oppression and education essay

Peter DeWitt's

Finding common ground.

A former K-5 public school principal turned author, presenter, and leadership coach, DeWitt provides insights and advice for education leaders. He can be found at www.petermdewitt.com . Read more from this blog .

Anti-Bias Education and the Importance of Teaching About Systemic Oppression

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As our nation’s children head back to school, it’s a stressful and scary time. Families, students and educators continue to struggle with a pandemic that is surging. After the last school year with unpredictable and intermittent remote learning and continued fear, loss, and grief, teachers are exhausted. In our current reality of a highly contagious COVID-19 variant, lack of mask mandates in some states, and children under 12 unable to get vaccinated, the anticipation of the upcoming school year will almost certainly bring more anguish, pain, and loss.

Critical Race Theory Bans Sweep the Nation

Adding insult to injury, over the past six months states have been furiously passing laws across the country that ban “critical race theory” (CRT) and “divisive concepts.” As of August 12, 26 states have introduced bills or taken steps to restrict or limit the teaching about racism, sexism, bias, and the contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups to U.S. history. Twelve states have enacted bans, either through legislation or other avenues. Amid the pandemic, these laws add a consequential layer of intimidation, fear, and disrespect for educators. It’s a hard time to be a teacher right now.

Critical race theory is an academic framework that seeks to understand and examine how the law and policies perpetuate racial disparities in society (e.g., health care, education, legal, criminal justice, housing, voting, etc.). We know that CRT is not widely taught in K-12 schools, nor is CRT a curriculum or teaching methodology. However, the purpose of these laws—beyond politics and inciting energy for upcoming elections—is an attempt to restrict or prevent teachers from teaching about racism, sexism, and other forms of systemic oppression.

These laws can potentially prevent teachers from reading a children’s book about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, reflecting on Black Lives Matter and what to do about police violence, understanding current day hate symbols like noose incidents and their historical context of racial terror, and much more.

Why We Need to Teach About Systemic Racism and Other Oppression

These restrictions are concerning precisely because they contradict one of the most important goals of education—to teach young people how to think critically and foster a more just and equitable society so that all people can learn, live, and thrive. To do that, students need to understand what bias and injustice are, how they manifest in society—particularly in systemic ways through our institutions—the historical roots of bias and oppression, and how those injustices have been historically and continue to be challenged and disrupted.

A recent survey illustrates that educators agree. In a nationwide survey of educators, 59 percent said they believe that systemic racism exists. A majority (84 percent) of respondents said they teach about racism in their classroom either exclusively in a historical context or as it relates to both history and present-day issues. Only 16 percent said they never discuss racism in their classrooms. When asked if there should be legal limits on classroom conversations about racism, sexism, and other controversial issues, a majority said no.

After last year’s sustained protests for racial justice and our society becoming more cognizant of structural racism, K-12 educators, who are still almost 80 percent white, are increasingly more likely to incorporate concepts that address structural racism and other forms of bias into their instruction. This is likely one of the reasons these state laws are popping up, to try to curb these discussions from taking place.

Helping Children Make Sense of the Disparities They See

By the time children reach preschool at ages 4 and 5, they already show signs of racial bias. As children spend time in our nation’s schools, they face and observe bias every day. This bias is reflected through inequitable funding and access to resources; unfair discipline practices that disproportionately impact Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students and students with disabilities; biased remarks and identity-based bullying in the hallways, buses, classrooms and online; exclusion of people of color reflected in the curriculum, literature, textbooks, and images around their school; not learning the true history of injustice, struggle, and activism in this country; and, especially for students of color, not having role models as teachers, staff, and administrators. This harms students of color, white students, and society.

Not only do young people see and experience bias and injustice in schools, but they also see and experience how it manifests in other places and spaces in society, including in the criminal justice system, health care, workplaces, voting rights, online, housing, media, higher education, and the legal system. Young people are watching, observing, and taking note. When they see negative disproportionate outcomes for people of color or other marginalized groups (e.g., Black boys and girls being more often disciplined in school, men holding elected office more than women), they need help to make sense of these long-standing inequities. According to Dr. Rebecca Bigler, a developmental psychologist who studies prejudice, when children aren’t presented with the context to understand or analyze why our society looks the way it does, “they make up reasons, and a lot of kids make up biased, racist reasons.” Without the language and a way to think critically about how these inequities show up in systems and institutions, young people may think certain groups “deserve” those outcomes or they accept that’s “just the way it is.” This leads to a devaluing of themselves and others and cements the bias in their minds.

What Is Anti-Bias Education?

One of the objectives of anti-bias education is to help students make sense of and explain bias. Anti-bias education is a comprehensive approach to teaching and learning designed to increase understanding of identity and differences and their value to an inclusive and just society, and then actively challenge bias, discrimination, and injustice that we see in schools, communities, and society. The goal of anti-bias education is to help young people, and those who work with them, to challenge bias in ourselves, others, and society.

ADL Education’s approach to anti-bias education uses a thematic sequence that incorporates the following four pillars:

• Explore Identity: To help students explore the various aspects of identity; reflect how identity consciously and unconsciously shapes one’s worldview; and apply this understanding to recognize the relationship between identity, bias and power.
• Interpret Differences: To help students recognize the value of diversity in society; adopt a vocabulary for speaking about differences, prejudice and discrimination; and develop strategies to communicate across differences.
• Challenge Bias : To help students build the capacity to recognize and confront bias within themselves, others, and institutions; examine the relationship between individual biases and systemic oppression, including the impact of intersecting oppressions; and demonstrate awareness of the harm resulting from unchecked bias and oppression.
• Champion Justice: To help students put into practice skills to confront bias within oneself, others and institutions; motivate individuals to act as change agents in their communities; and apply this understanding to bring about a more equitable and just society.

The goal of anti-bias learning is not to become free of bias, because we know that bias is universal, and we all have biases. Our biases are shaped by our experiences in the world around us and all those influences like our families, the media, who we know and don’t know, what we see takes place in our institutions. Indeed, bias is learned. However, through a process of willingly and consistently recognizing bias and actively taking steps to address it, like anti-bias education, we can challenge and overcome bias.

What Can You Do?

For parents, educators, and others who want to push back about these laws and amplify the importance of anti-bias education and teaching about racism and other injustices, here are some suggested actions you can take.

• Support anti-bias, antiracism, and other DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts in schools. Back teachers who, despite these laws, will continue to teach the truth about history and current issues.
• Challenge and speak out about the laws in your or others’ states by sharing your thoughts and opinions with your elected officials. It is also important to advocate for the expansion of anti-bias education and DEI efforts as several states are already doing.
• Learn more about why it is important not to restrict teaching about racism, sexism and controversial issues. Encourage others to join you in this learning process.

The purpose of education is to prepare students to learn about and actively participate in our democracy. Facilitating their learning about our history and present, mistakes and all, will help young people build a better future for all of us. That should be the priority for those working to make schools engaging, truthful and productive places of learning for our nation’s children.

The opinions expressed in Peter DeWitt’s Finding Common Ground are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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Learning to live together: How education can help fight systemic racism

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

June 5, 2020

The protests raging across the United States in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death all call for an end to systemic racism and inequality, which have been alive and well since the very founding of the United States. There is much that needs to be done to address systemic racism from police reform to opening ladders of economic opportunity. Education too has a role to play.

The strategy of “divide and conquer” has been used for literally thousands of years to expand empires and extend control of authoritarian leaders. The military strategy of Nazi Germany was, as former Secretary of Defense James Mattis recently so eloquently reminded us, to divide and conquer, and the American response was “in unity there is strength.” This applies not only to military strategy and morale but also to the fabric of society and our ability as Americans to bridge our differences and connect with each other. It is why after World War II, a U.N. organization dedicated to education was founded, stating “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”

This remains true to this day and it is why education in its broadest sense must be a part of the solution to build unity across our country. Education does play a crucial role in social mobility and ensuring economic opportunity and it is why so many school districts across the U.S. are concerned with helping all young people develop academic mastery and 21st century job skills such as digital literacy, creativity, and teamwork. This is why there are such deep concerns about equity of access to quality schools and the disturbing legacy of tracking African American students into less prestigious avenues of study.

But education also plays a powerful role in shaping worldviews, connecting members of a community who might have never met before, and imagining the world we want. It is this power to shape values and beliefs that has made education susceptible to manipulation by those who want to divide and conquer (e.g., why extremists such as the Taliban in Afghanistan prioritized interfering in education as a top priority for achieving their agenda). Hence it is this power that we must turn to in an effort to fight inequality and racism. In 1996, a UNESCO global commission chaired by Jacques De Lors released a report—now affectionately known in education circles as the “ De Lors Report” —and spelled out the four purposes of education:

• Learning to know . A broad general knowledge with the opportunity to work in depth on a small number of subjects.
• Learning to do . To acquire not only occupational skills but also the competence to deal with many situations and to work in teams.
• Learning to be . To develop one’s personality and to be able to act with growing autonomy, judgment, and personal responsibility.
• Learning to live together . By developing an understanding of other people and an appreciation of interdependence.

These four purposes all remain urgent and relevant today but it is the fourth, learning to live together, that we must as a country pay more attention to. Luckily there are many in the education community that have for years been working on helping young people develop the mindsets and skills to live together. A number of organizations have long included fighting systemic racism in this effort, working tirelessly and more often than not with little visibility and recognition. Some of the best places to begin exploring this work include the nonprofit education organization Facing History, Facing Ourselves , which has been working for the past 45 years with teachers and schools across the United States to combat bigotry and hate and help build understanding across difference. Education International, a federation of the world’s teacher organizations and unions, has put forward the top 25 lessons from the teaching profession for delivering education that supports democracy for all and hence must foster inclusion and fight racism. More well-known to most Americans is Sesame Street, the children’s media organization that has for generations modeled tolerance to America’s youngest children.

On Saturday, June 6, Sesame Street and CNN will host a town-hall meeting titled “ Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism .” Finally, the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture has a host of resources for parents and families, schools and educators, and young people and adults for talking about race .  

As Brookings President John R. Allen so eloquently stated in his recent piece on the need to condemn racism and come together, the leadership for this is not going to come from national political leaders, but every teacher, principal, school superintendent, and parent of students can do their part to make sure education is playing its part and contributing to all of us learning to live together.

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The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field: A Joint BI/CRQ Discussion BI and the Conflict Resolution Quarterly invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.

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By Morton Deutsch

Originally published in March 2005, Current Implications added by Heidi Burgess in July 2020.  

Current Implications

This essay, which was written by one of the conflict resolution field's early and most distinguished scholars, explains the historical origins of oppression.

It is interesting, though not surprising, how much the oppression that has characterized human society for centuries still plagues the the contemporary world. Clearly, it is an extraordinarily complex problem that we have yet to solve.   More...

What is Oppression?

