Crafting an Equity Minded Ethos

My junior year of college at the University of Wisconsin- Superior was a transformative one. That fall the world watched as the terrorism of 9/11 unfolded before our eyes. I started my role as a Resident Advisor (RA), a position that would eventually lead me to a career in student affairs and then on to equity work. That year I enrolled in a class, LSTU 268: Alternative Dispute Resolution, instructed by Dr. Maria Cuzzo, then a professor of Legal Studies (now Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at UW-Superior). The class asked us to examine different ways to think about conflict and reimagine conflict resolution. Dr. Cuzzo pushed us to think about our role and position in the process of mediating conflicts. One of the assignments for that class was to craft an ethos statement. A statement of character, practice, and our relationship to the world.  

Each new year I think about that assignment. For almost 20 years since that first draft of my assignment, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, every New Year’s Eve I reread my ethos statement.  Each year I made edits to it as I evolved and the world around me changed. As my professional and personal, identities transformed my ethos statements evolved to be more complex, more liberatory, and perhaps more cynical. But it always reminded me of how I want to respond to the world and of my responsibilities to the people who inhabit it.   

In our final blog of the year, I hope you will permit me to introduce you to the assignment that Dr. Cuzzo assigned me two decades ago, but with a few added challenges. This is an exercise in answering a simple yet profound question.  

How would you relate to the world if you had a responsibility for the just and equitable wellbeing of all the inhabitants of this planet?  

Below are the six sections that made up the last iteration of my ethos statement... the statement that evolved over the past two decades. I encourage you to reflect and write out your answers to each section. In writing this statement I encourage you to be honest with yourself. Recognize that living a life that centers justice is not easy. Notice the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers that prevent you from living the idealized version of a just life. Be courageous and creative in producing strategies to overcome these barriers.   

This is as much a reflection tool as it is a commitment of being. Treat it as such.  

Section 1: Starting Assumptions About People 

The starting point for this assignment is to examine the assumptions we hold. Assumptions are an indelible part of the way we make sense of the world. It does us no favors to ignore them or attempt to eliminate them. But there is value in examining them.  

Reflect on your starting assumptions by considering these questions: 

1. Are people similar or different? And to what do I attribute their similarities and differences?  

2. Should the rights and privileges afforded to people differ based on their differences and similarities?  

3. Are my successes and failures of my own making? And if not, how are they constituted?  

Section 2: Relationship to Information 

Fundamental to the way we relate to people and the world is the information that renders our world meaningful. A 2014 Pew Research study examined the relationship between our information consumption patterns and ideological consistency. The study examined news media, social media, and interpersonal interaction as sources that lead to the crystallization of ideological identities. We can reasonably assume that as we become more polarized as a country, our media and information ecology continue to play a part in it.  

In considering your relationship to information think about these questions: 

1. How can I ensure that the information I consume is accurate and placed in its proper historical and contemporary context?  

2. What measures can I take to ensure that I am consuming information from diverse authorship, representing all the stakeholders on a given issue? 

3. Am I open to being convinced of something different than what I believe now based on the information I consume? What are the boundaries of my openness?  

Section 3: Frameworks for Decision Making 

We are the product of the choices we make. We are often called upon to make decisions that have different impacts on a variety of people, and we are asked to make these decisions in a short amount of time. There is seldom time for reflection, contemplation, and analysis. It is useful to critically consider what drives your decision making ahead of time so that you can effectively use your time between the time when you are presented with a problem and having to make a decision about the problem.  

In creating a framework for how you might want to make decisions moving forward consider the following:  

1. Who or what are the people and projects that take priority in my decision-making process and why?  

2. How are identities (historically oppressed and dominant) influential in the way I make decisions? 

3. How can I ensure that my decision making does not exacerbate harm on those with decreased social power?  

Section 4: Responsibility to People 

It is easy to forget the people who we don’t have to interact with. If we imagine our networks as concentric circles, the people who are closest to us are the people we regularly interact with. We bear witness to their successes and failures. We can empathize with them because our environments collide, and the quality of their lives are often consequential to us.  

If we understand ourselves as truly interconnected beings, we must recognize that we have a role to play in the wellbeing of all the people who inhabit this planet. Consider the following questions in recognizing the responsibilities we have to act in the service of others:   

1. Who are the people whose interest I naturally serve? 

2. What is my capacity to consider the well-being of people who are not in my immediate network?  

3. What do I owe to the people who are not in my immediate network?  

Section 5: Responsibility to Space/Place 

This section was the latest addition to my ethos statement. It wasn’t until I was exposed to literature on settler colonialism during my graduate program that I started considering my relationship to space/place. Consequently, these considerations are in their infancy in terms of complexity. If you have suggestions on how to refine these questions, please feel free to suggest them. 

Do you know the history of the land where you are from? How about where you work? I am constantly aware of what space and place provides me: resources, home, security, and stability. But it wasn’t until much later in life that I started to consider how I am nourishing and preserving the spaces and places that I inhabit.  

We must acknowledge that while “being” is a human right, holding or occupying space is a privilege that is not afforded to all. It is therefore worth considering how to make the place and space we occupy work for those who might be denied that access.  

1. How do I understand the history of the spaces and places I inhabit? 

2. What commitments can I make to the safe and sustainable use of the spaces and places I inhabit? 

3. How can I make the spaces and places I inhabit accessible and available to those who may have been dispossessed or historically denied access? 

Section 6: Responsibility to Self 

In considering all the reflective questions so far, it should be abundantly clear that living an equity and justice centered life is difficult by design. We live in a world that gives us tacit permission to act out of self-interest and ignore historical injustices. Often, acting in the service of equality and justice is an agitation to the norm and often comes with negative consequences.   

This last (and perhaps the most important) section considers how one might hold themselves accountable to the commitments and considerations from the above five sections when it is hard and when one is faced with difficult choices.  

Be honest and courageous in considering the following:  

1. How do my positionality and identities afford me either the relief or give me the responsibility to act in the service of equity and justice?  

2. What costs/consequences am I willing to live with in the service of advancing or advocating for equity and justice?  

These are hard questions with complicated answers. The compilation of your answers can provide you with a pathway of being in this world where your choices and actions advance equity.  

I invite you to think carefully, courageously, and creatively. Write with vulnerability. Listen to your fears and apprehensions and even shame. These are the emotions that often prevent us from doing what we know to be just in the service of self-preservation. Honor those emotions and recognize the systems that hold your advocacy and your actions hostage. And most of all live with the conviction that a just choice and a decision that centers equity makes someone’s life better.  

Happy New Year   

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