Academic institutions, particularly Art and Design Schools, tend to be though of as progressive spaces. At least they should be: Art and design is avant-garde and pushes social boundaries. Yet discrimination in the classroom continues to affect many students, particularly indigenous students, women, folks who don’t fit heteronormative gender and sexual binaries, migrant students and folks of colour. It doesn’t stop there though, discrimination in academic spaces keeps potential students from registering in the first place and feeds a wider socio-economic model exclusive of marginalized communities.
In February of 2015, OCAD Student Union’s Student Advocate Robin Fraser, in collaboration with Xpace intern Pablo Munoz and the Diversity and Equity Office put together a workshop on how to address discrimination in the class- room. Pablo generated a document outlining some thoughts that stood out from that conversation and OCAD U’s policy on discrimination. The document also speaks to some of the forms that discrimination can take, and provides some practical tools and procedures based on scenarios.
Download the document here!