Equity and Inclusion in the Virtual World:
Serving Marginalized Students During Shutdown
Facilitated by Carlos Andrés Gómez, Poet & Educator
I. Welcome & Ice-breaker
Greeting & poem (“Where are you really from?”), as participants get settled.
Goal: I want this to be a collaborative brainstorming session, in which we share ideas and experiences and problem solve together for the benefit of EVERYONE.
My hope: Let’s keep this discussion and these connections going far beyond this webinar. Let’s continue to help and support each other!
II. Quick overview of how to use Zoom and interact during the session.
III. What is social identity? Why does it matter?
- Examples of social identity categories (i.e. race, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc.)
- We each inhabit multiple social identities. Some may be obvious, while others are not visible to those around us.
- self-Identification vs. external identification
- equity vs. equality (fairness vs. sameness)
- interpersonal vs. structural (i.e. prejudice vs. oppression)
IV. Key terms for session
equity
: refers to achieving parity in policy, process and outcomes for historically and/or currently underrepresented and/or marginalized people and groups while accounting for diversity.
It considers power, access, opportunities, treatment, impacts and outcomes.
(Source: The University of British Columbia Equity & Inclusion Office)
inclusion
: the active, intentional, and ongoing engagement with diversity — in people, in the curriculum, in the co-curriculum, and in communities (e.g. intellectual, social, cultural, geographic) with which individuals might connect.
(Source: The George Washington University Office for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement)
marginalized
: to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group
(Source: Merriam-Webster online)
intersectionality
: the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.
Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the theory of intersectionality, the idea that when it comes to thinking about how inequalities persist, categories like gender, race, and class are best understood as overlapping and mutually constitutive rather than isolated and distinct.
— Adia Harvey Wingfield
(Source: Merriam-Webster online)
cultural competency
: refers to a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among individuals to enable that system, agency, or those individuals to work effectively across differences.
(Source: The University of British Columbia Equity & Inclusion Office)
V. Challenges to Equity and Inclusion During the Shutdown
- Racism & Xenophobia
directed at people of Asian descent (i.e. everything from epithets to acts of violence to limited employment opportunities and restricted access to medical care.).
- Classism:
Less accessibility to a laptop or useable technology to attend class or write papers.
Inability to access reliable (or perhaps any) Wi-Fi during shutdown.
Instability of housing due to lack of finances/employment as a result of shutdown.
Lack of access to food (or food delivery).
Left with little choice but to continue working during shutdown, taking time away from studies (i.e. as delivery person or cashier with intensified demands and hours) and heightening concerns (impacting mental health) about contracting virus.
Need for employment so high that there is an intensified incentive to conceal illness or not consult medical care when showing symptoms of virus.
Lack of health insurance, prevents seeking medical help (even if exhibiting symptoms of virus).
Digital divide: Less fluency with and access to technology – inhibiting a person’s ability to attend class or complete class assignments effectively with online resources that are available.
- Ableism:
Example of person who uses a wheelchair having to vacate her apartment (at the end of March), after movers cancel due to virus, then has to face eviction because moving by herself is not possible for her.
For those who have a history of struggles with mental health and wellness, the isolation mandated by the shutdown can place someone’s life at risk.
For students with learning differences or those whose learning style requires interactive, in person, tactile-immersive learning – what do they do during the shutdown? If engaging with the learning process is challenging enough in real time, how much more difficult is it virtually for them? What strategies can we try to keep them engaged?
Disproportionate threat of the virus to those who are immunocompromised (who must take more extensive precautions than other students. This can impact mental health, food access, work efficiency, and, ultimately, overall well-being.)
- Transphobia:
Example of trans man who’s been stigmatized (and denied access) by doctors in the past, and, therefore, is more reticent to seek healthcare, even if showing symptoms of virus. (Thinking about how people’s past experiences facing inequity and inaccessibility within the healthcare system are creating additional challenges to flattening the curve and fighting the virus.)
- Sexism:
Increased incidents of violence against women (and intimate partner violence in general) as couples are forced to shelter-in-place (and access to support resources and safety outside of the home are limited or cut off completely).
- Ageism:
Disproportionate threat of the virus to older individuals, who have been asked to take more extensive precautions than others. This can impact mental health, food access, work efficiency, and, ultimately, overall well-being.
- Parents:
How do students with children now balance their finances, work life, school, and raising children (who no longer are able to attend daycare/school)? All of this strain only compounds the acute mental health distress for everyone in the household on each other.
- Intersections:
Asian student who needs to work to pay rent but is stigmatized for being Asian and, therefore, not offered employment (though qualified).
A woman from a working-class background, with no financial safety net, is forced to continue working as a cashier in a grocery store (without a face mask, as none are provided or available) and then must go home to her abusive male partner.
A student with clinical depression who lives alone and does not have access to health insurance, and yet urgently needs consistent therapy and medication (which is delayed in transit or not currently available as others with the financial means continue to stockpile).
Recognizing and reflecting upon the compounding impacts of the virus along intersections.
Though we are all impacted by COVID-19, we are not all impacted the same.
There is a disparate effect that this shutdown is having across social identities and experiences.
More real-life, recent examples with marginalized students:
- Professor hasn’t heard from five of her students. What if they are sheltering-in-place (without access to Wi-Fi) and must take care of an immunocompromised parent or grandparent? They only have access to her work number (which she can’t access remotely), and don’t have internet, so what are they supposed to do? What should she do? What are her responsibilities as the professor?
- Bipolar student, with limited access to either counseling or medication, struggling with living in isolation and keeping up with classes. What responsibilities do we have to our students? What are some things we can do, with the resources available to us, to be certain that we address their needs?
- Students facing eviction, due to sudden unemployment, or who have been recently forced to vacate student housing, and now have nowhere to live (because of finances, being an international student, studying far away from home and unable to travel back, etc.).
VI. Strategies for Serving Marginalized Students During Shutdown
VII. Discussion
What challenges have you encountered since the shutdown? How have you responded?
What are some unique challenges to serving marginalized students in the virtual realm that you didn’t anticipate?
What are some of the biggest challenges with which you’ve been reckoning?
