Doing the “Right Stuff” in Cincinnati

Reprinted from the Yellow Springs News June 7, 2001

By Diane Chiddister

The life of a professional in conflict resolution can be frustrating. You have tools to help people resolve their conflicts, but you can’t make people use them. You might be working with the right people at the wrong time, or at the right place but with the wrong people. Yellow Springs resident Jay Rothman, president of the ARIA Group, has felt these frustrations often in his 20-year career. But not now. Now, he’s thrilled to be facing the greatest challenge of his career in a situation where everything seems to be working. His goal? To improve race relations in Cincinnati. “This is big. This is an amazing thing,” he said in a recent interview. “Finally, I can do the right stuff with the right people in the right place and time.”

Finding Another Way

Randi and Jay Rothman '80

Rothman recently began the Cincinnati Collaborative Process, a six-month multistage collaborative process involving people from all walks of Cincinnati life, “from the trashman to the mayor,” he said. To start the process, he’s currently meeting with a wide range of Cincinnatians, including the heads of religious groups and the city’s wealthiest executives. The scope makes Rothman a little nervous. In the past few weeks, he’s increased his staff fivefold, from six employees to 30. He’s putting in 16-hour days. Rather than working with small groups of about 30, as he’s accustomed, he will work with 5,000 to 8,000 people, and he wonders how he’ll have to change his nondirective, low-key style. And through it all, he’ll be under intense media scrutiny. But more than feeling nervous, he’s excited and ready to go. “I really think there’s a tremendous confluence of energy, desire, and forward motion” in Cincinnati right now, he said. “It’s a great opportunity.”

The opportunity came about when the Black United Front, a civil rights group, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against the city of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police, charging racial profiling after a number of African-American men were killed by Cincinnati police during the past few years. The lawsuit was actually filed several weeks before the most recent incident in April, when another African-American man was killed by a police officer, sparking city-wide riots. The riots, of course, emphasized the importance of resolving the ongoing conflict between the African-American community and the Cincinnati police. “There’s nothing like a crisis,” said Rothman, “to focus attention.” When the lawsuit was filed in U.S. Federal Court, the judge, Susan Dlott, asked both parties to seek a route other than the legal system for resolving their conflict. Amazingly, said Rothman, all parties agreed. “In a lawsuit, someone wins and someone loses. Everyone involved understood that another lawsuit wasn’t going to bring social change,” said Rothman. “Something unprecedented and dynamic happened with this lawsuit. They decided to find another way.” That way seemed to be mediation. When the parties sought funding for mediation from a New York-based foundation, the Andrus Family Fund, the foundation directors not only approved the request, but suggested a mediator – Rothman, who had worked for another Andrus Family Fund project – to do the job. Rothman agreed, and the Cincinnati Collaborative Process began.

An Every Person’s Approach

The process he’ll use has been well-tested. Based on the models of several leaders in the conflict resolution field, such as John Burton and Edward Azar, with whom Rothman studied, Rothman’s been refining it over the past 20 years, using it more than 50 times in five different countries. “I’ve taken their work and synthesized it, chosen the best of several approaches and put them together,” said Rothman. Where those original models were highly complex and specialized, Rothman attempted to simplify them. “I’ve tried to create an ‘every person’s model,’ ” he said, “something easy to apply, to learn and to teach.” The model, which focuses on goal-setting and success-envisioning, takes place in six stages, he said. The first, which is taking place now, is a public relations campaign aimed at explaining the process and attracting participants.

