UCLA to Hire ‘Social Justice Advocates’ to Teach About ‘Whiteness, Patriarchy, Heteronormativity’

ashley.rae | May 19, 2017
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The University of California, Los Angeles is jumping on board with the latest academic trend of paying students to be “Social Justice Advocates.”

Campus Reform’s Toni Airaksinen reports UCLA is looking to hire students to be “Social Justice Advocates” to help their classmates “navigate a world that operates on whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity as the primary ideologies.”

While the application is no longer available online, a cache of the webpage shows that the VC Kang’s office of Residential Life, along with the Bruin Excellence & Student Transformation program, are looking to hire between eight and 10 “Social Justice Advocates.”

According to the description of the program, students will be paid a stipend to help their classmates become “conscious and critical leaders” who believe the world is based on the “primary ideologies” of “whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity.”

The description for the “Social Justice Advocates” claims the “most important” part of the program is for “individuals and the collective” to be “empowered through liberatory scholarship and practices and strengthening their emotional intelligence to create change within their spheres of influence”:

Social Justice Advocates will learn about systems oppression and how they intersect and build upon one another maintain the status quo. Most importantly individuals and the collective will be empowered through liberatory scholarship and practices and strengthening their emotional intelligence to create change within their spheres of influence. Social Justice Advocates will educate their peers on how they can make UCLA a more equitable space for all students and communities.

The application, which closed on April 21, asks students to talk about why they’re applying for “this collective,” what experience they have working with “diversity & social justice,” what groups they belong to, and what pronouns they use: “she, her, hers; zi, hir; they, them, theirs; he, him, his.”

According to Campus Reform, the funding for “Social Justice Advocates” comes from the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and from Gold Shield, Alumnae of UCLA through the BEST program.

Before the advent of the “Social Justice Advocates” program, UCLA offered “Social Justice Advocates Workshop Requests.” Some of the workshops offered were “Social Justice Myths,” “Term Talks: How to Be a Successful Ally,” “Politics of Love & Desire,” and “All Aboard the Struggle Bus.”

If one of those workshops did not suit the needs of your group, the workshops also accepted “tailored workshop” requests.

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