Endangering Higher Education: The Real Work of Student Activism

• In Event: 68.031 - "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised": Contested Terrain, Student Activism, and Racial Campus Climates

Abstract

Osei-Kofi (2003) describes the diversity logics that dominate higher education: “when previously excluded groups gain entrance into the mainstream, they are expected to prove themselves in accordance with already established standards. In doing this, what becomes valued is not difference, instead it is merely the toleration of that which can be made similar to the dominant as possible” (p. 490). With these logics in mind, we designed a study on how student activists build coalitions in the age of diversity management. We found six coalitional factors intersected to guide the formation and function of our case study on one student coalition, the Dartmouth Action Collective (DAC). Further, our findings show the DAC repurposes diversity in the fight against on-campus marginalization.

Authors

• Jalil Bishop, University of California - Los Angeles

• Oscar Jose Mayorga, University of California - Los Angeles