Unit 1: Statement of Problem

Unit one introduces the contemporary equity gaps in higher education, provides an overview of the historical context that created these inequities, and introduces linguistic justice as one aspect of the solution to inequitable outcomes in higher education.

Go Further

Inequitable Outcomes in Higher Education

• "Step Up and Lead for Equity: What Higher Education Can Do to Reverse Our Deepening Divides" by Association of American Colleges and Universities. This report "makes the case that America's persistent gaps in education, income, and wealth are widening, with the fastest growing segments of our population the least likely to have the opportunities they need to succeed"

• From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education by Tia Brown McNair and Estela Mara Bensimon. This book "offers practical guidance on the design and application of campus change strategies for achieving equitable outcomes."

Monolingual Language Ideology

• "Language policy in the United States: A History of Cultural Genocide" by Eduardo Hernandez-Chavez. This article examines "the history of language policy in the United States has generally been one of the imposition of English for an ever wider range of purposes and the restriction of the rights of other languages."

• "English-Only and Standard English Ideologies in the U.S." by Terrence G. Wiley and Marguerite Lukes. This article "probes assumptions underlying dominant U.S. ideologies regarding language diversity (both between English and other languages and among varieties of English) and their impact on language planning and policy."

Students' Right to Their Own Language

• "Students' Right to Their Own Language" by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. This position statement details why students have a right to communicate using the language with which they are most comfortable.

• "Statement on Second Language Writing and Multilingual Writers" by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. This position statement offers "broad research-based guidelines for teachers and administrators to advocate for multilingual writers in all spaces of universities and colleges, including first-year writing, undergraduate and graduate courses across the curriculum, writing centers, and intensive English programs."

• "Statement on White Language Supremacy" by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. This statement "provides a working definition of White Language Supremacy as an apparatus of white supremacy and a general description of its ideological characteristics and manifestations with regard to language and literacy instruction."

• "This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!" by April Baker-Bell, Bonnie J. Williams-Farrier, Davena Jackson, Lamar Johnson, Carmen Kynard, and Teaira McMurtry for the Conference on College Composition and Communication. This is exactly what the title says it is.