Dr. Danielle Lee currently holds the title of Director of Old Westbury’s Social and Environmental Justice Institute. She is also the Associate Dean for Academic Institutes & Programs, as well as an associate professor of the English department. As an Old Westbury Alumna, she recounts her journey from undergrad to graduate school, fostering her inquisition and later specialization in pre-modern Critical Race studies. This would prompt her to become the illuminant of social justice that now radiates throughout the university’s Black Studies Center.

A former E.O.P. student, Dr. Lee graduated from the institution in May of 2010 with a bachelor’s in English and Multicultural Literature. “It took me 20 years to get my bachelor’s”. Lee stated. She says her path was “non-traditional” and pursued a career in publishing for a few years before returning to finish undergrad. She was able to get into a master’s program, then later a PhD program at St. John’s University, a feat she never believed was possible. “As I was finishing up my degree here, two of my English professors called a meeting with me. I thought I was in trouble, I didn’t know what it was about. Then they said to me, “we think you need to go for your PhD, for your doctorate”, and I argued with them, ‘I’m not smart enough’”. She thanks her professors for challenging her doubt and pushing her to achieve more. “It took two people to unlock me… if I could go back to myself at that time, I would hug myself, and I would say, ‘Stop being stupid’”.

Her work in graduate school focused on the ways in which race is constructed, depicted, and represented in the early modern period. She began with studies of Shakespeare, specifically on one of his last plays, The Tempest. This piece of literature cultivated her interests into the African slave trade, as the play served as an allegory for imperialism. “My work, at least for my dissertation, was on tracking the trajectory of black monstrosity.” She had studied the fetishization of the black body in early travel narratives of voyages to Africa, carefully dissecting the language used to describe the Ethiopian people, as merely a “head” or “foot”. Recognizing the lack of humanity used to describe the African peoples, she would later go on to indulge herself in the works of Frederick Douglass, and pre-colonial black figures. She returned to teaching at Old Westbury in 2013, then became a full time professor in 2015.

At the time of her graduation, Dr. Lee was chosen to be a part of the documentary, “We Press On: New York State Celebrates the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.”, as she had participated in the inaugural cohort of the SUNY’s Black Leadership Institute. The documentary invited interviewees to speak on Dr. King’s leadership and its impact on the current social climate. “I’m only in about three seconds after an hour and a half interview, but those three seconds were special.” She explains how her involvement in the documentary directly ties into her work in the SEJI, located on the first floor of Woodlands Hall 1. She raised the question, “What does it look like to have this institute in a dorm?” and went on to explain, “We have the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, we have the Art Lab, which is an annex of the art gallery here, then we have the Black Studies Center. We also have the Campus Environmental Education Center… We went from, like, two or three little centers, and now we’re expanding outwards.” 

After successfully implementing close to 60 programs last semester, Dr. Lee has launched a new SEJI Sections program. She describes the program as her “form of resistance”, as current attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives have created an aura of uncertainty amongst college administrations. “DEI is very misunderstood as a term. It’s very misunderstood for its intention, and it’s very misunderstood for what it does.” She places emphasis on the intersectionality of social justice, highlighting how integral it is in everything we do. “And that’s really where the value of the program is for me, right? Because the idea is students have to participate in some form of social justice, whether it’s they do a social media campaign, they write letters, whatever it is, something that really gets students immersed in doing this work.” This has given both students and faculty the ability to engage in projects that may be unrelated to a particular major, but helpful in understanding issues such as scientific racism or statistical inequality.

As an educator, Lee wants students to recognize the power they hold as they continue to build, learn, and grow. She believes that a greeting or check in with a student is one way we can implement social justice on a micro scale. “As simple as that, you don’t know what that one question does for a human being that’s never been asked that by the people closest to them. That’s social justice too.” She added, “I just want students to understand they are not powerless… Powerful seems too cliche, but they’re not powerless. I want students to know that, and I think a lot of students that are black and brown and otherwise that are coming from the boroughs are not told that very often. And if they’re going to hear it, they should hear it here.” She hopes students recognize the importance of their own voice, and that they are empowered no matter what the world tells them. “I also wish that guys in your generation would learn that other people’s voices are just noise. It’s just noise. Even though it’s hard to blast it out completely, no matter how much you turn up your music, it’s still a choice. You have to choose yourself first.”

When Dr. Lee reflects on the confidence that was instilled in her by her family, she feels gratitude for their wisdom and awareness. “My grandmother was a domestic and my grandfather was a butler, and they still owned property. They still traveled the world.” She notes how they instilled the importance of high esteem and pride in her blackness, stating, “They were very, very, very particular about my behavior… because they were very much like, you are a black woman, you are not the “N” word.” She feels as though she would not be in the position she is today, if it were not for the guidance of her family. She understands that generations of sacrifice allowed her the privilege and comfort that she has now, but is still attuned to what it means to be privileged in society. “They didn’t raise me to come have all of this. And number one, forget where I came from. Number two, forget that there are people suffering in the world. And number three, that when I have too much, it’s okay to give some away, and even when I have too little, it’s still okay to give some away to somebody else, right?” Lee wants young black people to recognize the resources they have available to them. 

Dr. Lee feels motivated in recognizing the progress she has made within the university. “And when this opportunity came, I was so excited about it, but I wasn’t as excited as Professor Lee. I was excited as that old student from way way back. That’s what I was excited as… and it was energizing to see us move in such a way where we can have not just a campus, be just a social justice campus, but we have an actual beacon now.” She is grateful that the institution has granted her the support she needed to succeed, but also recognizes the difficulties that preceded her. “…here we are in 2025 and I’m in this position as a black woman, and I get to do this work, but 20 years ago, 10 years ago, longer than that, maybe it would have been very dangerous, and now it’s dangerous again. So it doesn’t make me love the work any less. It makes me love the work even more.”