This is the first in a series of discussion pieces we’re releasing this month from director john powell on ongoing assaults on our democracy and communities, and how we may respond to and confront them.

Note: This is our 2025 update to the our report published in 2021. Click here to view the original. -- The Othering and Belonging Institute is pleased to unveil a major update and extensive addition to our “Roots of Structural Racism” project...

Introduction The authors have many people to thank, beginning with Arthur Gailes, Phuong Tseng, Chih-Wei Hsu, Joseph Ahrenholtz, Ipso Cantong, Peter Matingly, Karina French, Abby Steckel, Zoya Gheisar, Varun Fuloria and Shahan Shahid Nawaz. Racial...

BERKELEY, CA: A landmark 2021 report from UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute which found racial residential segregation in the United States was getting worse by the decade received a major update Wednesday, with new data, mapping features...

Introduction Segregation is a complicated, nuanced concept, and one that has eluded simple definition and universal measure despite decades of intellectual effort. Some scholars believe that segregation is really a composite of five concepts, while...

On September 28, 2025, Professor john a. powell joined Dean Malcolm Clemens Young at The Forum at Grace Cathedral for a conversation on Belonging Without Othering. In this dialogue, powell explored the urgent need to bridge across lines of race, faith, and ideology at a time of deep social division.

Join us in learning from UC Berkeley’s graduate students in two new policy memos on housing policy for belonging, adapted from their much longer student projects! These memos offer lessons for advocates, funders, legislators, and other change-makers...

This memo is a part of the Community Power & Policy Partnership’s Housing Policy for Belonging, a project aimed at uplifting the great student work happening across UC Berkeley’s campus. We are so grateful to these authors for wrestling their 40 page...

This memo is a part of the Community Power & Policy Partnership’s Housing Policy for Belonging, a project aimed at uplifting the great student work happening across UC Berkeley’s campus. We are so grateful to these authors for wrestling their 40 page...

Editor's note: The ideas expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Othering & Belonging Institute or UC Berkeley, but belong to the author. -- The Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in the 1960s was a movement born from civil...

In the conversation, powell drew on his work at the Othering & Belonging Institute and his own personal journey to highlight how bridging practices can transform divisions into opportunities for deeper connection. He offered practical insights on moving beyond the “us versus them” mindset and fostering belonging in families, workplaces, and communities.

A Six-Strategy Framework Examining How Political and Cultural Leaders Weaponize Gender in Ways that Advance Authoritarianism.

When Caroline Williams thinks about ecosystems, she doesn’t just picture insects pollinating flowers or birds feeding on seeds. She imagines people—students and faculty, scientists and staff—woven together in networks of support and care. “In an...

On August 25, OBI Director john powell joined author and podcast host Krista Tippett for A Sacred Story for Our Time: Wisdom, Practice & Belonging, a Thrive Network event and part of its Rooting in the Sacred series. Their conversation reflected on how spirituality and belonging can help communities navigate a time of deep fragmentation, exploring how new stories, practices, and forms of reverence can bridge tradition and innovation, strengthen our connection to one another and the Earth, and expand our shared imagination for the future.

Curious to see if the fellowship had the same effect on others in my cohort, I asked five fellows how the program impacted their beliefs, purposes, and futures.