• OSI Community Fellow pens op-ed for New York Times

    Morgan State professor Lawrence Brown (pictured, left), a 2012 OSI Community Fellow and a 2015 Justice Fund grantee for his project, You’re the Quarterback, published an op-ed in the New York Times last week: In “More Injustice in Baltimore,” Brown voiced concerns about the recent acquittal of Officer Caesar Goodson in the death of Freddie Gray, the third […]

  • OSI Community Fellows Speak Out, Break Ground, Win Prizes

    As usual, OSI Baltimore Community Fellows have been making waves lately. Today, The Baltimore Sun posted current Fellow Meryam Bouadjemi‘s powerful essay about the families left behind when people go to jail, like her dad did: As a society, we have trained our institutions to remember the crime and punishment, yet we forget the collateral devastation […]

  • OSI-Baltimore Statement on the Acquittal of Officer Caesar Goodson

    As the third trial in the death of Freddie Gray ends without a conviction, it’s clearer than ever that the injustices Mr. Gray’s case represents will not be resolved in a court room, but with long-term, sustained work to uproot the structural racism in our criminal justice system and beyond. It’s important that the legal […]

  • Panelists Preview Tomorrow’s Talking About Race Event on Islamophobia

    Deepa Iyer, senior fellow at the Center for Social Inclusion, and Amardeep Singh, program officer in Open Society Foundation’s National Security and Human Rights Campaign called in to the Marc Steiner Show Tuesday to preview tomorrow’s Talking About Race event, Confronting the New Islamophobia. Listen to the entire podcast here, and join us for the event, where […]

  • Crossing boundaries, Kindling aims to spark conversations

    On June 25, 2016, OSI Baltimore will co-host the second of three Kindling events, along with OneBaltimore, Innovation Village, consulting group Generosity, Jean Hill Studios and Light City Baltimore at the New Metropolitan Baptist Church, 1501 McCulloh Street, Baltimore. Kindling, a series of events that creates guided, two-person conversations between participants, was developed on the […]

  • Coming together, continuing the struggle after Orlando

    We at OSI-Baltimore join communities across the world who are devastated at the mass killing in Orlando this weekend. Below, we share a statement from our friends at Free State Legal and Equality Maryland, whose work we are proud to support, along with their list of opportunities to gather, mourn, and talk about the way […]

  • Lester Spence Talks Class, Race, and Neoliberal Politics

    (Left to right) Bret McCabe and Lester Spence After taking a moment of silence to mark Prince’s birthday, Johns Hopkins University political science professor Lester Spence kicked off last night’s Talking About Race event, “Neoliberalism and Black Politics,” by quoting Jay-Z: “I’m not a  businessman, I’m a business, man.” The hip-hop encapsulation of the neoliberal ethic helped […]

  • OSI Education and Youth Development director on WYPR’s Midday

    Karen Webber, director of OSI’s Education and Youth Development Program recently appeared on WYPR’s Midday discussing the importance of soft skills in the professional world. Soft skills, also called “emotional intelligence” or “character” can include a range of abilities, from leadership or problem solving abilities to written and oral communication skills. Soft skills can also […]

  • Tara Huffman

    OSI’s Tara Huffman appointed to Maryland State Advisory Committee on Civil Rights

    Recently, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced the appointment of 16 members of the Maryland State Advisory Committee which included Tara Huffman, director of OSI’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program. The committee serves a vital role as protectors of civil rights at the state level, advising the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about discrimination […]

  • 2015 OSI Grants and Donors

    2015 Grants and Donors

    Our beloved Baltimore is a vital American city with a grand history and a wonderfully diverse population. But it faces tremendous challenges. The Baltimore uprising that began in April 2015 brought many of the city’s deeply rooted problems to the surface and created a unique opportunity to address them and bring meaningful, lasting change. We believe in a renewed Baltimore, where opportunity is abundant and all […]