In the early days of what would eventually become the , Tarana Burke didn鈥檛 realize the scope of what she was creating.
In Selma, Ala., in the early oughts, Burke co-founded an organization focused on Black and Brown girls, working in the school system as a support structure. But a new understanding of the violence that faced women on a regular basis spurred the creation of what would eventually become a global phenomenon.
Speaking at the University of Southern California this past week as a keynote for the Law and Policy at Colleges and Universities Conference, Burke鈥檚 speech epitomized a conference that pushed attendees to dig deep into how educational systems show they value the people within those systems.
Now in its second year, the annual LPCU Conference is organized by 海角论坛鈥檚 Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice, and aimed at educators, students and administrators. The central tenet of the conference, as outlined by center co-director Shafiqa Ahmadi, was a simple question inviting a cacophony of answers: 鈥淲ho matters, and who decides who matters?鈥
Asking the right questions
The influence of the #MeToo movement has exposed the degree to which sexual violence against women, in particular, , or doesn鈥檛.
Burke said that the movement got off the ground by doing something that no system had yet bothered to do, 鈥渂y saying 鈥榶ou鈥檙e not alone. You鈥檙e not crazy. Healing is possible.'鈥
鈥淭hese young people didn鈥檛 have language, they didn鈥檛 have information, they couldn鈥檛 talk about things that happened to them because they couldn鈥檛 even define them, they couldn鈥檛 explain them,鈥 Burke said.
鈥淭his is a pandemic,鈥 Burke added. 鈥淓ven if you think about just the number of people who said 鈥#MeToo鈥欌攅very single hashtag is a human being, every post is a story. These are people who labored to do this.鈥
Burke鈥檚 keynote represented the kind of opportunity that university leaders say are vital to higher education. As USC Provost Michael Quick noted the morning of the conference, 鈥淯niversities have to be the places that model on issues of social justice.鈥
鈥淭he hope that we are trying to instill here is not just work,鈥 said Darnell G. Cole, who co-directs the center with Ahmadi, and to whom he is married and with whom he has three children. 鈥淲e all have a stake in this.鈥
Other speakers at the conference pressed issues related to speech and expression, and the need for vigilance against abuse of historically marginalized students.
While many nationally prominent commentators conference speakers pushed back hard against that notion, including Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at USC Dornsife.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not 鈥榩olitically correct鈥 to treat people with decency,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just decent.鈥
