What does it mean to design an equitable product with a foundation of critical divestment and decolonization principles? That’s exactly what Useful School’s new Decolonize, Divest & Create class explores.

Classes at Useful School, a pay-what-you-can school for people of color, started in 2022. Founder and CEO Ritesh Gupta (he/they) created the kind of education his former self would have loved—a safe space for BIPOC individuals to help them “level up their confidence, craft, portfolios, gigs, wealth, and more.” They cover the usual design school curriculum, but Useful School also focuses on other topics to help BIPOC folks thrive in a predominantly white industry. This new class, co-created with Annika Hansteen-Izora and sponsored by DesignStudio New York, was born out of sheer desire of students wanting to dive deeper into this topic.

“We’ve been covering decolonization and divestment in the first week of each cohort since we’ve started,” Ritesh explained. “It always receives strong responses with people saying, ‘I haven’t really heard about this before,’ or ‘I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never understood how it applies to my design practice.’ Discussing divestment principles, decolonization principles, and how they relate to your own personal and professional practice is really interesting and unique. Unfortunately, it isn’t taught or covered in many other parts of our lives.”