In the second stage, self- selected participants will answer three questions, via interviews and online and paper and pencil questionnaires. Participants will state their goals for future police-community relations, explain the values, beliefs and experiences behind those goals, and offer their suggestions for how best to achieve the goals. Organizers will seek out responses from some Cincinnati citizens, especially young African-American men who would be unlikely to volunteer. To ensure their participation, said Rothman, “We’ll go out on the street.” In the third stage, which begins in July, participants will take part in feedback sessions during which participants will meet in small discussion groups. Group members will discuss their values and motivations and prioritize their goals. Next, the ARIA Group will produce a set of shared and prioritized goals from all groups, which will be reviewed by an integration group, made up of a representative from each of the previous stakeholder groups. These group members will identify similar and divergent goals, after which the ARIA Group will merge these goals. Finally, a settlement group, using the goals produced by the process, will negotiate toward a collaborative settlement agreement, a process facilitated by the ARIA Group. If successful, the group will submit the agreement to the federal court for approval, as well as bring the group’s decisions back to the original participants for action strategies. Rothman believes in this process because he’s seen it work over and over again. Of course, he keeps his expectations realistic. “Do I think that, in six months, black youth will be hugging the Cincinnati police? No. Do I think that race relations will be dramatically transformed? No. Do I think we’ll make a significant contribution that will make a difference? Yes.” Success in Cincinnati, to Rothman, would include “seeing people working together to solve their problems, expressing themselves about things they care about, engaging in a dynamic we call a ‘constructive cycle of cooperation.’ ” Ultimately, the credit for any success belongs to the people of Cincinnati, Rothman believes. “We get to be a facilitator for people’s best efforts, to tap into their forward motion.”

Strong Roots

Rothman traces many of the values that are pivotal to his life and his career to his childhood in Yellow Springs. Living in a community where people practiced racial tolerance helped shape him, he believes. “Having both black and white friends was critical to me,” he said. “I was very influenced by the diversity.” Beyond that, he carries with him the legacy of his early childhood at the Antioch School. “The Antioch School was very important. Becoming a critical thinker, finding my voice, blending theory and practice – all these are things I learned there,” he said, crediting teachers Bill Mullins, Bev Price and Pat Dell for leaving a lasting influence. As a peace studies student at Antioch College, Rothman was especially impressed by the teaching of Irwin Abrams, who was just beginning his study of Nobel Peace Prize winners. Most of all, Rothman feels grateful for the lasting influence of his parents, Esther and Phil Rothman. “I’m happy and proud to be living their values,” he said of his parents. “They got it right. I always knew they had the right priorities.” After graduating from Antioch, Rothman first traveled to Israel, then pursued graduate studies, first at George Mason University in Virginia and then at the University of Maryland, from which he received both his master’s and his Ph.D. Even more important, in Baltimore he met his future wife and partner, Randi Land Rothman. With a master’s in journalism and one in social work, she currently works with her husband in the ARIA group as coordinator of communications and facilitator. For his doctoral work, the Rothmans lived in Israel, where Jay worked for seven years refining his current conflict resolution process with small groups of Israelis and Arabs. While the process worked well, he said, he was frustrated by the lack of support from the upper levels of government. Still, the “crowning moment” of Rothman’s life at that time, “after all those years of effort and obscurity,” came with the historic handshake and peace-accord ceremony between the Palestinian leader, Yassar Arafat, and the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, at the White House, which Rothman was invited to attend. “I couldn’t put my fingerprint on the handshake itself,” he said, “but I could in helping to establish an atmosphere where such a dialogue was considered legitimate.”

The Rothmans next spent several years in Haverford, Pennsylvania, where Rothman served as coordinator of the Bryn Mawr and Haverford College Peace and Conflict Studies Program. During this time and since, he’s written three books and a long list of journal articles on conflict resolution. Four years ago, the Rothmans moved back to Yellow Springs. “We wanted our children to be close to their grandparents,” said Jay, the father of Mori, Jesse and Liana, all students at the Antioch School. “And we came back because we loved it here.” After founding the ARIA Group three years ago, the Rothmans have worked with such organizations as Greene Memorial Hospital, Catholic Social Services in Dayton, the Jewish Agency in Israel and the Village of Yellow Springs.

So Much Opportunity

The Cincinnati Collaborative Project is Rothman’s biggest project by far, and the prospect is sometimes daunting. “There’s so much scrutiny,” he said. “And the stakes are so high.” But as usual, where others see conflict and negativity, Jay Rothman sees the possibility of change and growth “There’s so much need here,” he said. “So much opportunity.”