Abstract
In recent decades, universities have made significant progress toward environmental sustainability and have likewise tightened their budgets and restructured economic models in the name of financial sustainability. However, institutions of higher education have failed to address issues of social sustainability and social injustice, many of which are increasing in number and severity on college campuses. This article takes a student activist perspective on these issues, suggesting that a comprehensive and intersectional approach toward university sustainability (with particular re-affirmation of the social sustainability pillar) can empower students and their allies, raise awareness about the causes of these issues, and allow a more constructive environment for collaborative approaches and policy formation on college campuses.
Introduction
In recent years, universities in the United States have sharply increased their commitment to sustainability, allowing institutions of higher education to promote themselves as sites of scholarly engagement with sustainability while also serving as living laboratories for the advancement of such initiatives (Brown and Hamburger, 2012; Evans et al., 2015; Marans and Callewaert, 2017). Universities generally interpret sustainability as an environmental endeavor, focusing largely on programs that promote recycling, waste reduction, water conservation, energy efficiency, and other practices aimed at reducing the campus ecological footprint. This trend is not unique to universities. The malleability of the term ‘sustainable’ and its potential use as a promotional tool have allowed corporate actors, governmental institutions, and non-profit organizations to enjoy a favorable relationship with sustainability rhetoric. Sustainability initiatives are often promoted as ‘win-win’ scenarios that benefit institutions environmentally (by diminishing negative ecological impacts) and financially (through cost savings achieved in efficiency measures or through the marketing value of their appeal to donors and prospective students). As numerous scholars have noted, however, applications and interpretations of sustainability have largely strayed from an intersectional foundation that emphasized equal treatment of economic, environmental, and social concerns (Boström, 2012; Opp and Saunders, 2013; Phillis and Andriantiatsaholiniaina, 2001). As a result, a mode of ‘sustainable development’ has arisen that outwardly promotes an environmental ethos and safeguards economic growth trajectories while simultaneously overlooking issues of marginalization and injustice. Evidence of this exists at multiple scales. For instance, many of the same corporate entities who are greening their image and improving their financial performance maintain serious problems with workforce discrimination and widening salary gaps (Lubin, 2010; Okechukwu et al., 2014). Likewise, cities are reducing their carbon footprints and streamlining budgets, but are experiencing significant problems with gentrification, disparity of services, and displacement of working-class communities (Agyeman et al., 2003; Krueger and Gibbs, 2007; Long, 2016; Rice et al., 2019). In a similar vein, we argue that universities are marketing their campuses as living ecological laboratories, promoting environmental sustainability, and successfully engaging prospective students and financial donors, but are failing to address widespread problems of sexual assault, discrimination, accessibility, and mental health (Beiter et al., 2015; Herbert et al., 2014; Krebs et al., 2009; Marshak et al., 2010; Museus et al., 2015; Rankin et al., 2010).
In the last decade, scholars have documented the various ways in which colleges have failed to sustain healthy and safe communities. For instance, 20% of college women officially report being assaulted during their time at university and unofficial reports are much higher, with 70% of campus sexual assault victims reporting some form of assault to friends or family members off the record (Krebs et al., 2009). Students with disabilities have a graduation rate half that of students without disabilities (Gregg, 2009), and multiple physical, social, and institutional barriers exist that prevent differently-abled students from accessing adequate services (Herbert et al., 2014; Marshak et al., 2010). People of color remain frequently underserved, underrepresented, and discriminated against throughout their academic careers (Museus et al., 2015), and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) students are far more likely to experience violence, harassment, and derogatory remarks than heterosexual students (Rankin et al., 2010). Concerns about mental health are reaching crisis levels by some accounts as rates of anxiety, distress, and depression continue to increase and ‘threat-to-self’ characteristics have increased for 6 years in a row (Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH), 2016). These statistics draw a sharp contrast to reports that universities have continued and accelerated their commitment to sustainability (Kadden, 2009; Princeton Review, 2017). Instead, like their corporate and organizational counterparts elsewhere, it seems universities are promoting an image that upholds some aspects of sustainability (environmental and financial sustainability) while ignoring others (in particular, social sustainability).