Oppression is the experience of repeated, widespread, systemic injustice. It need not be extreme and involve the legal system (as in slavery, apartheid, or the lack of right to vote) nor violent (as in tyrannical societies). Harvey has used the term "civilized oppression" to characterize the everyday processes of oppression in normal life.[1] Civilized oppression "is embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutions and rules, and the collective consequences of following those rules. It refers to the vast and deep injustices some groups suffer as a consequence of often unconscious assumptions and reactions of well-meaning people in ordinary interactions which are supported by the media and cultural stereotypes as well as by the structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies and market mechanisms."[2]

We cannot eliminate this structural oppression by getting rid of the rulers or by making some new laws, because oppressions are systematically reproduced in the major economic, political and cultural institutions. While specific privileged groups are the beneficiaries of the oppression of other groups, and thus have an interest in the continuation of the status quo, they do not typically understand themselves to be agents of oppression.

What are the Origins of Oppression?

Prior to the development of agriculture, the hunting-gathering-fishing societies were mainly egalitarian and cooperative. Since these very early nomadic societies generally did not accumulate and preserve food, all of the physically able members of such societies had to participate in securing the basic necessities of life. Whatever divisions occurred within these groups was mainly based upon sex, age, and individual physical and social abilities. The distribution of food, work products, and services tended to be egalitarian except during extreme scarcity, when survival of the group required giving priority to those who could contribute most to its survival. The aged and infirm would often have low priority.

Levels of conflict and oppression within such societies appeared to be low. Conflicts with other similar societies mainly occurred as a result of one group's encroachment on another group's territory. Such conflict resulted from the need to expand one's territory as a result of population growth or because one's territory was no longer productive of food and the other resources needed for group survival.

The simple technologies of hunting-gathering-fishing societies did not allow them to accumulate a surplus of food. As such groups experienced a growth in their populations, the balance between them and their environment was upset. To overcome the threats to their survival, about 12,000 years ago, some of these societies developed agriculture and animal husbandry.

This development led to two revolutionary consequences, which fostered social inequality and oppression: differentiation within societies and warfare between societies.[3] The accumulation of a surplus of food led to the emergence of new occupations -- such as traders, merchants, administrators, artisans, soldiers, and rulers; not all the members of the society were required to be involved in the production of food. One can speculate that social hierarchies developed as some food growers were more successful than others because of skill or luck. To obtain food, the unsuccessful peasants became dependent upon the successful ones and had to offer their land and services -- often as a worker, priest, or soldier -- to the more successful ones. For the successful ones, the result was increased wealth, increased godliness, support from the priests, and increased support from soldiers with the resulting power to appropriate the land and control the services of those who were weaker. Contests among the powerful would increase the power of the winners to exploit those who were weaker, as would alliances among the more powerful.

Another way of increasing power was through successful warfare against weaker societies. Success would lead to the expropriation of much of the wealth of the weaker society as well as enslavement of some of its population.

In summary, one can speculate that the need for the relatively egalitarian hunting-gathering-fishing societies to have stable sources of food led to the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. Small inequalities in luck or skills among the peasants within an agricultural society, or between societies, could lead to social inequalities and power differences that, in turn, could lead to increased power, social inequalities, and oppression of the weak by the strong.

Note: This was originally one long article on oppression, which we have broken up to post on Beyond Intractability . The next article in the series is: Forms of Oppression .

It is interesting, though not surprising, how much the oppression that has characterized human society for centuries still plagues the the contemporary world. Clearly, it is an extraordinarily complex problem that we have yet to solve.  

In the summer of 2020, in the wake of a widely-circulated video of yet another killing of an unarmed Black man by police, oppression is again the focus of much public attention. The protests and the narrative that followed have emphasized that this was not a one-time event.  Rather, this happens often and is part of a much larger story. Blacks have been systemically oppressed ever since slavery ended.  (They were even more oppressed, of course, during slavery, but my point is that oppression did not end when the slaves were freed, nor has it ended anytime since, despite efforts legal efforts to do so (such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act). (See a newly-added and very useful BI  history  of what went wrong during the "Reconstruction Era" to cement this oppression in place.)

Indeed, just as Deustch says, the "unconscious assumptions and reactions of well-meaning people in ordinary situations which are supported by the media and cultural stereotypes as well as by the structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies and market mechanisms" has led to Blacks' widespread inability to join the middle class. For instance,  Brookings reported in February of 2020 that in 2016 (the last year for which they had data), net worth of a typical white family was $171,000, while that of a typical black family was $17,150.[4] According to Wikipedia , Blacks receive lower grades in school than do whites, more drop out, and fewer go to or graduate from college, [5] which means that the jobs available to them are not as good as the jobs available to the average white youth or young adult. In addition, disparate treatment in the justice system (from policing to sentencing to treatment in prison) favors whites over blacks, resulting in a highly disproportionate number of black men being incarcerated, harming their own life chances permanently, as well as the chances of their families. And while the focus in the summer of 2020 is primarily on Blacks, the same is true for many other people of color, religious minorities, and other minority groups. 

Back to Essay Top

[1] Harvey, J. (1999). Civilized Oppression. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

[2] Young, M.I. (1990). Justice and the Politics of Difference . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 41.

[3] Gil, D.G. (1998). Confronting Injustice and Oppression . New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

[4] McIntosh, Kriston, Emily Moss, Ryan Nunn, and Jan Shambaugh. "Examining the Black-White Wealth Gap." Brookings Up Front. Feb. 27, 2020.  https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/ . Accessed July 2, 2020.

[5] "Racial achievement gap in the United States" Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_achievement_gap_in_the_United_States . Accessed July 2, 2020.

Use the following to cite this article: Deutsch, Morton. "The Nature and Origins of Oppression." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: March 2005 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/nature-origins-oppression >.

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Is Education Oppressive?

Student, Bruno Mallett written piece: Education, whilst being a motivational icon of inspiring change, knowledge and liberation amongst people and policy makers, it is the policy makers that arguably manipulate the divine concept of such moralist ideals to oppress.

Education, whilst being a motivational icon of inspiring change, knowledge and liberation amongst people and policy makers, it is the policy makers that arguably manipulate the divine concept of such moralist ideals to oppress. Oppress not just the learners, but the society in which they reside. In fact, many founding principles of education were based arguably upon the stifling of the creativity and curious spirit within human beings as outlined by Alexander Inglis’ (1918) account of American education. In parallel, such fears of originally providing compulsory education in the UK (yet also in wider contexts) would be providing the masses with conscientização, or a higher pedagogical understanding of the oppression they have largely been accustomed to and effectively revolt the authoritarian controls on the societal order and general consciousness (Gillard, 1998). For such revolt to take place requires a deeper, philosophical understanding of the Plato-esque cave that we are arguably share a captive within (Plato, 1943). However, it is Paulo Freire (1970; 2000) who argues, and to whom this essay will closely refer, ‘the situation of oppression is a dehumanized and dehumanizing totality affecting both the oppressors and those whom they oppress’. Therefore, in a liberatory education system, not only must the oppressed be liberated, but the oppressor in turn as well. Oppression within education, as Freire suggests, is therefore a system in which we all contribute, and all have a collective responsibility to shape and deconstruct. This therefore inspires a globalist mindset. Whilst the UK arguably has an oppressive system of its own, two case studies explored in this essay are China’s Dabancheng ‘Re-education’ facilities and what I shall call here the University of North Africa (Sudworth, 2018). These examples aim draw parallels of educative systems that have become arguably manipulated to enforce direct oppression upon people. How can this system be reversed towards an education system that can serve as both a ‘great equaliser’ and a fundamentally liberatory institution (Mann, 1848; Freire, 1975)?

The ways in which schools have enforced greater levels of security over time argues the oppressive nature this presents to its students, not as educational environments, but rather ‘cold prison houses’ (Hughes, 2011). The enforcement of strict security measures takes a toll upon its inhabitants (Perumean-Chaney & Sutton, 2012; Schreck & Miller, 2008). Such reflections and parallels shared between school and prison systems regarding security and structure, beg the pedagogical issue faced amongst education critics on how to disassociate the role of student from the role of a suspicious criminal. As Willard Waller (1932) argued, the role of authority within school largely fuels stigmatised opinions of students and their roles, an environment that is ‘a despotism in a state of perilous equilibrium’. This argues that the role of state authority is not an absolute fixed power, but one that is vulnerable to ‘conflict and resistance … lying in wait’, between the state administered and enforced binary teacher-student relationship (Pace & Hemmings, 2007). To illuminate Waller’s theory, Freire argues that the teacher-student relationship must be recalibrated to one that relies not on teachers having a divine set of powers and knowledge, and the students the reverse, but of a ‘profound trust’ amongst students for their curious and ‘creative power.’ These degrees of trust must ensure that students are treated as inquisitive, curious beings and not as suspicious, disinterested and unmotivated vessels in the process of receiving centralised and largely unreflective ‘real-life’ knowledge.

Repeated calls and measures of safety are often used to justify building walls, fences and limiting visitors. This is reflected in recent government legislation to advance the apparatus of security within schools (DfE, 2012, 2018). Despite these strict apparatuses, a frequent and clique scene from a horror movie would argue, it is not what you lock yourself out of, but what you lock yourself into that is the scary part. Security pressures within schools have only been advanced over time, highlighted by frequent school shootings within America (Hogg & Hogg, 2018). Such US/UK relations with regard to policy have caused chain reaction approaches with regard to home and foreign policy, despite the issue of violent school attacks not translating as prevalently in a British context (Jones & Newburn, 2002). This is evident that despite much stricter gun control measures and a severely low number of life-threatening attacks since Dunblane (1997), similar security apparatuses have been replicated, including mass instalments of security cameras within schools, especially at secondary level (Nemorin, 2017; Big Brother Watch, 2012). The frequency of new legislation argues that this issue has been consumed by a contemporary ‘common-sense’ political discourse. This collective conscience is challenging to countering established, contemporary discourse. This frequency makes it difficult for counter arguments to take place against the run of political play with the current established narrative often agreed upon by policy makers alone. The implications of this reinforces such oppressive cycles of security within schools as agreeable, expected and accepted in society. Conclusively, these structures pose wider philosophical concerns over the ways our free will is restricted. Though such enforced security may be a limitation upon our free will, Aristotle (2008) would argue that all free will is to some degree pre-determined, explaining that our authentic character is ‘voluntarily; but having become so, it is no longer possible’ to remain. We establish a character that is free in will, yet by doing so we become accustomed to predictability from the very conception of being that we have produced. This said, a root conflict between a liberatory and oppressive educational system is not only within the oppressor’s grip upon the oppressed but by the oppressed within themselves to (un)learn the largely predictable mannerisms that are manageable and correctional by oppressive forces and structures (Malinowski, 1947). Whilst the fictional, Orwellian (1949) ideas of mass control through surveillance poses strict definitions between the oppressor and oppressed, it arguable that the oppressive struggle as internal as it is external. As Freire would expand upon in an educative perspective, conscientização is both an external and internal process, ‘in the search for self-affirmation’ (Freire, 2000). Therefore, although similarities shared between both school and prison is challenging from an education perspective, overthrowing these physical icons and references will not immediately result in a more liberatory education system.

