A handful of University faculty and community members woke up early Sunday morning to join 55 students in a much-anticipated and long-awaited discussion about social justice.
Chicora Martin, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Educational and Support Services Program, was a guest speaker at the event. As Martin prepared for the day, she said her 6-year-old daughter stumbled out of her bedroom clutching a blanket.
When Martin told her daughter she was going to teach students about diversity, her 6-year-old was perplexed.
“What will you tell them?” Martin said her daughter asked.
Martin considered this for a moment.
“What do you think I should tell them?” Martin said she replied.
The young girl, who comes from a non-traditional family with two mothers, thought for a moment.
“Tell them when they get sad, to just come home.”
Martin re-told this story to a group of University students, faculty and community members at the first annual Social Justice Leadership Institute just before the event adjourned, to remind those present not to be discouraged in their quest for social justice.
The event, organized by the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity and the Holden Leadership Center, was a milestone for the students and organizers who worked for years to establish the forum.
“The impetus (for the forum) came right at the time when we very first released the Diversity Plan,” said Charles Martinez, vice provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity. “I began talking with students during this time (who were) sharing feelings of frustration … the students were feeling alone and I promised (them) we would do this (forum).”
The University adopted its current diversity plan in May 2006, under the leadership of Martinez. He explained that during that time, students were trying to participate in the emerging diversity effort but had no established support system at the University to unite them.
“The voices of those students echo with me here today,” Martinez said.
The term “social justice” was used at the forum to encompass many different quests for equality, including battling discrimination based on race, class, gender and sexual orientation.
“I think that this weekend was predominantly about entering the process of self-awareness and empowerment,” said ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz, who participated in the event. “It is a ‘change yourself before you can change the world’ (situation).”
During the three-day event, students from many different campus groups and organizations shared their experiences with social justice and discussed ways to bring greater collaboration between student groups to the fight for equality on campus.
“This is an opportunity for you all to form relationships,” said Tim McMahon, a professional development specialist at the Center on Diversity and Community. “You are more powerful together than as individuals.”
Emilio Hernandez, assistant vice provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, said to begin this work, the students have to learn about the history of both oppression and social justice efforts in our society.
The objective of the institute, he said, was to bring a diverse group of students, faculty and community members together to learn from each other about work that has been done and needs to be done in all areas where discrimination remains present.
“This is why we want the historical perspective,” said Hernandez, who was one of the event organizers. “There is a difference (between) reading it and being with someone who has lived it, otherwise you are not attached to (the history).”
Hernandez said Thursday that everyone, including himself, enters this discussion with biases from their own life experiences, and he planned to share his biases with attendees at the institute. When he was growing up, his was part of the only Latino family in a small, predominantly white town. As a child and teen on the playground, other children threw racial slurs at him and his siblings.
Hernandez said this hardened him as a fighter and left him with emotional scars, which affect how he reacts to situations even today.
“I don’t walk around wearing a Ph.D. label on my forehead,” Hernandez said. It is important for “students to become aware that they have allies (on campus).”
An equally important part of the weekend was giving students the opportunity to discuss and influence the University’s Diversity Plan.
During the final hours at the forum, the organizers invited community members who work with issues of social justice to give the students a broader perspective about what they learned during the weekend.
“(Social justice) is not about what you want, it’s about what is fair and balanced,” said Matthew Rose, a University student who participated in the event. “Just because you’re not oppressing me doesn’t mean I can’t work to (bring about equality).”
Hernandez said the OIED is still in the process of determining exactly how the leadership institute will be organized in the future. He plans to have this weekend’s participants meet at least once a term to discuss the progress they have made as individuals and as a body in equality efforts.
The OIED will announce next year when and where it will convene for its second annual Social Justice Leadership Institute, and all students will be welcome to participate.
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