This article explores American colleges and universities’ struggle to promote social sustainability; it also identifies issues of social injustice that result from this oversight and describes the underlying factors that perpetuate those issues. In response, we draw from scholarship in environmental studies, sociology, feminist studies, and other fields to construct a framework that critically engages this problem. With this framework in mind, we argue for the formal inclusion of social sustainability into policies and initiatives on college campuses. Ultimately, we suggest that employing an intersectional sustainability framework, with renewed focus on social sustainability and inclusion, would benefit universities through the creation of respectful campus climates, stronger commitments to existing policies on sustainability, and a more interdisciplinary and holistic educational experience for students. While this particular case study is limited to universities in the United States, we acknowledge the growing waves of activism in other parts of the world that are directly addressing xenophobia, climate justice, refugee rights, and other issues using an intersectional framework similar to that discussed in this article.
This article begins with a discussion of the concept of social sustainability and its importance in achieving a more intersectional framework of sustainability. We then examine different manifestations of social injustice present on American college campuses, revealing the significant amount of work that remains to be done on this issue. We then offer our own case study of student activism, which is a largely personal account from our home university, a private liberal arts institution located in the Southern United States. Finally, we briefly situate our findings within the broader landscape of activism and action at other universities in order to provide context and ideas for moving forward. We present this case study not only to animate and exemplify our discussion but also to produce a necessary student perspective in activism scholarship. More often than not, student marginalization and vulnerability are written about by the academics, staff, and administrators that support, but do not engage in, activism on the behalf of students. In this case, we write as five undergraduate liberal arts students with the support of one faculty member who served in an advisory capacity.
Defining social sustainability and the intersectional nature of sustainability
The conceptual foundations of sustainability are most frequently traced to the World Commission on Environment and Development’s (WCED) Brundtland Commission report, ‘Our Common Future’, which outlined an overlapping ‘triple bottom line’ or ‘three pillars’ framework of sustainability (i.e. economic, social, and environmental). For sustainability to be achieved, each component must be given equal weight and framed in a way that does not compartmentalize the other. When achieved together, these components allow society to meet ‘the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Brundtland and WCED, 1987). However, as a rhetorical concept, the term sustainability is malleable, and there is a great deal of flexibility in the way the term is interpreted and applied. This malleability is a result of three primary factors: (1) the vagueness of the definition itself, (2) the context in which the term is being applied, and (3) the symbolism of the ‘triple bottom line’ or ‘three pillars’ framework (Partridge, 2005; Mak and Peacock, 2011). When viewed as three distinct pillars, the overlap between the social, environmental, and economic components is less apparent, allowing appropriating entities to prioritize one component over another. As a result, sustainability efforts that place an ‘emphasis on the economy and environment’ have dominated applications of sustainability and sustainable development, contributing to the prioritization of these two components while rendering it ‘harder for people to understand how the environment and social sustainability are interrelated’ (Boström, 2012). This prioritization is exacerbated by narrow definitions of the environment as only non-human nature which do not consider built and social environments (Dempsey et al., 2011; Kafer, 2013). Furthermore, scholars argue that sustainability is itself an ambiguous term, because it is a ‘context-dependent concept’ (Partridge, 2005: 4).
Recognizing the complex nature of sustainability and its frequent misapplication, scholars have begun to use depictions of the three components as concentric, overlapping circles, making their complementary relationship more apparent (Mak and Peacock, 2011). Regardless of scale or actors, scholars generally agree that an intersectional approach is a fundamental step in maintaining a productive commitment to sustainability (Brundtland and WCED, 1987; Dunn and Hart-Steffes, 2012; Edwards, 2012; Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012; Miller, 2016). As this article suggests, this is especially true for institutions of higher education. An equally weighted focus on the three overlapping components would allow universities to improve the health and well-being of the campus community, produce long-term sustainable financial models, foster environmental health and awareness on campus, and ultimately serve as a primer for students who will enter the world as engaged and informed citizens. While universities have made progress toward promoting environmental and economic sustainability, fewer resources and attention have been applied to social sustainability (Dunn and Hart-Steffes, 2012; Edwards, 2012; Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012). There are various definitions of social sustainability. Generally, they emphasize equity in the structures, systems, and relationships that support healthy and safe communities and improve the quality of life for all members (Mak and Peacock, 2011).