Such degrees of surveillance are dangerous for productive and liberating pedagogies. This is arguably the archetypal case at the University of North Africa, a campus with a strong anti-establishment counter-culture that is integral among the consciousness and identity of students. This is allegedly and most profoundly observed through frequent clashes with police and political protest, resulting in many arrests and even deaths amongst students based upon such campus conflict (MEE, 2014; Euspring, 2013; Ben-Meir et al., 2016). The physical efforts of police and state violence are undeniably oppressive, especially when systematic cases of corruption and abuses of power have occurred through such ranks (Amnesty International, 2015). A learning environment shrouded in a violent and damaging discourse whereby the oppressed and oppressor are simultaneously suspicious of one another argues a crucial argument in Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, of liberation, and its opposite, to fundamentally effect the experience of learning. Whilst the oppressor lacks ‘the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves,’ the oppressed must find, he argues, the strength not only to liberate themselves but the oppressed who through the struggle of their own oppression will be ‘sufficiently strong to free both’. Therefore, to dissemble the suspicion and conflict between student and state forces within the University of North Africa would be a struggle that extends beyond the students themselves. The clashes and frequent protests are problem-posing education, whereby the problem lies in the intervention and state control of the pedagogical system (during this writing process there has been a hunger strike on campus into its twelfth day). These are, in effect, beyond the uses of direct force. Student led efforts are neither ignored nor only responded to by the state in physical form, who, as well the direct response of police, have erected phone towers and security surveillance cameras in disguise as palm trees surrounding the entire circumference of the campus. Examples also seen more frequently in America (Clark & McCutcheon, 2015; Stromberg, 2015).

"Fez Medina cellphone tower and eyesore (Clark & McCutcheon, 2013)" and "A wall displaying solidarity"

Over Fez, and across all of Morocco, frequent displays of the monarch King Mohammed VI situate themselves in many shop windows and houses. Whilst there is such a reverent display of loyalty towards the status-quo in many parts of Morocco, contrary discourses must face greater degrees of persecution because of this. At the University of North Africa, such images, if any at all, are hard to locate. In return, walls adorned with hammer and sickles, liberational quotes and flags of other nation states, the latter more commonly found than Moroccan flags. The damaging response to such counter culture is the high usage of surveillance cameras and state suspicion. The panopticon effect of these levels of surveillance is harmful for the educational experience of learners. These disguised palm-trees do not symbolically ‘project an absolute ignorance onto’ students as Freire would argue, however, the effects are arguably more damaging (Freire, 1970). Administering suspicion upon students, highlighting and separating the dangerous from the harmless and the students from the activists centralises power from that of an authentic, liberatory education to one dominated by authoritarian, prison-aligned structures (Foucault, 1977). Whilst cases of alleged physical police brutality are examples of direct oppression amongst students, the reverse and metaphysical degrees of oppression through surveillance is arguably more damaging. This is highlighted by modern advances in surveillance technology. Such advances in both China and the USA include camera facial recognition and information through the medium of being observed by such cameras, exposing negative effects for namely activists whom have found it ‘impossible to continue to function’ (Klein, 2008). Whilst this is damaging to the lives in which the panoptic surveillance captures, it is also encouraging a different model of student; a student who is subversive to the powers of the state, thereby the powers of an intrinsically oppressive education system.

This is illuminated by the prevent strategy within the U.K (Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, 2015). A panoptic vision that demanded the public to act upon the authority of prison guards, reporting ‘suspicious’, ‘terrorist’ behaviour amongst people in regard to characteristics wide ranging enough that they commonly revert to internalised prejudices amongst educators and wider populations (DfE, 2015). In Foucault’s Discipline & Power (1977) , ‘rulers dreamt of the state of plague. Underlying disciplinary projects the image of the plague stands for all forms of confusion and disorder’. Similarly, to the plague, the reality and manipulation of terrorism, a gripping word within itself, helps to authenticate suspicion and paranoia amongst one another, although especially ‘the other’, commonly black and Muslim students in education. This is realised in the effects of the prevent agenda in education, that is shown to disproportionately target students of Muslim faith, alongside black and minority ethnic students (HO, 2016; Students not Suspects, 2016). These effects are through intercepting speech, political opinion, clothing, culture and every small detail within certain targeted students’ lives. Thus, centralising learning away from the individual, to the ‘responsibility’ of the state, to ensure that the individual is not a rogue learner, but a confined one.

Dabancheng’s internment camp arguably provide a key example of education at its most evidently oppressive. The very philosophical approach from these camps poses that not just education, but knowledge is the responsibility for the state, not individual. Re-education is a concept that suggests an overthrow of a previous education. Indeed, this argues that all that is previously known and learnt is irrelevant and incorrect and the students were under the guise of false, brainwashed style pedagogies. In Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ (1943), such examples were applied, arguing that everything that is known is only fractional, with the truth to be revealed only once freed by the oppressor. The process of re-educating students in Dabancheng includes high security models, including walls, watchtowers and guards. It is a structural oppression of people highlighted by its inhabitants: Chinese Uyghurs historically oppressed by grounds of religion, economics, culture and beyond. The minoritized group is one that is both a ‘stranger in their own land’ and abroad (Klimeš, 2012; Debeta & Tian, 2011). Their historical land, the ruralised and economically disadvantaged region of Xinjiang, is a key political and philosophical challenge to the centralised Chinese communist authority. Such ideas both home and foreign policy rely upon a ‘One China Principle’, a theoretical assimilation and unification of people (Wei, 1999). Such discourses have set worrying trends within the education and internment camps to be established, home to nearly two million inhabitants. The theoretical basis behind Dabancheng is reflective of the ‘One China Principle,’ an uncompromising de-establishment of values, beliefs and knowledge for reasons of being a state posing problem amongst conformist China. The nature of such internment camps however, where many Uyghur people have been sent reportedly against their will, have worrying parallels to similar forms of direct oppression over the course of history based upon ‘non-traditional’ identities (Chin, 2018). This is theoretically supported by the illusion of equality. Notions that manipulate ideals of equality especially within education were the philosophical background behind the Supreme Court ruling of Plessy vs Ferguson (1896). Yet in the context of China, equality (a commonly agreeable term to summarise many political discourses) has been effectively manipulated to associate itself with the concepts of authoritarian control, segregation and assimilation by deceiving means of administering equality (The Times, 2018). Dabancheng arguably has many oppressive cycles that oppress its inhabitants emotionally, physically and pedagogically and further. 

An applicable argument within Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is that those who are oppressed ‘are not “marginals”, are not people living “outside” society. They have always been “inside”’ (Friere, 1970). Therefore, if education is oppressive, it ought to marginalise . If the Uyghurs are a marginalised group, they cannot become “less marginalised”, for the nature of marginalisation is a continual and rigid construct of oppression.  They have always lived within China, therefore the liberation must only come mutually between the oppressor and oppressed cycle, highlighted in Dabancheng’s internment camps. The ‘re-education’ camps are fundamentally based upon a divisive us vs them discourse. Through this, physical and pedagogical segregation arguably fuels internalised oppression amongst the Uyghur people, limiting a liberating social mobility towards equality amongst all people. Yet an us vs them divide and conquer discourse forms the basis of an oppressive and racially segregated educative system, as the Uyghur people ‘cannot permit itself the luxury of tolerating the unification of the people’ (Cikara et al., 2017; Chiao & Mathur, 2010; Freire, 2000). Cultural practices within the camps include forcing its inhabitants to eat pork, drink alcohol and dress ‘Westernised’ (Shih & Kang, 2018). These advances in the differences between people are largely constructed by a dominant class and order, thereby dividing people, especially in education, into hierarchical orders. Whilst Marx contemplated the class aspect of such divisive education systems, Dabancheng’s camps accelerate this argument to include not just struggle between the proletariat from the bourgeois but the ‘terrorists’ from the ‘civil obedient’ (Marx, 1996; Gerin, 2016). Common discourses within media and wider political opinion not only limit internal pressure within China to challenge the treatment of Uyghur’s, but across the wider Western hemisphere. The oppressive and integrated structure of xenophobia and racism has helped to fuel the apathetic and even supportive opinion on the ways in which the Dabancheng internment camps operate.

Whilst education can provide people with an authentic, spiritual, holistic pedagogies that both inspires and harvests the human creative spirit, it is education that is arguably a principle, extracted and manipulated from its virtuous ideal to oppress both the learners and society in return. As Paulo Freire concedes, education is too often enforced into banking methods, used to ‘minimise or annul the students’ creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors’. These very banking systems of education are arguably universal, especially through the subscription and competition over international league tables (Andrews et al., 2014). This monopolisation approach towards education, whereby grades are often more important than pedagogical outcome, begs the age-old demand “I’m a name not a number!” Countering these discourses within education, for example an abolishment of formalised grading systems, is unfortunately tarnished with notions of ‘radical’ and even ‘anarchic’, such notions that Freire would evaluate as the “fear of freedom” (Barnes, 2018). Yet whilst education serves universally as an arguable motive of oppression through means of pedagogy, both Dabancheng and the University of North Africa serve as exemplary examples of education as directly oppressive: through means of forceful and aggressive control. The ways in which state structures can manipulate learning not as a pedagogical struggle, but a physical one illuminates the concerns raised in Pedagogy of the Oppressed , as the oppressor-oppressed conflict, one that is in practice universally, is polarised to an extent that causes violence, and in both cases, torture (Meixler, 2018). This therefore stresses the importance of these juxtaposing constructs to be understood and ultimately abolished. Education, to serve all people with an undeniable passion for knowledge, creativity and learning, has been fought over effortlessly both internationally and locally throughout the world in its furthest reaching corners (GCfE, 2018; Rawles, 2016). These efforts present the power than underlines education from a philosophical perspective as truly liberating. However, its reverse qualities to be oppressive as previously outlined reinforce this very important educative struggle to continue.

Author: Bruno Mallett

I would like to extend my solidarity to all students at the University of North Africa in their ongoing hunger strike, as well as Othman, my friend who alongside others, continues to struggle for a more liberating and emancipatory education on campus. My thanks too to Adam Abdalla for introducing me to the campus grounds and its radical context. Fnally, to all the Uyghur people struggling under abhorrent Chinese oppression within Dabancheng’s internment camps as well as the Xinxiang region. May liberation unite us all.

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Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all assigned multiple social identities. Within each category, there is a hierarchy - a social status with dominant and non-dominant groups. As with race , dominant members can bestow benefits to members they deem "normal," or limit opportunities to members that fall into "other" categories.

A person of the non-dominant group can experience oppression in the form of limitations, disadvantages, or disapproval. They may even suffer abuse from individuals, institutions, or cultural practices. "Oppression" refers to a combination of prejudice and institutional power  that creates a system that regularly and severely discriminates against some groups and benefits other groups.

