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Welcome to The EDU Ledger! We’ve moved from Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.

Section: Opinion

Native Americans

Still Separate, Still Unequal: American Indians and Election 2018

To be sure, the legacy of conquest meant that American Indians and enslaved Africans were often forced to live in close proximity to each other. This proximity resulted in a number of blended families and children of mixed racial heritage who were discriminated against in distinct and overlapping ways based not on their self-identity, but on social identity.

October 20, 2018

Navigating Bias Incidents on Campus as an Administrator

During my tenure as an assistant dean of students, I was involved in a committee charged with responding to reported bias incidents on campus. When a member of the campus community experienced, witnessed or were aware of something that they believed to be bias, they could use an online form to report the incident anonymously. Once a week, this committee I was a part of would read over all the cases and decide how they should be handled.

October 18, 2018

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Who Are These Diversity Officers?

In 2011, I was arrested for civil disobedience in front of the U.S. Senate, fighting for immigrant rights. While I was being arrested, children of undocumented parents visited senators with heart-shaped cookies asking them to take action on keeping families together. Sound familiar?

October 18, 2018

African-American

It’s a Family Reunion: Thurgood Marshall College Fund Teacher Quality and Retention Program

This summer, I attended the best family reunion ever. But here’s the catch; none of us who attended the reunion were actually blood-related. In fact, most of us had never seen each other in our lives. However, the kinship was there from the start and we were definitely a family.

October 16, 2018

On Leaving Home

My mother consistently asks, “When are you coming home?” which is usually followed by, “Do you just not want to come home?” For my mother, earning a Ph.D. meant that I would have the ability to return home because why else leave to attend graduate school.

October 16, 2018

It is Necessary to Disseminate Multicultural Standards in Higher Education

Multiculturalism intensities the bond of connection that makes all one. Lack of understanding and not knowing the standards that one grew up under or may still be living under can lead to a false image of the individual or their whole culture. This can lead to prejudice, bias and hatred of not only of a person but also all who are of the same nationality.

October 15, 2018

The Perfect Victim and the Perfect Judge —The New Challenge to Affirmative Action

If it feels like we’ve been here before, we have. The use of race in college admissions is legal and has been tested and upheld by the high court time and again, most recently in the Fisher v. Texas case. But that’s not stopping conservative anti-affirmative activist Ed Blum.

October 15, 2018

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Prioritizing Diversity in Graduate Education

Issues in diversity and inclusion have swept the nation with many high-profile cases publicly playing out in colleges and universities across the country. While all agree that something must be done to enhance the diversity and equality of our nation’s schools, barriers persist when it comes to deciding on effective tactics and taking concrete actions — talk dominates while action stagnates.

October 12, 2018

Feminism, Womanism and Election 2018

As we stand a month away from the midterm elections, we do so as a record number of women of color are running for office. Congressional candidates like Rashida Tliab of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Jahana Hayes of Connecticut. New Mexico’s Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids of Kansas are poised to become the first American Indian women ever elected to Congress. Their entry would come over 190 years after Hiram Revels of the Lumbee tribe was elected as the first African -American and first American Indian to enter the legislature.

October 12, 2018

African-American

In Defense of Affirmative Action

The most recent battle in the war against affirmative action is being brought by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard University. What is striking about the Harvard case is — unlike previous suits which involved White plaintiffs — this suit is being brought on behalf of its Asian American members who claim they were denied admission to Harvard due to their race. Will this be the battle that finally brings down affirmative action?

October 11, 2018

What Does Equal Educational Opportunity for All Students Really Mean?

Three of the top ranked universities in the country are (or were) all the subject of investigation by the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. The complaints allege that the schools’ attempts to ensure racial and ethnic diversity among admitted students unfairly discriminate against White and Asian students. Are these schools’ diversity efforts violating the Office of Civil Rights’ mandate to ensure equal access to educational opportunities for all? It is an important question, with far-reaching consequences.

October 10, 2018

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A Call for Multiculturalism in Higher Education

Higher education is at a crucial juncture. With the advent of a social climate that questions the validity of facts, scientific evidence and critical thinking, higher education has come under attack from a myriad of stakeholders.

October 9, 2018

Asian American Pacific Islander

Remembering Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, Champion of Affirmative Action

This past week, I was moved by the memorial for the late Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. The first Asian American to head a major research university, University of California Berkeley, which he led from 1990 to 1997, he was remembered again on the tenth anniversary of the naming of an East Asian Library in his honor.

October 9, 2018

Recognizing the Importance of Access and Social Capital

Have you ever heard, “it’s not about what you know… it’s about who you know?” Unfortunately, this idea that your network can have a significant impact on the opportunities you have access to, is true.

October 8, 2018

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Can Female Academics Say “No” Both Professionally and Elegantly to Excessive Work Demands? Yes, But You Might Have to Call a Friend

Whether one’s academic supervisor is a White man or woman, or a person of color, the ability to say “no” to our supervisors is critical for one’s professional success and personal well being.

October 8, 2018

The Promise of Cultural Competence and Higher Education for our Health

I have made this point consistently in previous posts and will make it again: our health is our wealth and therefore an exceedingly important problem to solve. Higher education is uniquely poised to play a role in this. Yet, practical health curriculum is the exception rather than the rule.

October 4, 2018

“The Stakes is High”

As we stand just one month away from the 2018 midterm elections, it is imperative to remind people that perhaps now more than ever, “the stakes is high.” Voters will have the opportunity to raise their voices on myriad issues of mutual concern. From setting the tone for U.S. foreign policy that will address global terrorism and economic security, to installing prosecutors and law enforcement officials who will uphold civil rights protections for all citizens, the stakes is high.

October 3, 2018

The Kavanaugh Lesson: Integrity over Influence

It’s a teachable moment if ever I saw one. During a public job interview for a lifetime position on the highest court in the land, Judge Brett Kavanaugh had to take an uncomfortable walk down memory lane to explain the drunken, misguided behavior of his youth.

October 2, 2018

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