Social Justice: Sounds Good but here's what it REALLY means to Academics

                

     It is not unusual to hear about the social justice movement on college campuses and in our society at-large. On the surface one would ask the following question: "Who could ever be against social justice?"  Just addressing the question would leave you to believe that the only people who are against social justice are those whose desire it is to oppress marginalized people, right? Well, that is a very tricky question and one I will try to address here.

    To begin with it would seem important to define the term social justice. You would think that there would be a commonly accepted definition but they do vary in quite interesting ways. Here are just a few of the definitions I located:

"Social justice is the virtue which guides us in creating those organized human interactions we call institutions. In turn, social institutions, when justly organized, provide us with access to what is good for the person, both individually and in our associations with others" (retrieved from http://www.cesj.org/learn/definitions/defining-economic-justice-and-social-justice/).

Social justice is the "view that everyone deserves equal political, social and economic rights and opportunities" (retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/).

"Social justice is the equal distribution of resources and opportunities, in which outside factors that categorize people are irrelevant" (retrieved from https://www.pachamama.org/social-justice/what-is-social-justice).

     While each definition seems to address some type of virtuous concept, I am still unsure of the deeper meanings behind them. One definition seeks to equally distribute resources and opportunities while others want "justly organized institutions" to define what is best for us all- in other words to benefit the greater good. What none of these definitions address is: who is the arbiter of what it means to be "just" and who determines what the greater good actually looks like?  It is because of these vague definitions that many take it upon themselves to fill in the blanks and decide how social justice should be handed out.

     I will give an example of the social justice conversation that took place during a fairly recent department meeting. A discussion was taking place surrounding the mission statement (again) and how it should be used to guide our class instruction and course syllabi. An unnamed administrator  spoke up and said that we needed to ensure that everyone was teaching social justice regardless of the actual content of our courses (IE: math methods, literacy methods, STEM, etc). He went on to say that if people didn't tow the line here, they needed to be bullied into it. Yes, he said bullied. He then went on to say, "You guys all know what I mean- bully them  just like when you were a kid in school." I think my mouth fell open and the irony of bullying someone into teaching social justice became crystal clear to me. The particular person (and he was a person in power) had just told us all that we had damn well better teach his social agenda or he would unleash his inner bully on all of us. 

     I think I will end with this for now and try to reconcile the concept of bullying people as a means of ensuring social justice.  Hmmm........