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Systems of Oppression The term "systems of oppression" helps us better identify inequity by calling attention to the historical and organized patterns of mistreatment. In the United States, systems of oppression (like systemic racism) are woven into the very foundation of American culture, society, and laws. Other examples of systems of oppression are sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism, ageism, and anti-Semitism. Society's institutions, such as government, education, and culture, all contribute or reinforce the oppression of marginalized social groups while elevating dominant social groups.

Social Identities A social identity is both internally constructed and externally applied, occurring simultaneously. Educators from oneTILT  define social identity as having these three characteristics:

• Exists (or is consistently used) to bestow power, benefits, or disadvantage.
• Is used to explain differences in outcomes, effort, or ability.
• Is immutable or otherwise sticky (difficult, costly, or dangerous) to change.

Stop and Think!

Explore your own social identities [ view PDF ]

Learn More!

Download this fact sheet on privilege and oppression in American society from Kalamazoo College

There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Audre Lorde

Oppression causes deep suffering, but trying to decide whether one oppression is worse than others is problematic. It diminishes lived experiences and divides communities that should be working together. Many people experience abuse based on multiple social identities. Often, oppressions overlap to cause people even more hardship. This overlapping of oppressed groups is referred to as "intersectionality ." Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term in the 1980s to describe how black women faced heightened struggles and suffering in American society because they belonged to multiple oppressed social groups.

Watch: A short video on black women and the concept of intersectionality. From the NMAAHC, #APeoplesJourney , "African American Women and the Struggle for Equality.”

During the time Crenshaw was articulating the concept of intersectionality, poet-scholar and social activist Audre Lorde  warned America against fighting against some oppressions but not others. She insisted, "There is no hierarchy of oppression." All oppressions must be recognized and fought against simultaneously. She pushed American society to understand that although we possess different identities, we are all connected as human beings.

“So long as we are divided because of our particular identities we cannot join together in effective political action.”

Audre Lorde cautioned us about the ways that our various identities can prevent us from seeing our shared humanity. Why do you think she felt this was a danger to all people?

In American society, systems of oppression and their effects on people have a long, profound history. However, America and our society can change. As our country continues to evolve, we can acknowledge its problems and work to make changes for the better. We can join together to resist the status quo and the systemic barriers that exist to create new systems of justice, fairness, and compassion for us all.

To make this better America, each of us should look at our own privileges and power. Some people have more power or influence than others, and this can shift quickly according to circumstances . Do you enjoy power, privilege, or influence? If so, what do you do with it? Do you silently enjoy your moments of comfort? Or, do you take risks to stand in solidarity with others?

Take a moment to reflect

Let's Think

• “I learned a lot about systems of oppression and how they can be blind to one another by talking to black men. I was once talking about gender and a man said to me, ’Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?’ This type of question is a way of silencing a person's specific experiences. Of course, I am a human being, but there are particular things that happen to me in the world because I am a woman.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie​
• Why do you think Ngozi Adichie insisted on being able to talk directly about her specific identity as a woman?
• What identities are important to you that others don’t always acknowledge?

• It can be hard to talk about oppression no matter what side you find yourself on. However, these conversations are needed to develop a deeper understanding of the issues and prevent further harm. An effective way to enter into these kinds of conversations is by thinking through your own social identity.  
• Do this “Social Identity Timeline Activity” with one or more people . 
• Find relevant handouts here . Source: Resource adapted for use by the Program on Intergroup Relations, University of Michigan; Resource hosted by LSA Inclusive Teaching Initiative, University of Michigan .
• Share about the process of your identity formation with your partners using the discussion questions.  
• WATCH:  How the U.S. Suppressed Native American Identity
• How do you think individuals, institutions, and the dominant American society justified this cruel and inhumane treatment?  
• What kept those who had power and voice (government officials, school teachers, civic leaders, regular citizens, etc.) from acknowledging the humanity of these children and preventing this atrocity?  
• Banks connects historical oppression to current oppression faced by Native peoples. How can we join together as allies against this oppression?

• Work to be continuously self-reflective about your own privilege and power. Write self-reflections and revisit them so that you can seek out resources and supports to stop your own contributions to oppression.  
• Be a Georgia Gilmore by joining with others in teaching, advocating, and organizing locally to dismantle systems of oppression where you are.

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Understanding the Psychological Impact of Oppression Using the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale

Monnica williams.

1 School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

2 Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

Chrysalis Hyon

3 Department of East West Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, California, USA

Oppression refers to systemic discrimination where the injustice targets or disproportionately impacts specific groups of people. The Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale (TSDS) is a self-report measure designed to assess the traumatizing impact of discrimination broadly by measuring anxiety-related symptoms of trauma due to discriminatory experiences. This may include symptoms arising from racism, homophobia, sexism, poverty, or other forms of marginalization. Almost all studies of the TSDS have examined its use in marginalized ethnoracial groups, primarily African Americans. This paper will extend prior work to help us better understand racial trauma across groups by reporting and comparing TSDS mean scores across ethnoracial identities in a diverse national sample (n  =  923). It also explores trauma with other marginalized identities and demographic dimensions, including gender, sexual minority/LGBQ status, education, and income. The relationship of TSDS scores to clinical psychopathologies are examined, including stress, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. We also examine the unique risks associated with intersectionality, and how having multiple marginalized identities may increase traumatization. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

Introduction

Oppression-based stress and trauma.

Oppression describes an asymmetrical power dynamic characterized by domination and subordination of a group by restricting access to social, economic, and political resources. 1 Subordinated groups experience fear, stress, and may develop negative views of themselves. As a chronic stressor, oppression can lead to poor mental health. Studies consistently link poverty and lower socioeconomic status (SES) with increased vulnerability to negative physical and mental health conditions, including schizophrenia, major depression, panic and phobic disorders, as well as antisocial personality disorder. 2 – 4

Oppression based on race, sexual orientation, and other identities predicts poor mental health. A meta-analysis of 66 studies concluded increased exposure to stress from racial discrimination was a stronger predictor of depression and anxiety for African Americans. 5 Similar findings exist for intersectional oppressions based on class, sexual orientation and race. 6 In a study of 376 Black, Latino, and multiracial sexual minority males, English and colleagues 7 found gay rejection sensitivity, racial discrimination, and emotional regulation difficulties were significantly linked, which in turn predicted higher anxiety and depressive symptoms.

As chronic experiences, oppression can even be traumatizing. Although the DSM-5 conceptualizes traumatic experiences as discrete events, 8 Holmes and colleagues 9 argue this approach fails to capture the harm of chronic oppression-based experiences, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and poverty. In support of this argument, Kira and colleagues 10 found expanding trauma assessment models using Criterion A increased the predictive validity of chronic trauma on vulnerability to PTSD. Based on a cross-cultural combination of clinical and non-clinical samples experiencing political and economic oppression (total N  =  2754), chronic stressors such as collective identity trauma (eg, oppression and discrimination) along with attachment or betrayal trauma “increased the predictive model of PTSD six times over what Criterion A explained alone” (, 10 p. 2672). As such, a more appropriate model of PTSD should include systemic discrimination along with secondary, abandonment, and betrayal traumas for more accurate and predictive assessment as well as effective treatment particularly for minoritized, non-Western communities.

Despite the growing evidence showing oppression-based stress can be traumatic and relates to symptoms of PTSD, research on oppression-based stress and trauma is limited. Specifically, one of the most widely-studied forms of oppression is racism, as racial discrimination is consistently linked with traumatization. 11 Yet, a recent meta-analysis found a lack of validated psychological measures that adequately capture the distress associated with racism and an inability of the current literature to account for other forms of oppression-based trauma.

Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale (TSDS)

The Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale (TSDS) is a 21-item self-report measure that broadly assesses the traumatizing impact of discrimination by focusing on anxiety-related symptoms of trauma. 12 Participants report the frequency of their experience of discriminatory distress regarding trauma (eg, “Due to the past experiences of discrimination, I often worry too much about different things”) on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (Never) to 3 (Often).

In the original paper introducing this measure, the psychometric properties of the TSDS were examined in 123 African American monoracial and biracial university undergraduates. 12 The TSDS was found to have concurrent and predictive validity and excellent reliability (Cronbach's α  =  .94 for total score). It was positively correlated to measures of discrimination and psychopathology (eg, r  =  .48 for the Everyday Discrimination Scale, and r  =  .52 for the abbreviated Penn State Worry Questionnaire, p < .001 for both). 13 , 14 This preliminary evidence supported the validity of the TSDS for the measurement of anxiety-related trauma symptoms due to racial discrimination but called for more studies to extend the findings to other marginalized groups.

The TSDS has been used in several subsequent studies of racism. For example, Maxie-Moreman and Tynes 15 conducted a study of exposure to online racial discrimination and traumatic events in Black adolescents and young adults, centering the TSDS and its four subscales in its analyses. Reliability analysis indicated high internal consistency in the subscales (α's from .78 to .93), and the experience of online racial discrimination was significantly correlated to each subscale (r's from .35 to .49, p < .001 for all).

The TSDS was used as the primary outcome measure in a series of studies examining psychedelics and racial trauma. 16 – 18 The retrospective study included 313 diverse Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) in the U.S. and Canada who reported a memorable psychedelic experience that helped them cope with racial trauma. There was a significant decrease in symptoms, using the TSDS, before and after the psychedelic experience. Internal consistency reliability for the TSDS was excellent (α = 0.95), which was found with Asian American/Canadian (n  =  92; α  =  .94) and Indigenous/Native American (n  =  66; α  =  .97) subsamples as well.

In a nationwide survey study on racial trauma, the TSDS served as a benchmark for convergent validity for the Racial Trauma Scale (RTS 1;1). Diverse participants across the U.S. (n  =  923) were included in this racial trauma scale validation study. Of these, a subset completed clinical interviews of racial trauma, and the TSDS was found to reliably identify clinically relevant racial trauma, with a sensitivity of .77 and 1-specificity of .16 when using a cut-off score of 40.

Intersectionality and Oppression

Experiences of discrimination do not occur uniformly across marginalized groups. For example, Chou and colleagues 19 found that African Americans experienced more discrimination than other major racialized groups. Further, multiple oppressed identities are theorized to be linked to more interactive discrimination and, in some cases, subsequent traumatization (eg, 20 ). Root 21 pointed to women of color's “double jeopardy” status, with many subsequent studies demonstrating their exposure to gender and racial discrimination and how it negatively affected their well-being in a variety of ways. 22 – 24 Notably, Moody and Lewis 25 found that a higher frequency of gendered racial microaggressions was significantly correlated with more severe traumatic stress symptoms in a national sample of Black women.

