DEIA Terminology

Terminology

Ableism: Discrimination in favor of able-bodied people.

Ally: A person who actively works to eliminate and interrupt all forms of oppression, such as ableism, ageism, anti-Semitism, classism, homophobia, racism, sexism, and xenophobia, among others. An ally is motivated by self-interest, a sense of moral obligation and/or a commitment to foster social justice.

Anti-Racism: The policy or practice of opposing racism and promoting racial tolerance.

Anti-Semitism: Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.

Bias: Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Bigotry: Prejudice and the state of being intolerant of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

Black Lives Matter: A decentralized movement in the United States advocating for nonviolent civil disobedience in protest incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against African American people.

Classism: Prejudice against or in favor of people belonging to a particular social class.

Cisgender: A term for people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth.

Culture: A shared pattern of beliefs, values, assumptions, and behaviors that distinguish one group from another.

Cultural Competency: Learned knowledge and skill sets to manage interactions with those from divergent backgrounds and cultures.

Cultural Humility: A process of reflection and lifelong inquiry involves self-awareness of personal values and cultural biases as well as awareness and sensitivity to cultural identity and issues that are important to others.

Cultural Intelligence (CQ): Measures your capability to relate and work effectively across cultural differences.

Diversity: The presence of differences that may include age, (dis)ability, ethnicity, gender, race, education, language, socioeconomic status, religion, professional status/position/rank.                                                                                                             

Ethnicity: A social construct that divides people into social groups based on characteristics, such as shared sense of group membership, values, behavior, patterns, language, political and economic interests, history, and ancestral geographical location.

Equality: The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.

Equity: Promoting justice, impartiality and fairness within procedures and distribution of resources by companies, institutions, or systems.

Heterosexism: Discrimination or prejudice against gay people, on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation.

Homophobia: Irrational fear of, aversion to or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

Human Justice: Upholds the right to live in a healthy and vibrant community, where each person is safe, thriving, and able to reach their full human potential.

Inclusion: An outcome to ensure those who are diverse feel, and are, welcomed.

Institutional Racism: Refers to the policies and practices within and across institutions that, intentionally or not, produce outcomes that chronically favor, or put a racial group at a disadvantage.

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.

Latinx: A person of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or nonbinary alternative to Latino or Latina).

LGBTQ+: An acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (one’s sexual orientation or gender identity), with an added + to represent all other sexual orientations and gender identities.

Microaggression: The everyday verbal, nonverbal and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target people based solely upon their marginalized group membership.

Multiculturalism: The preservation of diverse cultures or cultural identities within a unified group or society.

Oppression: Prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium.

People of Color: A term primarily used in the U.S. to refer to a person who is not white.

Privilege: A special advantage, immunity, permission, right or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class or caste.

Racial Equity: The condition where one’s race identity has no influence on how one fares in society.

Racism: A system of advantage and oppression based on race. A way of organizing society based on dominance and subordination based on race. Racism penetrates every aspect of personal, cultural, and institutional life. It includes prejudice against people of color as well as exclusion, discrimination against, suspicion of and fear and hate of people of color.

Sexism: Any act, gesture, visual representation, spoken or written words, practice or behaviors based upon the idea that a person or a group of persons are inferior because of their gender or sex.

Social Justice: The focus on creating a just and equitable society where everyone has access to social power, resources, and physical and psychological safety.

Structural Racism: The arrangement of institutional, interpersonal, historical, and cultural dynamics in a way that consistently produces advantage for whites and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.

Transgender: A term to describe a person whose gender identity differs from the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.

Unconscious bias: An implicit association, whether about people, places, or situations, which is often based on mistaken, inaccurate, or incomplete information and includes the personal histories we bring to the situation.

Xenophobia: A fear or hatred of foreigners, people from different cultures, strangers, or anything foreign.

Additional Terminology Resource:

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Terms and Definitions - TREC