SOC 299: Reproductive Justice: Pathways to Freedom through Community-Engaged Scholarship

What does it mean to be free, or better yet, where do we start even to conceive our freedom? These are questions I often ponder. When I look at my life as a Black person, I see the community and culture within a world that perpetuates White supremacy. I see a world that often denies us our humanity and finds various ways to destroy us even before we draw our first breath. Death, violence, and erasure take on many overt forms, while others are more subtle, indivisible, and are normalized through white logic mixed into medical science. Because of this positionality, such acts are never questioned; they are never interrogated in the manner they rightfully deserve. As such, they persist, and what is left is pain, tears, and cries for help that often go unheard by birthing people. You see, the very concept of freedom is impossible if safety and care are frequently removed from Black birthing people and children. Structural racism, in all its forms, ensures Black birthing people are never too far from acts of death, violence, and erasure. However, because we know where it is located, we know where to imagine pathways to our collective freedom and which group must be protected and at the center of innovation, care, organizing, research, and education. This course/project is built on this concept, and through policies, community engagement, and more considerable harm reduction efforts around mutual aid, I start to walk towards a world not even formulated, a world where care for black birthing people translates to all lives in the communities, I love more than anything.

Key Words: Medical Racism; Black Care Workers; Black Maternal Health Crisis

Reflection on Integrating Community Engagement into Academic Career: 3-stage Action Plan

California's healthcare system, alongside hospitals, continues to fail Black birthing people at alarming rates, with Black mothers experiencing pregnancy-related mortality (i.e., Black Maternal Health Crisis) at 2.8-3.6 times the rate of their white counterparts. This alarming inequity emerges from historical accounts of structural failures that center on (a) racialized implicit bias, (b) unequal access to medical care, and (c) lack of culturally responsive care organization & practice. The response to such harm towards Black birthing people has always been Black care workers (i.e., doulas, midwives, coaches, and healers). Black care workers have undergone rigorous medical treatment, ontologies, and care interventions to help reduce the possibility of medical harm. Statistically speaking, when a Black birthing person has access to a Black care worker, the rate of cesarean decreases, alongside the usage of epidural analgesia during labor. Black birthing people are four times less likely to give birth to an underweight baby, two times less likely to experience birthing complications, and are more satisfied with their birthing experience.

Ultimately, the problem is multifaceted, and the Black Maternal Health Crisis demands an equally comprehensive solution that bridges policy, practice, community engagement, research, and system transformation. Her Health First (HHF) is a Sacramento nonprofit organization founded in 1988 to improve health equity by supporting women in Sacramento County. HHF operates Black Mothers United (BMU), incorporating a multi-pronged approach to increase infant and maternal health equity among pregnant African American women in Sacramento County while conducting complementary prevention and education outreach. The program includes community capacity-building, trauma-informed doula, education, and advocacy support services. While BMU focuses explicitly on Black Maternal Health, our agency also includes other marginalized populations. California State University, Sacramento (Sac State), becomes a critical partner for HHF in their efforts to structurally reduce medical harm in the lives of birthing people and present alternative mechanisms and policies as they pertain to the utilization and dissemination of the Medi-Cal Doula Program and SB 65. Sac State’s role in these partnerships is to (a) conduct participatory action research, (b) expand BMU’s community-driven models to ensure built scalability across Sacramento County, (c) create open-source toolkits (funding guides, policy templates) and training stakeholders statewide, and (d) expand HHF’s BMU program as vital aspects that need to become a standardized model for birthing care. Together, we are committed to (i) prioritizing funding for Black-led birth centers (HHF),(ii) doula training pipelines in high-disparity communities across Sacramento, CA, in which BMU becomes the standardized model, (iii) begin the process of reforming Medi-Cal Doula Program and SB 65 from passive coverage to active equity—guaranteeing enrolled families receive respectful, culturally aligned care, and (vi) build community relations across Academica and organization to develop a research and scholarly endeavors that will translate to community and policy related initiatives.

Action Plan
	Goals	Action Steps	Desired Outcomes
Stage 1	Build strong, equal partnerships between universities and communities by listening, sharing power, and working together on projects that center (a) birthing care, (b) black maternal health crisis (c) community engaged education, (d) advocacy. I want this relationship to focus on respecting community voices and making sure research and actions truly benefit the people most affected by systemic racism and inequality.	Since I already have community-based partners, my first step is to build a relationship with Sac State's Parents & Families Program, Nursing Program, and Public Health Department.	Host listening to sessions with community leaders and members to identify priorities, concerns, and existing assets. Develop shared project proposals based on community priorities (e.g., participatory research, Establish evaluation metrics co-created with communities (e.g., impact on material conditions, not just academic outputs).
Stage 2	Creation of new course(s) that the undergraduate and graduate level that are transdisciplinary in natures center (a) field research, (b) intervention, (c) action-based research development & publications, (d) service learning.	Develop courses in which small cohorts of students can receive academic credit, stipend to engage in research and community engagement around birth care with Black doulas, midwives, coaches around the Sacramento. Develop an aggressive grant writing framework/ecosystem in which faculty members apply to grants jointly with organizational partners.	Grant-funded courses Launch first course/cohort in Fall 2027 By Fall 2030 engaged with at least 100 students in the course By 2030 have enough funding the sustain the course moving forward.
Stage 3	Establish a research lab dedicated to address the Black Maternal Health Crisis	HHF and Sac State will establish the Community Black Care Lab (CBCL). CBCL will operate according to the following: (a) strategic community-driven care models that directly inform policy-related changes around reproductive health, (b) the creation of transdisciplinary courses at Sac State that center reproductive justice, and (d) standardized outcome measures to assist and evaluate BMU, Medi-Cal Doula Program and SB 65.	Community-led data collection (e.g., surveys documenting Black birthing people’s experiences with Medi-Cal) Legal/policy analysis (e.g., comparing doula reimbursement rates across states to advocate for equity) Fellowships for marginalized leaders to lead research (e.g., formerly incarcerated birth workers analyzing prison birth policies)

Moving Forward

Over the course of the next 3-5 years, build classes, partnerships with Black care workers, community organizations, academics and students to create practices, courses, and protocols to address the Black Maternal Health Crisis.

Faculty Biography

Christopher Rogers is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Sacramento. Drawing from Critical Race Theory, Abolition, and Care, Chris' work explores mechanisms of power (racialized and gendered) to conceptualize new pathways toward liberation through medical health/intervention, education, and collective coalition (i.e., organization, mutual aid, etc.). At the heart of his scholarly activities is the constant pursuit of challenging White supremacy, the patriarchy, and heteropatriarchy. Lastly, Chris lives by the motto:" We do this until we are all healthy and free."

Christopher smiling at the camera.

Funding
This work was supported by:
The Community Engagement Center, the Career Center, and the Anchor/Community-Engaged University Collaborative

Equal Opportunity and Excellence in Education and Employment

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