Research on LGBTQ populations and queer persons of color have also reflected parallel findings. In one of the largest national LGBTQ college campus studies to date with a sample size of over 5000 respondents, Rankin et al 26 found that “multiple minoritized identities (eg, racial identity and sexual identity; racial identity and gender identity) lead to encounters of multiple forms of oppression” (p. 11). For example, while sexual orientation identity was indicated as the primary basis of observed harassment for both respondents of color and White respondents (75% and 76%, respectively), respondents of color were ten times more likely to attribute the perceived harassment to racial profiling. Moreover, trans- and gender-nonconforming respondents of color were more likely than cis-gendered respondents of color to experience on-campus hostility, exclusion, or harassment ( 26 pp. 10-11). From their national online survey (n  =  200), Sutter and Perrin 27 found that LGBTQ-based discrimination had a significant impact on the psychological functioning of sexual and gender minority persons of color, particularly suicidal ideation risk. Diaz et al's 28 study of gay and bisexual Latino men demonstrated negative mental health outcomes (eg, depression, sleep issues, suicidal ideation) that were associated with both lifelong and current experiences of social discrimination based on their sexual orientation and racial/ethnic identity as well as financial hardship due to acute unemployment and poverty.

Purpose of This Study

Almost all studies of the TSDS focus on the experience of racism, primarily among African Americans. This paper will extend prior work to understand trauma across ethnoracial groups as well as other marginalized identities and several demographic dimensions, including gender, LGBTQ status, income, and education. We examine the TSDS and its relationships to clinical symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, as well as PTSD using the data from Williams et al 29 in a cross-sectional survey study. We also examine the unique risks associated with intersectionality, and how having multiple marginalized identities may increase traumatization.

Participants

Recruitment for this study was conducted online through Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk) Prime, now Cloud Research. Participants (Turk Workers) register to join the platform in exchange for opportunities to do online tasks for compensation. TurkPrime was designed as a research platform that integrates with MTurk and supports tasks that are common to social and behavioral sciences, such as survey data collection. 30 Tasks that can be implemented with TurkPrime include selecting participants with specific characteristics and excluding participants on the basis of previous participation. For this study, eligibility criteria included: over 18 years of age; identify as African American/Black, Asian American, Latine/Hispanic American, or White/European American; spent most of childhood in the U.S.; and able to read and speak English.

Only eligible Turk Workers were able to view the posted recruitment invitation and, if they accepted the invitation, they were then able to complete the consent form and online battery containing the study surveys. The participant population of mTurk has similar demographics to the general U.S. population in geographical location and gender distribution, 31 and participants were recruited to be a nationally geographically representative sample. The study was approved by the University of Connecticut's IRB. All participants were provided with local mental health resources in the event they felt distress from participating in the study. For the online survey, participants received $9 as compensation. The raw data consisted of a diverse sample of 1001 participants. For the purpose of validation, participants who were missing all the study measures (n  =  49) or their racial identity (n  =  11) were excluded.

In terms of demographics, the mean income level was somewhat lower than the U.S. national average. 32 Demographic details of the sample are shown in Table 1 .

Demographics of sample

Note: The frequency of each demographic characteristic is listed with the percentage in parentheses. In addition to the five ethnoracial groups listed in the table, there were 18 participants who indicated “other” or listed multiple ethnoracial identities, not presented in the table .

Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale . As noted, the TSDS 12 is a 21-item scale that evaluates discriminatory distress for anxiety-related symptoms of trauma. The measure assesses uncontrollable arousal, feelings of alienation, worries about future negative events, and perceiving others as dangerous. Participants were asked to report the frequency of their experience of discriminatory distress regarding trauma on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (Never) to 3 (Often). At the end of the scale, respondents divide the percentage of their discrimination across various sources (eg, racial/ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, etc). This scale has excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability and revealed good concurrent validity. 12 Reliability was excellent (α  =  0.97). Most (97%) respondents of color indicated that some or most discrimination experienced was “Racial/Ethnic” in nature. Other sources of discrimination experienced by POC participants that contributed to traumatic distress included gender (36%), sexual orientation (81%), religion (68%), disability (86%), social class (38%), and age (56%).

General Ethnic Discrimination Scale . The GEDS 33 was designed to evaluate the frequency and severity of discrimination in education, employment, the legal system, healthcare, or community settings due to one's race/ethnicity. It includes 17 multi-part questions wherein participants are asked to rate the frequency of a specific discrimination experience on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (Never) to 6 (Almost all the time), and then rate the severity of their stress due to each experience on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (Not at all stressful) to 4 (Extremely stressful). The sections are scored separately to provide a frequency and a stress score. For the past month and lifetime frequency as well as the stress scores had good reliability (α  =  0.96 for each).

Racial Microaggressions Scale . The RMAS 34 was used to measure the frequency of ongoing racial microaggressions; these are small automatic/unintentional racist acts that are not clearly racially motivated and yet reinforce harmful stereotypes and communicate exclusion to POC. It contains 32 items, rated from 0 (Never) to 3 (Often/Frequently), with higher numbers indicating more frequent experiences of microaggressions. There are 12 categories of microaggressions included in the total scale, which correspond to several of Sue et al's 35 taxonomy and include items about feelings of invisibility due to race, assumptions of criminality by others, being low-achieving or part of an undesirable culture, being a foreigner or not belonging, and environmental omissions, as well as additional categories such as erotization. For example, the item, “People act like they are scared of me because of my race” represents the microaggressive theme of criminality. The RMAS exhibited excellent reliability (α  =  0.95).

Race-Based Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale (Short Form) . The RBTSSS-SF 36 is a 22-item clinical tool for the assessment of distress in responses to experiences of racism. It consists of seven subscales: Depression, Anger, Physical Reactions, Avoidance, Intrusion, Hypervigilance/Arousal, and Low Self-Esteem. The measure begins with an open-ended section in which participants are asked about three memorable experiences with racism. In reference to their most memorable experience, participants answer a series of yes/no questions to assess psychological reactivity. In reference to the same event, participants rate a series of reactions on a 5-point Likert-type scale to assess emotional reactivity, which ranges from 0 (does not describe my reaction) to 4 (this reaction would not go away). We rated severity race-based discrimination by summing all items. The reliability for the RBTSSS-SF was excellent (α  =  0.96).

UConn Racial/Ethnic Stress & Trauma Survey. The UnRESTS 37 is a clinician-administered interview for racial trauma. It includes 6 questions to assess ethnoracial identity development, a semi-structured interview to probe for a variety of racism-related experiences, and a checklist to help determine whether the individual's racial trauma meets DSM-5 criteria. The interview guides the clinician in asking questions about experiences with explicit and obvious racism toward them, racism experienced by loved ones, being vicariously impacted by racist experiences that were learned about, and experiences with subtle forms of racism or microaggressions. The checklist at the end provides a DSM-5 diagnosis for PTSD caused by experiences of racism. Interviews conducted on a subset of the sample, and 80 of these were used for analysis.

PTSD Civilian Checklist-5 . The PCL-5 38 is a measure developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD that assesses for the presence and severity of symptoms of PTSD. The PCL-5 assesses re-experiencing of a traumatic event, avoidance, changes in cognitions and mood, arousal and reactivity, and distress and interference. The reliability for this measure was excellent (α  =  0.97).

Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory . The PTCI 39 is a questionnaire that is designed to assess negative cognitions about self, negative cognitions about the world, and self-blame. Participants are asked to rate the extent to which they agree or disagree with each item on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). The PTCI has excellent internal consistency, good test-retest reliability, correlates well with other measures of trauma-related cognitions, and discriminates well between traumatized people with and without PTSD. 39 The reliability was excellent (α  =  0.96).

Beck Anxiety Inventory . The BAI 40 is a 21-item self-report measure used to assess anxiety in adults. The BAI focuses on somatic symptoms of anxiety, such as nervousness, dizziness, and inability to relax. 41 Participants are asked to rate the extent to which they have been bothered by each symptom within the past week on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 3 (severely). The BAI is psychometrically sound with good convergent validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability. 41, 42 The reliability was excellent (α  =  0.96).

Beck Depression Inventory II. The BDI-II 43 is a 21-item self-report measure that is designed to assess the severity of depression. Examples of items are, “I am sad all the time” and “I am disappointed in myself.” The BDI-II has been validated through numerous studies across many different populations and ethnic groups. It has been used in a multitude of treatment outcome studies and with individuals with a history of trauma exposure. The reliability for this measure was good (α  =  0.95).

A series of statistical tests were used to examine the relationship between racial trauma, microaggressions, racism, and psychopathology. Correlations were used to map the links between all the study variables. Group comparisons were made using t-tests and ANOVA. A t-test was used to compare TSDS between those with and without racial trauma. Regression analysis was used to examine the predictive relationship between racial trauma and other marginalized identities and various other demographic dimensions.

Marginalized identity values were computed based on demographic characteristics and identities associated with race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, level of education, and income. Participants were coded as 0 if their identity represented a marginalized group and 1 if their identity represented a privileged group. Composite marginalization scores were computed by summing individual values for each demographic characteristic or identity and ranged from 0 to 5. Differences were compared using an ANOVA and Tukey's HSD post-hoc test.

Relationship to Experiences of Racism

The bivariate relations between the trauma symptoms of discrimination (TSDS) and measures of frequency and stress related to ethnic discrimination (GEDS), experiences of microaggressions (RMAS), and race-based traumatic stress symptoms (RBTSSS-SF) were as expected and are found in Table 2 . For general experiences of discrimination, TSDS related more strongly to lifetime (r  =  0.71) experiences than recent experiences (r  =  0.64). TSDS was also related to the amount of stress associated with experiences of discrimination (r  =  0.67). Similarly, TSDS was related to reports of microaggressions (r  =  0.65) and race-based traumatic stress symptoms (r  =  0.69).

Correlation table for the TSDS and racial constructs

Note: **p < 0.001.

Relationship to Psychopathology

The bivariate relations between the trauma symptoms of discrimination (TSDS) and measures of psychopathology, including PTSD symptoms (PCL-5), traumatic cognitions (PCTI), symptoms of anxiety (BAI) and depression (BDI) are shown in Table 3 . The correlations show trauma symptoms of discrimination were associated with higher levels of depression (r  =  0.55) and anxiety (r  =  0.63) symptoms, traumatic cognitions (r  =  0.65), and PTSD symptoms (r  =  0.69).

Correlation table for the TSDS and psychopathology

Note: **p <  0.001 .

An independent samples t-test was used to examine mean differences in TSDS in individuals with racial trauma (n  =  22, M  =  49.06, SD  =  14.09) and those without (n  =  58, M  =  29.10, SD  =  11.04) based on the UnRESTS interviews. The t-test revealed a significant mean difference between those with and without racial trauma, t(78) = -6.672, p < 0.001.

Comparisons of Ethnoracial Groups

Levels of discrimination and trauma differed across ethnoracial groups, as shown in Table 4 . An analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to examine differences on the TSDS. There was a statistically significant difference between the ethnoracial groups, F(9154)  =  18.93, p < 0.001, suggesting mean levels of trauma symptoms of discrimination were not equal across the five groups. The Tukey's HSD test for multiple comparisons examined specific differences between pairs of means. The post hoc comparisons found the mean for White non-Hispanic was significantly lower than the means of the other four groups. Specifically the mean for Hispanic non-White (p < 0.001, 95% C.I.  =  8.85, 19.40) and Black non-Hispanic (p < 0.001, 95% C.I.  =  5.80, 12.76) were significantly higher than White non-Hispanic. To a lesser degree, White Hispanic was different from White non-Hispanic (p  =  0.035, 95% C.I.  =  0.25, 11.21). The mean for Hispanic non-White (p < 0.001, 95% C.I.  =  2.49, 13.48) was significantly higher than Asian non-Hispanic and this group (p  =  0.006, 95% C.I.  =  1.72, 15.06) was also higher than Hispanic White.