In order to achieve a socially sustainable community, universities must prioritize and plan for universal accessibility, employment opportunities, and the availability of social support systems (Mak and Peacock, 2011). In a university setting, these requirements manifest as safe social spaces for all students―specifically LGBTQ students, students with disabilities, students of color, and women―religious freedom, representation in the classroom, and accessible building designs. Thus, for the purpose of this article, when we refer to ‘social sustainability’, we refer to all forms of campus initiatives that are inclusive, address issues of social justice, and promote a comprehensive understanding of community health and well-being.
US universities and their relationship to sustainability/social sustainability
Institutions of higher education―especially those in the liberal arts―are prominent sites for interdisciplinary learning both in and outside of the classroom, where students can engage with their immediate and more far-reaching communities (Dunn and Hart-Steffes, 2012; Edwards, 2012; Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012). Promoting and utilizing the three concentric circles of sustainability is a means through which universities can further this type of education (Edwards, 2012; Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012). It is also important to note that the sustainability model intends to create a world comprised of citizens who make decisions and take actions that extend beyond individual benefits (Dunn and Hart-Steffes, 2012). Active inclusion of social sustainability into university programs and campus culture engages issues such as accessibility, social space and representation, and diversity and inclusion, while simultaneously combating issues such as ableism, racism, sexism, and sexual assault (Dempsey et al., 2011; Edwards, 2012; Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012). These are all factors that have an effect on the way students perceive and experience the overall campus climate and environment (Lowe et al., 2013). We expand on each of these issues in detail below, providing examples from US universities. Although we separate these issues into individual categories for the purpose of clarity, we recognize their intersectional nature. These issues and their related scholarship are commonly compartmentalized; as we suggest later, an intersectional sustainability framework may help scholars and university staff recognize some of the underlying causes of these challenges and address them in a more comprehensive manner.
Accessibility
Certain bodies have limited access to spaces on campus due to the ‘compulsorily able-bodiedness/able-mindedness’ that has ‘shaped not only the environments of our lives―both in buildings and parks―but our very understandings of the environment itself’ (Kafer, 2013, 130). Despite this key element of social space and the environment, differently-abled bodies are rarely brought into the discussion and goals of social sustainability. Alison Kafer argues that ‘people are disabled not by their bodies but by their inaccessible environments’, supporting the argument that issues around the environment are, in fact, issues of social inequality (Kafer, 2013, 129). As some potential actions on this issue may not initially appear to university stakeholders to be related to the overall push for sustainability, the concept of social sustainability plays an important role in clarifying the connections. As discussed by Kafer, a community’s environment is the space in which they live, and fostering a safe and healthy relationship between bodies and their environment is one of the key components to sustainability as a whole.
Social space and representation
Part of ensuring a safe and sustainable campus community is making sure students are free to express their sexuality and gender identities (Stolzenberg and Hughes, 2017; Waldo, 1998). One study on lesbian, gay, and bisexual students found them to have college experiences that ‘are qualitatively different from those of heterosexual students because of the processes of identity development’ in climates made hostile by verbal harassment and threats of physical violence (Waldo, 1998). Studies on the experiences of transgender students report similar findings; trans students are roughly ‘13 percentage points more likely to participate in online social networks for six or more hours per week’ than their cisgender peers, a finding that is significant because ‘transgender students infrequently have access to supportive transgender networks on campus’ (Stolzenberg and Hughes, 2017). Many universities have student organizations centered around sexuality and gender identity that may offer necessary support, but these empirical studies portray the persisting presence of hostility that LGBTQ students continue to encounter.
