As I am on a committee for diversity and inclusion, I love how we are adapting these guidelines. These are things I need to pushpin up to my everyday being:
Guidelines for ADIC Discussions, adapted from Sensoy and DiAngelo (2014)
Strive for intellectual and cultural humility. Be willing to grapple with challenging ideas.
Differentiate between opinion and informed knowledge, which comes from sustained
experience, study, and practice.
Hold your opinions lightly and with humility.
Recognize that anecdotes overlap with lived experience and understand the certain value,
but also the limitations, that these possess in discussions of social justice. Don’t
allow personal anecdotal evidence to invalidate broader group-level patterns.
Notice your own defensive reactions and attempt to use these reactions as entry points for
gaining deeper self-knowledge, rather than as a rationale for closing off.
Recognize how your own social positionality (e.g., race, class, gender, sexuality, ability) informs
your priorities, perspectives, and reactions to committee discussions.
Differentiate between safety and comfort. Recognize that discomfort as necessary for
social justice growth.
Listen and seek to understand before responding with defensiveness. Consider that
feelings may be opportunities for discussion and growth.
Identify where your learning edge is and push it. For example, whenever you think,
“I already know this,” ask yourself, “How can I take this deeper?” Or, “How am I
applying in practice what I already know?”
Accept that emotion and reason can co-exist. Recognize that silencing emotion in
conversations about equity and social justice protects privilege and moves away
from having meaningful, constructive discussion.
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