We Choose Equity

I work for an education nonprofit called Teaching Trust, and like many nonprofits in this space, we have declared we exist to help communities achieve educational equity.  We state we are committed to equity in our core values, in our impact statements, and in our declaration of our organizational pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion.  We say equity is part of our DNA. To be an equity centered organization, we must do more than say the right words in our cultural statements and goals. We must “walk the walk” and act in ways that demonstrate we are committed to equity and justice, both in what we do through our programming and how we act and behave internally.

I am struck by how demonstrating equity is dependent on the willingness to choose to behave differently.  Our current reality is one grounded in inequity. We pursue equity because inequity exists in our lives. If we want to achieve equity, we must be willing to change our current behaviors that reinforce the very inequity we say we are fighting against.  We pursue educational equity because some schools - and therefore the students they serve - are unfairly disadvantaged and under-resourced. What we often do not explicitly name is that if some schools are unfairly disadvantaged, then some schools are inherently unfairly over-advantaged.  Pursuing equity means we are working to re-balance and liberate advantage, which if we are successful, will mean formerly advantaged schools will no longer have privilege - the playing field is level. For some people in communities served by these advantaged schools, this shift will feel like a loss. But we can not keep privilege and also achieve equity.  We have a choice: we can choose equity where all schools have the resources they need or we can choose our current system where advantage is not distributed equitably. Both cannot be true; we have to choose.

I believe a similar choice exists inside organizations that pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion.  To have an equitable workplace, you have to pursue practices, policies, and behaviors that remove over-advantage and privilege.  And I imagine *this* - the redistribution of advantage and privilege - is what trips up a lot of organizations. They “talk the DEI talk” but do not want to make the hard choices to behave differently so they can “walk the walk” to achieve equity.  They are unwilling to disrupt traditional power structures.  This unwillingness to change behavior is a choice.  And, in my opinion, it is a choice for inequity.

I am grateful to work for an organization that is committed to try to behave differently.  We are pursuing practices that we believe will get us closer to equity, such as working to eliminate compensation inequity, ensuring more consistency in our staff experiences and development opportunities, and training staff on the role that identity plays at work.  We won’t always get it right, and we still have quite a lot of work to do to achieve true equity. But I am proud to work for an organization that is willing to go on the journey towards equity and justice, both through our programming in schools and our practices inside our organization.

I am proud we choose equity.  Will you join us?