Diversity and inclusion
The relationship between sustainability and race often brings to mind data on people of color being disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards (Cole and Foster, 2001; Sandler and Pezzullo, 2007). However, colleges face issues on the intersection of race and sustainability in a different way. While policies like Affirmative Action and others that target diversity in education have led to improvements in diversity on college campuses, studies have concluded that students’ perceptions of campus climates are still heavily influenced by their race (McClelland and Auster, 1990). Following Iverson’s (2007) study on 21 university plans for diversity and inclusion, Museus et al. (2015, 12) noted that despite good intentions to encourage diversity, ‘many of them failed to recognize how their own institutional language worked to further reinscribe minoritized communities as “outsiders” to postsecondary education’. This ostracizing language exists because universities today remain tied to the historical contexts in which they were created; the prejudices that governed a country when a university was founded are reflected in that institution’s political structure. Iverson (2007) touches on this point as well, noting that higher education is a ‘microcosm of society’ and within the current political climate campuses can serve as places where issues of racial tension and prejudice are particularly acute. The events and tensions Iverson refers to include on-campus parties with racist themes, microaggressions from peers and faculty, and reckoning with institutions’ ties to founders with racist beliefs (Museus et al., 2015). Experiences with these manifestations of racism negatively affect students’ health and well-being on campus, as they can be ‘demoralizing and may lead to higher levels of stress, feelings of self-doubt, alienation, and anger’ (Sue et al., 2007). The negative influence of lingering systemic racism on students serves as evidence that issues of race on college campuses must be incorporated into universities increased investment in social sustainability.
Scholarship on the experiences of Muslim students reveals that the issue of racial discrimination overlaps with religious discrimination. For example, in 2010 an episode of South Park was taken off the air following controversy over its depiction of Muhammad. In response, students at universities across the United States, including Northwestern University and University of Wisconsin at Madison, took part in campus-chalking of images of Muhammad as a way to ‘protest censorship’ (IFYC, 2010). As ‘actual depictions of Muhammad are generally forbidden within Islam’, this imagery was very harmful toward Muslim students (IFYC, 2010). However, when Muslim students and student organizations at Northwestern University came forward asking their fellow students not to participate in the chalking, their requests were ignored. Afterward, Muslim students reported feeling ‘targeted’ by these actions (IFYC, 2010).
Combating sexism and sexual assault
Another key aspect of a safe campus community is taking necessary measures to protect students from sexual assault. However, scholars continue to document high trends of sexual assault on campuses, showing that university communities remain unsafe in this manner as well (Krebs et al., 2009). To prevent assault, it is common for women and administrators to come up with defense strategies instead of strategies that address the systemic culture of sexual assault that compromises women’s free and independent use of campus spaces (Day, 1995). Drawing from the model of social sustainability, strategies would be more effective if they targeted specific shortcomings of sexual assault policies and worked to alter the existing campus climate that allows assaulters to face very few repercussions (Day, 1995). In order to maintain donor relationships and sustain enrollment, some universities have chosen to prioritize an image of safety rather than publicly address the harsh realities of campus violence (Day, 1995). Thus, universities can often appear to be safe spaces, but may actually be more dangerous than other spaces (Lewis et al., 2016).
Obstacles to implementing social sustainability on college campuses
The primary obstacles that North American universities face in confronting issues of social sustainability on campus are the persistent, oppressive ideologies (i.e. racism, sexism, ableism, etc.), the restrictive policy language and administrative resistance to imposed change, and the limited agency of students wishing to address these issues. As we alluded to earlier, these challenges are often exacerbated by the fact that the term sustainability is itself a fluid concept. It is easily appropriated by university administrators and public relations experts who redefine ‘sustainability’ in order to promote a carefully crafted public image that sanitizes and obfuscates the very problems social sustainability initiatives seek to confront. Many North American universities have taken positive steps toward improving environmental sustainability on their campuses, but this limited scope can have ‘unintended consequences’, which we outline below (Edwards, 2012, 20).
Oppressive ideologies
Some universities promote an approach to education that aids students in ‘understanding privilege and oppression, and equips students with the kinds of skills to foster more justice and equity’; yet, there exists a disconnect between these lessons and university administrators’ own relationships to these ideas (Edwards, 2012, 25). Outside of the classroom, policies and attitudes do not reflect the same efforts to address oppression and inequity. As a result, marginalized communities throughout campus become further discouraged as they witness the disconnect between the lessons they hear in the classroom and how these lessons materialize in their everyday lives. There is ample evidence from scholars and activists who write about this topic, as is outlined below through examples of discrimination against LGBTQ students, students of color, students with disabilities, and women.