Comparisons of ethnoracial groups

The remaining comparisons were not significantly different. There was no statistically significant difference between Hispanic non-White and Black non-Hispanic (p  =  0.07). There was no statistically significant difference between Asian non-Hispanic and both Black non-Hispanic (p  =  0.21) and White Hispanic (p  =  1.0). Lastly, Black non-Hispanic and White Hispanic were not different (p  =  0.42).

Participants varied in the proportion and type of discrimination they experienced. An independent sample t-test was used to examine mean differences in the percentage of traumatic racial discrimination BIPOC and White participants reported, with respect to all discrimination experienced. Specifically, BIPOC participants (M  =  55.10, SD  =  28.39) significantly differed from White participants (M  =  20.78, SD  =  26.87) in the percentage of racial discrimination they experienced with an average mean difference of −34.32, t(931) = −17.00, p < 0.001 [95% C.I.  =  -38.28, −30.36].

Gender and Sexual Orientation

T-tests were used to examine mean level differences on the TSDS related to discrimination for gender and sexual minority status. There were no statistical differences between male and female participants. However, the t-test results show a statistically significant difference based on sexual orientation, t(924) = -4.273, p < 0.001. The mean for those with LGBQ identities was significantly higher than those who identified as hetersexual.

T-tests were used to examine mean level differences in the percentage of discrimination experienced due to gender and sexual orientation. For gender, female participants significantly differed from male participants in the percentage of discrimination they experienced with an average mean difference of −19.03, t(931) = −14.32, p < 0.001 [95% C.I.  =  -21.65, −16.43]. For sexual orientation, LGBQ participants significantly differed from hetersexual participants in the percentage of traumatic discrimination they experienced with an average mean difference of −16.35, t (924) = −18.97, p < 0.001 [95% C.I.  =  -18.05, −14.66] ( Table 5 ).

Comparisons of gender and sexual orientation

Intersectionality and the TSDS

A marginalization index was computed by summing individual values for each marginalized demographic characteristic or identity. A point (value of 1) was given for each of the following dimensions: non-White, sexual minority, female, less education (less than or equal to highschool), and low income (less than $19,999 annually). The 3 trans/nonbinary people were omitted due to low numbers. As such, scores ranged from 0, not having any marginalized identity, to 5, identifying with all the marginalized identities. The majority of participants identified with at least one (n  =  353) or two (n  =  338) marginalized identities.

An ANOVA test was used to compare levels of trauma symptoms related to discrimination across multiple marginalized identities. There was a statistically significant difference between the number of marginalized identities, F(9284)  =  10.09, p < 0.001, suggesting mean levels of trauma symptoms are not equal across the groups. The Tukey's HSD test for multiple comparisons examined differences across marginalization scores. The mean level for those with no marginalizing identities were significantly lower than those with one (p < 0.001, 95% C.I.  =  -11.42, −2.10), two (p < 0.001, 95% C.I.  =  -14.48, −5.11), or three (p < 0.001, 95% C.I.  =  -17.01, −5.58) identities. ( Table 6 ).

Comparisons of marginalization scores

A linear regression was used to predict trauma symptoms of discrimination based on marginalization scores. A significant regression showed F(1, 931) = 28.74, p < 0.001 with an R squared of .03. Participants’ level of trauma symptoms due to discrimination increased by 3.06 for each additional identity of their marginalization score.

Trauma Symptoms, Racism, and Psychopathology

This study shows trauma symptoms increased with recent and past experiences of discrimination, racial microaggressions, and multiple forms of psychopathology. Consistent with Williams and colleagues, 12 this finding indicates both implicit and explicit acts of racism contribute to traumatization. This link is attributed to the fact that implicit acts, such as microaggression, occur more frequently. 12,44 Notably lifetime discrimination was more strongly related to trauma symptoms than recent (past year) experiences, underscoring the cumulative nature of trauma. For psychopathology, the TSDS was most strongly related to established measures of PTSD (PCL-5, PTCI) as well as measures of depression and anxiety. Williams, Kanter, and Ching 44 also found a similar relationship between the TSDS and measures of anxiety. Anxiety and depression are separate disorders and often linked to discrimination, yet they both share symptoms with PTSD (eg, 45 , 46 ).

Ethnoracial Groups Differ in the Degree of Symptoms

Ethnoracial groups clearly differ in their experiences of trauma symptoms with non-White Hispanic and Black Americans reporting the highest rates, followed by Asian Americans and White Hispanic Americans. The lowest symptoms were found among non-Hispanic White participants. This finding is consistent with a national study, Chou and colleagues 19 found that African Americans reported a significantly higher degree of racial discrimination than Asian or Hispanic Americans, who did not differ significantly from each other in level of perceived discrimination. However, that study did not separate White and non-White Hispanics in their analysis. Similarly, a study by Lee and colleagues 47 using data from the Pew Research Center, found when comparing Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans, Black people reported the most racism among the groups analyzed.

In our analysis of gender differences, we found that being female alone does not increase the risk for trauma symptoms from discrimination, which is counterintuitive. One would assume that female gender would increase the risk of discrimination due to greater gender-based traumatization, as the literature tends to find greater trauma exposure and PTSD among women. 48 Our findings could be a reflection of decreasing sexual harassment and abuse of women due to increased social appropriation of sexism, greater empowerment of women, and increased legal protections in the U.S. (cf, 49 ). Notably, even current studies on trauma and gender differences often use datasets that are decades old, and do not show consistent gender differences for people of color. 48 , 50 Newer studies show fewer gender differences in traumatization, such as among low-income African Americans (eg, 51 ).

Our findings are somewhat consistent with McClendon and colleagues, 52 who investigated ethnoracial and gender differences in discriminatory stress and PTSD severity in veterans. The authors found only small gender-related differences in discriminatory distress, despite large gender (and racial) differences in PTSD. Additionally, there were significant positive correlations between discriminatory stress and PTSD symptom severity for all ethnoracial groups but with small effect sizes.

Sexual Orientation

In our analysis of sexual orientation differences, we found being a sexual minority significantly increases the risk for trauma symptoms of discrimination. There is not much research on the connection between minority stress and trauma symptoms in LGBQ populations. Most of the literature focuses on minority stress and its connections to depression, suicidality, and substance use. 53 , 54 Empirical studies about trauma focus on victimization and abuse. Nonetheless, there is emerging scholarship on LGBQ minoritization and trauma due to the cumulative nature of their identity-specific stressors. Cardona and colleagues 55 conceptualize ongoing discriminatory stress as chronic and even traumatic invalidation that interferes with emotion processing when the environment prevents an individual's emotional needs from being met. This chronic invalidation results in greater sensitivity and avoidance. Eventually, the individual begins to feel their sexual minority related emotions are harmful and wrong, leading to internalization and the conclusion that something is wrong with them. It is clear being a sexual minority continues to be difficult in our society as evidenced by the greater levels of traumatization, and both implicit and explicit aspects of discrimination contribute to harms.

Intersectionality and Risk for Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination

We found intersectionality and multiple stigmatized identities increases risk for trauma symptoms, which is somewhat consistent with the literature. Currently, the generalizability of studies involving intersectionality with multiple marginalized identities poses a challenge due to basic data availability. More specifically, a “Catch-22” has yet to be truly surmounted regarding intersectional data collection on the most cross-marginalized populations, who are usually more invisibilized and less accessible to reach for sustained data collection. 56 Others have similarly observed the paucity of available data involving dual minority status (eg, ethnicity-race/sexual orientation) and corresponding interventions. 53

Notwithstanding such limitations, research is mixed on the intersectional impact for sexual and gender minority POC populations. In Cochran et al's 53 analysis of the National Latino and Asian American Survey (NLAAS) (n  =  4498), the LGB or same gender partner-identified subsample (n  =  245) reflected a lower prevalence of depressive, anxiety and substance use disorders as compared to sexual orientation minorities more generally speaking, mirroring prevalence rates reported by Latine and Asian Americans populations when compared to non-Hispanic Whites. At the same time, while male sexual minority participants were more likely to report a recent suicide attempt and less likely to report substance abuse or dependency than their heterosexual male counterparts, queer female participants were more likely than heterosexual females to have had recent drug use histories and depressive disorders. 53

Similarly, Meyer and colleagues 57 found that Black and Latine sexual minorities reported a greater number of serious suicide attempts than White sexual minorities, while at the same time not exhibiting a higher prevalence of disorders. The observed lower prevalence rate was surmised in part to be due to the closer or tighter knit ethnoracial cultures of which Black and Latine LGB are a part. And while LGBTQ-based discrimination and racism were clearly associated with one another and exerted a direct impact on mental health, it was only the former (ie, LGBTQ discrimination) that demonstrated a significant indirect effect on suicidal ideation in another study. 27 The researchers observed that LGBTQ discrimination tended to “overpower” the variable of racism, possibly due to both inter- and intra-cultural homophobia that queer persons of color confront in their ethnoracial and sexual minority communities. To sum up briefly, more work is needed to better understand how multiply marginalized individuals experience various forms of discrimination. As one example inquiry into multiple marginalization, greater attention must be paid to how being both a sexual minority and person of color shape discriminatory experiences differently than being a sexual minority or person of color separately. 20

Clinical Implications

People with more marginalized identities are more likely to have trauma symptoms, with the largest impact seen in non-White Hispanic Americans and sexual minorities. These identities alone were associated with comparable or greater discriminatory trauma than non-specific intersectional identities. Nonetheless, clinicians should be aware that greater intersectionality is more likely to signal cumulative trauma, and it also can be an impediment to treatment, as has been seen with other disorders as well (eg, 58 , 59 ).

A culturally-informed approach to care is critical. Despite the increased availability of literature for cultivating practitioner cultural competency (eg, 60 ), its practical application in the clinical field is still debated. Since the 1990s and earlier, the American Psychological Association (APA) has steadily supported initiatives tied to diversity and cultural awareness. 61 The APA Ethical Code of Conduct includes standards surrounding the need for culturally responsive and respectful interventions that can mitigate risk of harm to diverse clients. 62 , 63 Likewise, the 2014 American Counseling Association's (ACA) Code of Ethics calls for multicultural/diversity competence and social justice advocacy. Moreover, such guidelines recognize clinicians as cultural beings who bring their own beliefs and attitudes that influence clinical and empirical conceptualizations and their work with clients ( 64 , p. 26).

