Continuing with Equity as the Priority by John Hamilton, Ed.D.
John Hamilton
Assistant Vice Chancellor, Strategic Partnerships & Student Success Initiatives CSU-Chancellor's Office
Welcome Back!!! First, as we start another school year, I pray that every student successfully makes it through school unharmed and safe this year.
From my observation, many schools including my own have been working diligently to address equity issues on many levels. To move the needle, there must be an understanding to champion equity; especially racial equity with a movement that continues with a consistent momentum. With the countless Black lives lost from George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and others to Asian hate and LGBTQIA+ discrimination; there still is a need to continue with equity as the priority.
As education thought partners, we must use our social and political capital to keep equity a priority. There must be a conversation on the definition of equity versus equality. “Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.” Many times, in resources, human capital, and budgets we fall short in being intentional about equity, because it is masked with equality. If we all are going to be intentional about equity, we need to prioritize equity. ?What does prioritizing equity mean? When examining resources and budget, how are we reviewing both to maximize what is needed for departments to address equity and achievement gaps? Are we having planning meetings to examine the data to determine how resources or funding can make an impact on retention and graduation rates of disaggregated data from underrepresented minorities (URMs)? When you explore your human capital, do you understand others from a culturally relevant practice and/or professionalism from language, emotional intelligence, and implicit bias.
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All of this takes time. However, there must be a sense of urgency to prioritize equity and more importantly racial equity. There must be a sense of urgency for leaders and those they lead to enhance their cultural competence not only for self, but for student success. As we all continue this journey, let equity resonate every day and not just in workshops and/or trainings. Let equity resonate in our minds, hearts, and souls every day.?
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John Hamilton, Ed.D.
Associate Vice President, University Access & Retention
IG: jphamilton1906
Race & Equity Scholar | REIJ Practitioner | Educator & Author | Transformative Leadership Coach | Radical Healing & Belonging Advocate | Speaker on CRT, Antiracism, Justice, & Institutional Change
2 年Beautiful message, brother! Thank you! In thinking about the pictographic representation you shared, I want to problematize it a little bit, if that’s okay. Thus far, I’ve seen several iterations of this attempt to capture/underscore/elucidate the tension caused by an overdetermined conflation between equity & equality. At this point, I’m not sure this pictographic representation is even useful anymore precisely because its first premise, i.e., that the second picture is representative of equity, is simply untrue. That’s not equity. It’s not anything good. It is still in support of a macrostructural system that, simultaneously, upholds and feeds perverse, profit-driven, stakeholder capitalism. And here’s the thing about capitalism here in the Land of the Free: capitalism has been and continues to be racialized in this country. Certain peoples, based on the families they were born into, have been systematically and systematically prefigured as corporeal sites of surplus value extraction (which is the goal of capitalism). All of it is exploitative/othering/exclusionary/problematic. In my humble opinion, the same is true for this hackneyed pictographic representation. The last picture isn’t liberation. It’s not even close.
??TEDx Speaker. ?? Advocacy and Social Impact Strategist. ??Organizer ??Storyteller. Forging Partnerships. Empowering Communities. Building Movements. Shaping Justice and Equity Policy. Influencing Culture Change.
2 年Chaz T. Gipson, Ph.D., M.Ed., M.Div. Candidate