LGBTQ students are often underrepresented on college campuses, which leads to feelings of exclusion and diminishes students’ sense of belonging (Marine and Nicolazzo, 2014). Although many universities attempt to promote safe places and resources for LGBTQ students, these students often remain marginalized by non-inclusive language. It is worth noting that when programs, policies, and practices actively promote the inclusivity of LGBTQ groups on campus, there is a higher level of commitment from students (Marine and Nicolazzo, 2014). Outside of those spaces that are intentionally inclusive of LGBTQ students, hetero- and gender-normative perspectives still largely dominate the campus climate. College fraternity and sorority parties are particularly exclusionary to students who don’t adhere to these social standards, and on many campuses this problem is exacerbated by the lack of alternative options for parties (Byron et al., 2017). In some cases, ‘Gay men . . . are outright ejected from these spaces by some fraternity members’ for displaying their sexuality (Byron et al., 2017, 689). For transgender students, even non-sexualized spaces are dangerous; in locker rooms and restrooms that are separated for ‘men’ and ‘women’, transgender students ‘often face verbal and physical assault’ (Beemyn et al., 2005, 55). Not only are LGBTQ students marginalized, they are further endangered when they are LGBTQ students of color and their exclusion becomes even more prevalent (Marine and Nicolazzo, 2014).
This oppression is likewise felt by students of color. As Lowe et al (2013, 574) notes, students of color lack confidence in their universities’ ‘capacity to adequately address racist incidents’ because of the rate at which they experience acts of racism. Students of color report feeling like ‘guests in someone else’s house’ because of their universities’ negligence in addressing their concerns and making necessary changes (Harper and Hurtado, 2007, 20). As Milem et al. (2005) and Lowe et al. (2013) suggest, these sentiments are largely the result of tokenism, microaggressions, white privilege, and white dominated spaces on campuses across the United States. Experiences of ‘higher levels of perceived hostility and discrimination’ toward students of color are more common at universities with ‘lower levels of perceived institutional commitment to diversity’ (Milem et al., 2005, 11). These environments frequently result in ‘low grades’ among African American students, ‘feelings of isolation’ among Native American students, and Latino/a students struggling to feel ‘a sense of belonging’ in college and to adjust to college life (Milem et al., 2005).
Further evidence of this issue is provided by Museus et al. (2015) who concluded from studies on racism within universities that ‘racism operates at a systemic level to privilege the racial majority’s perspectives in the formation and interpretation of policy’ and remains deeply ingrained in higher education (p. 13). Just as the institutions themselves are not removed from the racist structures that the United States was built upon, neither are university administrative systems. To exacerbate this disconnect, many university administrators fail to recognize that systems of privilege are at play in their own institutions, and are thus unable to adequately address them. When universities do not address historically embedded systems of oppression, students are left to adapt to damaging campus climates on their own, forced to navigate the structural issues that exist in their environments without sufficient support.
This handing off of responsibility to students is prominent in addressing issues of oppression on campuses. Scholars recognize this and stress that in order for universities to foster a culture of sustainability, students must see their institution ‘role-modeling sustainable behavior through its policy and practice’ (Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012, 11). However, when looking at the widespread issue of sexual assault on university campuses, there is a lack of ‘university-based resistance to everyday sexism’ (Lewis et al., 2016). Universities often engage in ‘practical strategies . . . intended to prevent assault’ that put the responsibility on students to avoid becoming victims of sexual assault, as opposed to ‘strategic actions [that] aim to change the underlying conditions conducive to assault or crime’ (Day, 1995: 264). When students endure ‘oppressive cultures and practices’ on campus, but do not feel supported by their universities―that is, experience ‘institutional betrayal’―this contributes to mental and physical health problems (Lewis et al., 2016: 2). In failing to assist their students in addressing this issue, universities perpetuate and normalize sexist environments in which women and other marginalized groups feel unsafe and unsupported.
The ‘political institution of able-bodiedness’ as discussed by Kafer (2003: 77) is also an ideology found on campuses that is based on the oppression of certain groups. One manner through which ableism manifests within universities is the narrow scope of the term ‘environment’. The environment is widely perceived solely as nature and wilderness, but social spaces and the environment do not exist without one another. As Kafer (2013: 129) elaborates, ‘the natural environment is also “built”: literally so in the case of trails and dams, metaphorically so in the sense of cultural constructions of deployments of “nature”, “natural”, and “the environment”’. The university environment, through sidewalks, building access, and parking lots, has the potential to be constructed in a physically accessible or inaccessible way.
