With a focus on student safety and well-being, this guide is designed to provide general information and links to resources about anti-oppression and related topics such as diversity, inclusion, and social justice for the UNLV academic community. Intended to be non-partisan, many resources offered here are for everyone regardless of political affiliation or viewpoint. In some cases, resources and links related to issues and specific policies proposed by elected officials are part of this guide as these issues and proposed policies directly impact professional and personal lives of members of our community, such as immigrants or people of color.
We would like to offer our appreciation to the following individuals and other valued colleagues who contributed to the development of this guide.
Christine Clark, Professor, Teaching & Learning
Brittany Fiedler, Teaching & Learning Librarian
Mariana Sarmiento Hernández
Sue Wainscott, Engineering Librarian
This guide seeks to serve as a starting point and is not meant to be exhaustive. It is our goal to continue its development in response to evolving needs of the community. We welcome suggestions from all members of the UNLV academic community.
If you have feedback about this guide or would like to suggest additional resources, please contact Sue Wainscott, Engineering Librarian
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Becoming an Activist
(Artwork by Anita Revilla, used with permission from the artist, quote added)
Activism can be focused on society, politics, or the environment, and oftentimes those areas overlap. To be an effective social activist, an individual would have an awareness of injustices in society that result from the oppression on the basis of various intersecting identities. For example, an effective activist would understand how racism, nativism (the privileging of people who are born in a particular place, resulting in the marginalization of people who are not born in that place), sexism, heterosexism, classism, and ableism are multiple forms of oppression, all of which contribute to injustices in our society. Effective social activists take deliberate actions to challenge or dismantle these systems of power and oppression that affect people differently on the basis of their different identities.