Social justice-oriented critics of clinical psychology, however, sharply rebuke the field for its lack of institutionalized support of an intersectional awareness competency, particularly its failure to integrate core diversity perspectives (eg, critical race, feminist, and social justice theories) and the role of structural inequalities to client pathology. 63 Indeed, despite clear mandates for culturally-informed approaches, clinicians are not trained to assist clients experiencing distress due to marginalized identities. Many if not most clinical training programs do a poor job of preparing students to work with these clients on any dimension of diversity, much less intersectional identities (eg, 65 , 66 ). To solve these problems, we must examine the larger structures that dictate which clinical issues are worthy of attention, and as such, this will require addressing the biases of faculty, supervisors, researchers, and administrators who wield power and privilege within these contexts. 67

Therapists should assess all minoritized clients for PTSD symptoms from discrimination. They may need to ask specifically about these experiences which may not be conceptualized as “traumas” by clients, who may be used to having these experiences dismissed by others as unrelated. 37 Some recommended treatment approaches include empirically-supported PTSD treatments adapted to use with people with marginalized identities (eg, 68 ) or evidence-based protocols specific to issues like racial trauma or minority stress (eg, 69 , 70 ). Coping skills should be tailored to address the client's unique intersectional stressors, however coping should not be a substitute for empowerment, as treatment should also explore reducing discrimination in the person's daily environment. 71

Kira and colleagues 10 also emphasize that proactive strategies can serve to inoculate against the effects of the cumulative buildup of abandonment/betrayal traumas and systemic discrimination. In building a therapeutic alliance with such clients, therapists can first assist with safety plans, working with clients to distinguish safe and unsafe behaviors as well as engage in any needed advocacy at systemic levels to address actual or emerging dangers. 70 – 72 Identity threats can also be buttressed by innovations such as group-based emotional regulation (GBER), which works with stereotyping, self-esteem, and anxieties about identity annihilation. In-group and out-group studies from social psychology have demonstrated the tremendous influence that not only threats to personal identity but also those to social identity have on self-esteem and one's basic sense of self. 72 , 73

Limitations & Future Directions

In terms of demographics, there were not many participants in the lowest education or income brackets which impeded our ability to explore the traumatizing impact of poverty-related oppression. Likewise, there were not enough trans participants to explore this dimension of marginalization. Although the effects of multiple marginalized identities may compound traumatization, our index of marginalization is undoubtedly oversimplified. Confounding or effect modifying relationships may exist between certain demographic dimensions. Larger samples are needed to develop more precise predictors of traumatization. Trauma symptoms resulting from other forms of intersectionality also should be explored, such as sexual minority status and a stigmatized religious tradition. 74 The TSDS and RTS may be equally good as a screener for racial trauma, but cut-off scores for the TSDS need to be established for other kinds of oppression-based trauma.

Conclusions

Our research found oppression in all its forms is traumatizing, although some dimensions of oppression are more traumatizing than others based on differing identities and intersectionalities. Clinicians should consider all of these in clinical practice, individually and in combination. Intersectionality may require unique treatment approaches, which is an area sorely in need of more research.

Author Biographies

Monnica Williams , PhD, ABPP is the Canada Research Chair for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Ottawa. A board-certified licensed psychologist, her work focuses on the mental health of underserved communities and innovative approaches to care. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and has been awarded federal, local, and foundation grants.

Muna Osman holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Ottawa. Her research areas include racism and its effects on marginalized groups in Canada.

Chrysalis Hyon , PhD, currently teaches research methods at the California Institute for Integral Studies and is a professional and academic coach. Through both her courses and academic coaching, she supports doctoral students around issues of methodology particularly for undertaking critical, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary qualitative research.

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant number 950-232127 (PI M. Williams).

ORCID iDs: Monnica Williams https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0095-3277

Muna Osman https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0606-5510

Chrysalis Hyon https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8590-9982

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Discrimination and Prejudice — Oppression

Essays on Oppression

What makes a good oppression essay topics.

When it comes to writing an oppression essay, choosing the right topic is crucial. A good essay topic should be thought-provoking, relevant, and provide ample opportunity for critical analysis. Here are some recommendations on how to brainstorm and choose an essay topic, what to consider, and What Makes a Good essay topic.

When brainstorming for essay topics, consider current events, historical events, literature, and social issues. Think about what interests you and what you feel passionate about. Consider topics that are not only relevant but also have enough research material available to support your arguments.

A good essay topic should be specific and focused. It should not be too broad or too narrow, allowing for in-depth analysis and discussion. It should also be thought-provoking and challenging, encouraging the reader to think critically about the subject matter.

Consider the target audience when choosing an essay topic. Think about what would engage and interest them. Additionally, consider the purpose of the essay and what you hope to achieve with it. Are you looking to inform, persuade, or provoke critical thinking? Your essay topic should align with your goals.

A good essay topic should also be relevant and timely. It should address current issues and provoke discussion and debate. It should also be unique and original, offering a fresh perspective on the subject matter.

Best Oppression Essay Topics

When it comes to oppression essay topics, it's important to choose topics that stand out and provoke critical thinking. Here are some creative and thought-provoking essay topics that go beyond the ordinary:

• The psychological effects of systemic oppression on marginalized communities
• The role of language in perpetuating oppression
• The impact of colonialism on indigenous communities
• Oppression and resistance in dystopian literature
• The intersectionality of oppression and identity
• The role of media in perpetuating stereotypes and oppression
• Oppression and the criminal justice system
• The impact of economic oppression on mental health
• Oppression and the LGBTQ+ community
• The effects of oppression on mental health and well-being
• Oppression and the education system
• The role of religion in perpetuating oppression
• Oppression and environmental justice
• The impact of oppression on access to healthcare
• The role of privilege in perpetuating oppression
• Oppression and the refugee crisis
• The impact of oppression on freedom of expression
• Oppression and the arts
• The role of technology in perpetuating oppression
• The impact of oppression on access to basic needs

Oppression essay topics Prompts

If you're looking for some creative prompts to inspire your oppression essay, here are five thought-provoking ideas to get you started:

• Imagine a world without oppression. What would it look like, and how can we work towards achieving it?
• Write about a personal experience with oppression and how it has shaped your perspective on social justice.
• Choose a work of literature or film that addresses oppression and analyze its themes, characters, and message.
• Research a historical event or movement that sought to challenge oppression and discuss its impact on society.
• Consider the role of privilege in perpetuating oppression and how we can work towards creating a more equitable society.

Choosing a good oppression essay topic is essential for creating a thought-provoking and engaging essay. By considering relevance, specificity, and creativity, you can choose a topic that will inspire critical thinking and meaningful discussion. Whether it's addressing current issues, analyzing historical events, or exploring the intersectionality of oppression, there are plenty of unique and creative essay topics to choose from.

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Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium.

Authoritarian oppression, socioeconomic, political, legal, cultural, and institutional oppression. Social oppression includes privilege, racial oppression, class oppression, gender oppression, religious persecution, domination, institutionalized oppression, economic oppression, etc.

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Amna Khalid says institutions need to rethink DEI initiatives.

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Pushing back on DEI ‘orthodoxy’

Panelists support diversity efforts but worry that current model is too narrow, denying institutions the benefit of other voices, ideas

Nikki Rojas

Harvard Staff Writer

It’s time to take a harder look at the role of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in higher education.

That was the overall theme of a searing panel discussion at Smith Campus Center on Thursday. Titled “Academic Freedom, DEI, & the Future of Higher Education,” the event featured scholars specializing in law, history, politics, and diversity.

“The power of diversity for learning is irreplaceable,” said panelist Amna Khalid, associate professor of history at Carleton College in Minnesota. “It is incredible, and it is a value that I strongly believe in as someone who is the product of various educational systems.”

However, Khalid shared that she often finds herself at odds with the approach DEI practitioners take in higher education — an approach she termed “DEI Inc.”

Khalid wrote an opinion piece with Carlton colleague Jeffrey Aaron Snyder last year for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The essay, titled “ Yes, DEI Can Erode Academic Freedom. Let’s Not Pretend Otherwise ,” argues that under the logic of the prevailing DEI model, “Education is a product, students are consumers, and campus diversity is a customer-service issue that needs to be administered from the top down.”

All too often, Khalid said at the event, practitioners implement a “model underscored by a notion of harm and that students somehow need to be protected from harm.”

Jeannie Suk Gersen, John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, agreed with that assessment and said that people who object to DEI do not often equate it to the idea of diversity.

“It’s, in fact, a set of ideas that have become very narrowed to one specific orthodoxy about what diversity means, what equity and inclusion mean, so that it shuts out a whole bunch of other ideas about what diversity, equity, and inclusion may be,” Suk Gersen said.

The lone voice to advocate for a professionalized and accountable DEI workforce was Stacy Hawkins, a Rutgers University law professor and scholar of DEI.

“Perhaps it’s simply just the introduction of diversity into our institutions that’s going to create discomfort — that’s going to make it harder to have the same conversations, to do the same things, to say and behave in the same ways that we used to,” said Hawkins, who underscored the challenge of welcoming diverse students without diverse faculty. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a worthwhile exercise to try.”

Panelists also fielded questions on academic freedom and free speech, and whether DEI infringes on those rights.

DEI is “almost always wrong in the sense that it subverts classical liberal principles of the academic mission of open inquiry, truth seeking, knowledge creation, research, and debating ideas,” responded panelist Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute.

He went on to quote Hanna Holborn Gray, former president of the University of Chicago, who once said: “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.”

Shapiro proved the only panelist to argue for the total elimination of university DEI offices without replacing them with other structures designed to achieve diversity goals. Instead, he said that student affairs, compliance officers, and admissions should assume any responsibilities related to diversity.

Last week’s discussion was sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Civil Discourse Initiative , the Harvard College Intellectual Vitality Initiative , and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics .

Also discussed were social media and the distorted views it surfaces on DEI.

Hawkins noted that DEI takes a real beating on the platforms, all while cancel culture is the true driver behind most modern outrage. “There is this heightened sense of awareness,” she said. “There’s this heightened sense of accountability. There is this heightened sense of threat. And this heightened sense of punitive action, all surrounding a larger cultural phenomenon that has nothing to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

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Women’s history month - black female principal’s ouster in 1906 echoes today.

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Anna Julia Cooper

When Anna Julia Cooper was principal of the prestigious M Street High School in Washington, DC in 1892, where she also taught and mentored Black students, the White members of the DC Board of Education decided her intellect and ambition for her Black students was too much for them. So they forced her out.

The story of her impact and ouster from the school was vividly and creatively told in the play “Tempestuous Elements,” at the Arena Stage in a 360 stage that enabled powerful yet subtle dynamics. The evening I attended, it was a full house, with a mostly White audience across a wide age range, from what I could observe.

Cooper, who had been born to an enslaved mother in 1858 in Raleigh, NC, was clearly intellectually gifted from a young age, receiving scholarships, eschewing the “ladies classes” for mathematics, science, literature and the classic languages of Latin and Greek.

That thirst for knowledge and determination stayed for her entire life, and was central to what she tried to pass along to her students.

Like most children of the era, Cooper never knew who her father one, though it is believed to have been either the man who enslaved her mother, George Washington Haywood (1802–1890), one of the sons of the founder of the University of North Carolina , or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood.