Ableism affects more than physical accessibility of the built environment―assumptions about normative learning styles contribute to the alienation of students with learning disorders. Though universities are required to provide support systems and accommodations for students, they are often inadequate. For this reason, ‘many students with disabilities or learning disorders enroll in online classes or at online institutions to avoid the stigma (real or perceived) found in traditional classrooms’ (Sutton, 2016: 9). Differently-abled students reported that traditional classroom settings were ‘“draining”, “awkward”, and made participants “self-conscious”’ (Sutton, 2016: 9). Despite the opportunity to be viewed as a ‘student without limitations’ and the refuge from harmful classroom experiences, students reported feelings of isolation when participating in online classes, rendering neither situation ideal for learning (Sutton, 2016).
Policy language
To promote sustainability, Miller (2016) emphasizes that it is important to understand the obstacles of integrating social sustainability into campus policies. The implementation of sustainable practices at institutions of higher learning require efforts that involve administrators, staff, faculty, and students, and span facility operations, finance, research, student activities, and community outreach efforts. Without an approach that incorporates all of these facets, the active power of sustainability as an integrative concept is compartmentalized and controlled by those who interpret and implement the policies. Yet this collaboration is not necessarily easy to facilitate. Students often face obstacles that limit their agency to amend campus policies, including a governance-related inability to write/amend policies (i.e. students are restricted from authoring or editing policies), disagreements among community members about the best paths forward, or even lack of access to the administrators themselves. Sometimes this inaccessibility is present because of disproportionate levels of education in certain fields, but at other times, policy language and structuring are themselves exclusionary.
The creation of ‘Green Funds’ is one way universities are attempting to further their commitments to sustainability at a policy level. ‘Green Funds’ and ‘Sustainability Funds’ are pools of grant money―often generated from student fees or earmarked as part of their tuition―that campus members can apply for to fund their sustainability-related projects and initiatives. Usually, a committee comprised of various campus stakeholders will approve or deny funds based on a project’s perceived relevance to sustainability and potential to improve the university in some way. However, the narrow interpretation of sustainability that strongly favors cost savings and carbon-footprint-reduction is present in the language of many universities’ ‘Green Fund’ guidelines; the use of the word ‘green’ in naming these funds can itself be exclusionary to projects focused on social sustainability (Edwards, 2012). Stanford’s outline for appropriate Student Green Fund projects specified that projects must aim to reduce Stanford’s ‘ecological footprint’ and ‘directly address environmental sustainability’ (Sustainable Stanford, 2015). Similarly, Mount Holyoke College intends to allocate their Green Revolving Fund to projects that ‘reduce resource use and generate cost savings’ for the university (Green Revolving Fund Established, 2017). While the existence of a specific fund for these types of initiatives is no doubt critical to achieving sustainability on campuses, the focus on environmental and economic sustainability is reinforcing the notion that social issues and personal experiences are a less prioritized component of the sustainability narrative.
Lack of student agency and authority
Universities provide a unique environment in which students have varying levels of agency. On one hand, students make up the majority of the campus population, thus rendering their presence the largest and their voices potentially the loudest. Despite this strength in numbers, institutional structures often prevent students from realizing their agency within the campus community. Scholarship on teaching and implementing sustainability emphasizes the need for universities to incorporate lessons on ‘relationships, leadership, making change, social justice, group dynamics, power, and economics’ into student learning (Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012). This learning should not be exclusive to the classroom experience; academia-based lessons must be paired with opportunities ‘to put classroom knowledge into action in [students’] daily lives’ (Kerr and Hart-Steffes, 2012: 11). As students generally live on or near their college campuses and are deeply tied to university operations while in attendance, the university is the most appropriate setting for students to enact this applied learning. However, as Miller (2016) emphasizes, in order for these practices to be integrated effectively into all aspects of students’ university experiences, they must consider the ‘institutional policies, cultural norms, social norms, gender norms, and even physical infrastructures’ that govern the way their respective communities function (p. 53). Students must also account for the ways these structures create dissonance between the agency they hold and their ability to claim it.
