who help shape and inform your work in the world.

• Express the hopes and dreams you’ve held and continue to hold for the Network, and the moments of your Network and design practice experiences which gave rise to them.

• Gather with other members to share these histories, memories, hopes, and dreams as inspiration for next and new ways of practicing design justice principles together.

• Design Justice Network’s Steering Committee meeting the need for accountability openly, transparently, inclusive of all Network members, and led by members of the Network who have been most impacted by that lack of these practices as an expression of Design Justice Principles. We hope you:

• Explicitly name the “mistakes” referenced in the newsletter sent the day before Network members held their own assembly.

• Honor and acknowledge Contractors who were present and were contributors to the DJN lineage, history, and projected futures currently being carried forward by SC members as noted in their most recent outreach to local node facilitators.

• Explore a process of telling and sharing the story of how the Principles were written and the Network was formed to better distinguish between foundational experiences in this movement from the book Design Justice Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, which came out much later. 

• Explain the intentional lack of transparent budgeting and reporting to members over the last two years about how their dues are spent, or how institutional funding has been allocated—this funding awarded in part due to characterizing the existence of membership with an international reach as evidence that the Network is a project successfully organized by Steering Committee members.  

• Acknowledge that while Steering Committee is a “volunteer role”, SC members were and are being paid for work like speaking engagements and event facilitation directly related to their being on DJN’s Steering Committee, and compensated at rates or amounts that exceed what Contractors were paid for their work—these opportunities offered in part due to the claim that the Network is actively and successfully organized, authenticating the assumption that the Steering Committee are people of authority on design justice as a practice just by way of being on the Steering Committee.

• Engage all members in deciding the future of the Network and the structure of its leadership and allow them the same opportunities granted to SC to be considered for speaking opportunities, leadership, and training. 

• Distinguish between the movements you are based in and how you’re actively practicing within them versus movements you’re still moving towards, like the radical care, participatory budgeting, and community connectedness described in your April 13, 2025 announcement

• DJN’s fiscal sponsor, Allied Media Projects, providing the holistic support they claim to provide more proactively and consistently. We hope you:

• Engage members of your fiscally sponsored projects to share continual insights on what they currently need for holistic support, individual and organizational resilience and care, and resource building for the liberation movements they create—and collaboratively work to implement the necessary changes.

• Expand the capacity and knowledge your staff has for supporting workers independently contracted with your projects, particularly those who may be contracted to provide essential operations support to your projects in an employee-like capacity, but who have no access to employee-like protections or benefits.”