Enough! Social Justice Is Under Attack, and Not Leading in This Moment Is Complicity

Sep 27, 2022 | Article

The following is an opinion piece published by Future Talent Council member Daniel Pascoe Aguilar, PhD, MDiv, associate provost for experiential education and career development at Drew University.

Pascoe Aguilar is leading LAUNCH, a new approach to undergraduate education designed to integrate students’ academic and career development through a focus on their purpose development, their career preparation, and their ability to contribute to community/world needs.

Pascoe Aguilar is Co-Chair of Future Talent Council’s Global Advisory Board on Inclusion and Diversity.

Enough! ¡Basta! Human dignity and human rights cannot be forsaken. Life, health, freedom, family, and culture are non-negotiables of our humanity. Privilege and its fearful protectionism cannot prevail. It is not time to aspire or wish for a better reality; it is time to make it together! Social justice is under attack and not leading in this moment is complicity.

Daniel Pascoe Aguilar

Everyone who is currently part of an educational institution, I call us to act and fight for diversity, equity, and inclusion. These are the five ways in which I believe we must take action assertively and now:

  1. Learn avidly, every way you can, about our human diversity and the power of inclusion and equity. Proactively advocate and pursue partnerships and resources for your and your organization’s capacity building on identity and intercultural development. We must be as ready as we can to lead and fight for social justice.
  2. Integrate in your curriculum, whichever you instruct or facilitate, and promote others’ curricula inclusion of intercultural development. We will not survive, we will not succeed, we will not thrive as a race and a planet if our new generation of leaders does not value and consider diversity, equity, and inclusion as an asset to our decision-making and performance.
  3. Proactively and concretely develop support mechanisms for as many student minority identities you can support. Do so through a robust virtual presence, vast community engagement, and scalable student engagement in an attempt to level the plain and foster equity in the reach of your work and the support you offer to those we need to lead us to a better reality.
  4. Now is the time to be the strongest advocate for enhanced diversity, equity, and inclusion on your campus. Every curriculum, every instructional method, every policy, every procedure, every practice, every program, every strategic plan, every website, every space must be reviewed for enhanced intercultural sensitivity, inclusion, and equity.
  5. Now is the time to partner with every equity, inclusion, and social justice organization in our communities and regions. We will not address our systemic inequities as individual institutions, but as a collective front that fights as one body for human rights and human dignity regardful of our diversity, particularly that of those marginalized and currently under attack.

No time to waste, no hesitation to afford. The moment is now and it must include all of us!

Daniel Pascoe Aguilar

This was an opinion piece published by Future Talent Council member Daniel Pascoe Aguilar, PhD, MDiv, associate provost for experiential education and career development at Drew University.

Pascoe Aguilar is leading LAUNCH, a new approach to undergraduate education designed to integrate students’ academic and career development through a focus on their purpose development, their career preparation, and their ability to contribute to community/world needs.

Learn more about Daniel and LAUNCH here, and connect with Daniel on LinkedIn.

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