Though students are often expected to contribute to change on campuses, their perspectives are not always considered when university’s policies and initiatives are altered; requests made by students are frequently overlooked or diminished by more powerful structures (Day, 1995). Because of these experiences of disenfranchisement, students can grow to distrust university administrators and their ability to take their concerns seriously. This distrust that activists feel is not one-sided―administrators themselves often have concerns about campus activism and how activism will impact the reputation of their university. Universities are heavily influenced by their wealthy donors and alumni, as well as prospective students and their families, which causes them to formulate a positive image that suppresses the voices of frustrated students (Day, 1995). Histories of societal judgment and institutional betrayal often contribute to a tense relationship between activists and their institution’s administrators. This skepticism from administrators not only gets in the way of activism, it often directly conflicts with curriculum and university goals and mission statements. Although in this conflict both student activists and university administrators argue that they want a safe and comfortable campus climate, the issue lies in defining what this means and which strategies are deemed appropriate.
Taking action at our university: a case study
If we are not fostering a safe space for all, what the fuck are we doing here? If this school is exactly as dangerous for women as any other school in this country, with the same rate of rape and sexual assault, how does it offer anything unique or individual at all? Is ‘being [our university]’ just being exactly like everybody else? —Anonymous student survey response
Our research was motivated by student experiences that revealed many of the ways social sustainability is left out of the conversation, the policies, and the structure of our home university. While we draw from student experiences across campus, the initial account mentioned below is our own.
We choose to first focus on our experience with our university’s sustainability fund because it exemplifies the struggle that universities have in equally applying the three dimensions of sustainability, especially their struggle to promote social sustainability. Our campus sustainability fund is called the ‘Green S.A.F.E.’ (Sustainable Advancements Funding Endeavor)—a fund made up of a $15-per-semester fee in students’ tuition. It is most commonly referred to on campus as the ‘Green Fund’. The language of the Green Fund is ambiguous about the term ‘sustainability’ but does specifically name two other documents adopted by the university as the basis for appropriate delegation of the funds. These two documents―the Talloires Declaration and the President’s Climate Commitment―specifically articulate environmental endeavors in terms of carbon-footprints, resource use, and improvements to the purportedly ‘natural’ environment. These documents were initially chosen by students who proposed and passed this legislation in 2014 because, it was argued, the university was already a signatory on these documents, and the Green Fund’s legislation would allow a formalization of administrative commitments. While the original document provided examples that fit well with the ‘win-win’ scenarios often touted as part of the new green economy (i.e. energy efficiency improvements that would allow cost savings, recycling leading to cost savings, etc.), the committee that allocated funding—the Sustainability Committee—understood that projects that emphasized a comprehensive, ‘triple bottom line’ approach would receive priority, and clearly detailed this in all calls for proposals.
The beginnings of administrative overreach
The triple bottom line criteria worked well during the initial years of the Fund. However, during the Fall semester of 2016, two project proposals were submitted that were clearly seen to emphasize social sustainability issues. One project, submitted by leaders of a student organization, requested funding for a workshop to establish a peer network to combat sexual assault on our campus. This was a pressing issue on campus, because our university (like numerous others in the United States) was experiencing significant controversy over recent sexual assault cases. In fact, the university was undergoing two separate Title IX investigations related to sexual assault cases. The second proposal was a joint proposal submitted by faculty and staff members requesting funding for an automatic door that would be installed in one of the academic buildings to increase accessibility and enhance the university’s compliance with the Americans with Disability Act. The Sustainability Committee―comprised of four students, three faculty, and three staff―voted overwhelmingly to award money to both of these projects. The following semester, as the projects were being implemented, a representative of the administration made an announcement at the beginning of the final Sustainability Committee meeting of the semester. He announced that the two aforementioned projects did not fit within administrators’ understanding of the Green Fund’s purview and that alternative sources of money would be found for these projects. This announcement was made despite language in the legislation that clearly stated decisions about the allocation of funds would be under purview of the Sustainability Committee (Green S.A.F.E. Section 2, Sub-Section A: 2). The representative added that a university financial officer would henceforth attend all meetings of the Sustainability Committee to ensure that allocation of the funds would be, as they stated, in keeping with the best interests of the university and in keeping with the fiduciary responsibilities of their office. The administration made it clear that this new policy was not subject to debate or negotiation. It is worthy of note that this isn’t a situation that is unique to this institution. As Stewart and Valian (2018) note, because university leadership is ‘accountable first and foremost to the fiscal health of the organization’, an inclusive agenda for change can be stalled or dismissed for financial reasons (p. 420).