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This popular google app will stop working in 3 days how to migrate your data, google suddenly reveals surprise android update that beats iphone, “the first and most prestigious public high school for black education”.

The Portable Anna Julia Cooper, by Shirley Moody-Turner

Shirley Moody-Turner, the editor of “The Portable Anna Julia Cooper,” described the M Street School in the Washington Post recently as, “the first and most prestigious public high school for Black education.” She said, “Black people from around the country aspired to send their children” there, because “its roster of teachers and graduates read like a Who’s Who of Washington’s Black educational and cultural elite.” While Cooper was principal, M Street School students secured scholarships to top colleges and universities, such as Harvard, Brown, Yale and Dartmouth.

Those accomplishments intimidated the White members of the DC Board of Education, who were apparently unwilling to see Black students, especially women, as smart, capable and ambitious. They conjured up accusations against Cooper of lax discipline – a curious accusation as M Street students continued to outperform other DC schools. An attractive and stylish woman who was widowed at a young age, the Board conjured up racy stories about Cooper’s personal life too as fodder to precipitate her ouster.

But it seemed to really be about keeping women and Blacks “in their place,” and not wanting them to achieve too much. As Moody-Turner wrote in the Washington Post, Cooper was a lightning rod during “a moment of intense political and social backlash against racial advancement and gender equality.”

Dr. Claudine Gay, President of Harvard University, Liz Magill, President of University of ... [+] Pennsylvania, Dr. Pamela Nadell, Professor of History and Jewish Studies at American University, and Dr. Sally Kornbluth, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 05, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Committee held a hearing to investigate antisemitism on college campuses. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Unfortunately, we seem to be seeing shades of the same manipulations by (mostly White) school boards and politicians today, as they try to curtail Black history and educational opportunities, including forcing out Black female leaders at esteemed academic institutions, across the U.S.

A civil rights leader for Blacks, women and Black education

They should have known she would be a force to reckon with, because was considered “a leader in 19th and 20th century Black women’s organizing,” having published at least two seminal works advocating for educating Black women, including in classical literature, Latin, Greek, math and science.

In 1890-91, she published the essay "Higher Education of Women", and in 1892 she published A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South , about systematic oppression, racism, misogyny/sexism, and class-ism, calling for equal rights.

She espoused the importance of education for Black women to help advance the Black community, which many of the era found subversive to the wide-spread oppression of “Negroes” (as Blacks were called at the time) and of women, whose roles were being circumscribed (e.g. by what was then called the “ cult of true womanhood ”).

As the character of Lula (played by Renea S. Brown) says to Cooper in Tempestuous Elements, “Your esteemed résumé as writer, orator, community leader and educator — women are consistently and abominably overlooked among the intelligentsia, but they couldn’t overlook you .”

They couldn’t stand in her way either and she had the last say – and a lesson for today

Despite being ostracized by the Washington, DC Board of Education and removed from her positions as principal and teacher at the M Street School, Cooper went on to earn a PhD in history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne – only the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree at the time.

But by 1910, the school recruited her back, and she taught there for the next 20 years, during which time the school was renamed Dunbar .

She continued in education administration and advocating for the intellectual education of Blacks and women into her 90’s and passed away at 105 years old, in 1964.

As the character of Cooper (played by Gina Daniels) says early in Tempestuous Elements, “Do you not realize that without contemplating the wrongs of America’s past, a very recent past , we leave ourselves open for that terrible history to repeat itself?”

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Guest Essay

Why the Two-State Solution Isn’t a Solution at All

By Tareq Baconi

Mr. Baconi is the author of “Hamas Contained” and president of the board of al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped, and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, where Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared “the only real solution is a two-state solution” in his State of the Union address last month.

But the call rings hollow. The language that surrounds a two-state solution has lost all meaning. Over the years, I’ve encountered many Western diplomats who privately roll their eyes at the prospect of two states — given Israel’s staunch opposition to it, the lack of interest in the West of exerting enough pressure on Israel to change its behavior, and Palestinian political ossification — even as their politicians repeat the same phrase ad nauseam. Yet in the shadow of what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be genocide, everyone has returned to the chorus line, stressing that the gravity of the situation means that this time will be different.

It will not be. Repeating the two-state solution mantra has allowed policymakers to avoid confronting the reality that partition is unattainable in the case of Israel and Palestine, and illegitimate as an arrangement originally imposed on Palestinians without their consent in 1947. And fundamentally, the concept of the two-state solution has evolved to become a central pillar of sustaining Palestinian subjugation and Israeli impunity. The idea of two states as a pathway to justice has in and of itself normalized the daily violence meted out against Palestinians by Israel’s regime of apartheid.

The circumstances facing Palestinians before Oct. 7, 2023, exemplified how deadly the status quo had become. In 2022, Israeli violence killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank, the most deaths in 15 years, and by mid-2023, that rate was on track to exceed those levels. Yet the Biden administration still saw fit to further legitimize Israel, expanding its diplomatic relations in the region and rewarding it with a U.S. visa waiver . Palestine was largely absent from the international agenda until Israeli Jews were killed on Oct. 7. The fact that Israel and its allies were ill-prepared for any kind of challenge to Israeli rule underscores just how invisible the Palestinians were and how sustainable their oppression was deemed to be on the global stage.

This moment of historical rupture offers blood-soaked proof that policies to date have failed, yet countries seek to resurrect them all the same. Instead of taking measures showing a genuine commitment to peace — like meaningfully pressuring Israel to end settlement building and lift the blockade on Gaza or discontinuing America’s expansive military support — Washington is doing the opposite. The United States has aggressively wielded its use of its veto at the United Nations Security Council, and even when it abstains, as it did in the recent vote leading to the first resolution for a cease-fire since Oct. 7, it claims such resolutions are nonbinding. The United States is funding its military while defunding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, a critical institution for Palestinians, bolstering the deeply unpopular and illegitimate Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians now consider to be a subcontractor to the occupation, and subverting international law by limiting avenues of accountability for Israel. In effect, these actions safeguard Israeli impunity.

The vacuity of the two-state solution mantra is most obvious in how often policymakers speak of recognizing a Palestinian state without discussing an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Quite the contrary: With the United States reportedly exploring initiatives to recognize Palestinian statehood, it is simultaneously defending Israel’s prolonged occupation at the International Court of Justice, arguing that Israel faces “very real security needs” that justify its continued control over Palestinian territories.

What might explain this seeming contradiction?

The concept of partition has long been used as a blunt policy tool by colonial powers to manage the affairs of their colonies, and Palestine was no exception. The Zionist movement emerged within the era of European colonialism and was given its most important imprimatur by the British Empire. The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British in 1917, called for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine without adequately accounting for the Palestinians who constituted the vast majority in the region and whom Balfour referred to simply as “non-Jewish communities.” This declaration was then imposed on the Palestinians, who by 1922 had become Britain’s colonized subjects and were not asked to give consent to the partitioning of their homeland. Three decades later, the United Nations institutionalized partition with the passage of the 1947 plan, which called for partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish.

All of Palestine’s neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa that had achieved independence from their colonial rulers and joined the U.N. voted against the 1947 plan. The Palestinians were not formally considered in a vote that many saw as illegitimate; it partitioned their homeland to accommodate Zionist immigration, which they had resisted from the onset. The Palestine Liberation Organization, established more than a decade later, formalized this opposition, insisting that Palestine as defined within the boundaries that existed during the British Mandate was “an indivisible territorial unit”; it forcefully refused two states and by the late 1970s was fighting for a secular, democratic state. By the 1980s, however, the P.L.O. chairman, Yasir Arafat, along with most of the organization’s leadership, had come to accept that partition was the pragmatic choice, and many Palestinians who had by then been ground down by the machinery of the occupation accepted it as a way of achieving separateness from Israeli settlers and the creation of their own state.

It took more than three decades for Palestinians to understand that separateness would never come, that the goal of this policy was to maintain the illusion of partition in some distant future indefinitely. In that twilight zone, Israel’s expansionist violence increased and became more forthright, as Israeli leaders became more brazen in their commitment to full control from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel also relied on discredited Palestinian leaders to sustain their control — primarily those who lead the Palestinian Authority and who collaborate with Israel’s machinations, and make do with nonsovereign, noncontiguous Bantustans who never challenge Israel’s overarching domination. This kind of demographic engineering, which entails geographic isolation of unwanted populations behind walls, is central to apartheid regimes. Repeating the aspiration for two states and arguing that partition remains viable presents Israel as a Jewish and democratic state — separate from its occupation — giving it a veneer of palatability and obfuscating the reality that it rules over more non-Jews than Jews .

Seen in this light, the failed attempts at a two-state solution are not a failure for Israel at all but a resounding success, as they have fortified Israel’s grip over this territory while peace negotiations ebbed and flowed but never concluded. In recent years, international and Israeli human rights organizations have acknowledged what many Palestinians have long argued: that Israel is a perpetrator of apartheid. B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, concluded that Israel is a singular regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea.

Now, with international attention once again focused on the region, many Palestinians understand the dangers of discussing partition, even as a pragmatic option. Many refuse to resuscitate this hollowed-out policy speak. In a message recently published anonymously, a group of Palestinians on the ground and in the diaspora state wrote, “The partition of Palestine is nothing but a legitimation of Zionism, a betrayal of our people, and the final completion of the Nakba,” or catastrophe, which refers to the expulsion and flight of about 750,000 Palestinians with Israel’s founding. “Our liberation can only be achieved through a unity of struggle, built upon a unity of people and a unity of land.”

For them, the Palestinian state that their inept leaders continue to peddle, even if achievable, would fail to undo the fact that Palestinian refugees are unable to return to their homes, now in Israel, and that Palestinian citizens of Israel would continue to reside as second-class citizens within a so-called Jewish state.

Global powers might choose to ignore this sentiment as unrealistic, if they even take note of it. They might also choose to ignore Israeli rejection of a two-state solution, as Israeli leaders drop any pretenses and explicitly oppose any pathway to Palestinian statehood. As recently as January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.” He added: “That collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can we do?”

And yet the two-state solution continues to be at the forefront for policymakers who have returned to contorting the reality of an expansionist regime into a policy prescription they can hold on to. They cycle through provisions that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized, that Israel will maintain security oversight, that not every state in the world has the same level of sovereignty. It is like watching a century of failure, culminating in the train wreck of the peace process, replay itself in the span of the past five months.

This will not be the first time that Palestinian demands are not taken into account as far as their own future is concerned. But all policymakers should heed the lesson of Oct. 7: There will be neither peace nor justice while Palestinians are subjugated behind walls and under Israeli domination.

A singular state from the river to the sea might appear unrealistic or fantastical, or a recipe for further bloodshed. But it is the only state that exists in the real world — not in the fantasies of policymakers. The question, then, is: How can it be transformed into one that is just?

Source photographs by Jose A. Bernat Bacete, Daily Herald Archive, and Lior Mizrahi, via Getty Images.

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