Community response
Numerous members of the campus community, particularly students, were shocked and frustrated by this decision. Shortly thereafter, a group of students and faculty (including the authors of this article) began to organize a response. We first planned to write legislation that would address issues of social sustainability on campus by allowing language in the Green Fund to support such proposals. We drafted a clarifying amendment explicitly calling for funds to be awarded to projects that comprehensively address sustainability issues. We borrowed language from the call for proposals that the Sustainability Committee has been using since the beginning of the fund. Specifically, the following:
The Green S.A.F.E. (aka Green Fund) will support projects that:
Promote various dimensions of ecological sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmental knowledge/awareness;
Promote social sustainability including environmental and social justice, diversity, and/or the public health and well-being of the campus community;
Promote economic sustainability, fiscal responsibility, long-term financial health of [our] university.
Unsure of how to begin the policy amendment process, we reached out to the Student Government Association (SGA) in early September, informed them of our plans, and asked for more information on the step-by-step process. We also reached out to faculty in order to ensure that we had all of the necessary information about the university governance structure and official policy stream. In early October, we met with SGA’s Legislative Committee and then returned later in the month to present our amendment to the SGA General Assembly. This gave SGA leaders and representatives 3 weeks to discuss our proposal with other students and receive feedback. In early November, an anonymous survey was sent to the entire student body with information about our amendment so they could vote in favor or against the policy change. Of the 178 students who responded (approximately 12% of the student population), roughly 90% (90.4) were in favor or strongly in favor of the amendment. We also met with leaders from various student organizations on campus, who expressed their widespread support and offered to discuss the matter with SGA representatives. After presenting our case, SGA voted unanimously (27-0) to pass our clarifying amendment.
Following the SGA General Assembly meeting, we would be required to take our policy proposal to the ranking university committee on campus. But before doing so, we wished to garner further student feedback and support. In late October, we hosted an open forum in order to provide a space where students from a variety of academic majors, constituencies, and personal backgrounds could share their own stories related to social sustainability and find commonalities in their experiences. More than 60 students, faculty, and staff attended—no small feat for a liberal arts college of our size. The stories were deeply personal accounts of hardships they had endured while at the university. As students shared their stories, it became increasingly clear that these were similar experiences that were shared by many of the students in the room. Women and students of color offered numerous accounts, pointing to a lack of resources for underrepresented students, abusive tokenization, and multiple instances of microaggressions and blatant discrimination. Multiple LGBTQ students spoke to issues of heteronormativity, othering, and lack of resources to assist students who were dealing with the trauma of gender/sexual discrimination. Students who attempted to act on these issues discussed the challenges of their efforts, including administrative censoring of student activism and invalidation or minimization by senior staff and faculty. Faculty shared their frustration with inappropriate training and insufficient resources for those seeking ways to better teach and advise underrepresented groups—an important concern considering that our university proudly advertises that approximately 1/3 of students served on campus are of an underrepresented group. Students also shared their significant concerns about hate and abusive language toward minorities and increasing fears regarding sexual assault.
Students left the forum feeling empowered and motivated. The forum allowed students, staff, and faculty to share their experiences, validate each other’s concerns, and strategize about the additional steps necessary for taking action on campus. It was a reminder that engaging in activism takes a heavy social, physical, and psychological toll, and that forums that promote validation and self-care are a fundamental component of successful actions.
Navigating university bureaucracy
The following month, we presented our case to the ranking university committee, which is comprised of elected faculty and staff with voting powers, but also attended by ex officio administrators. We addressed the concerns presented to us, and the policy was unanimously approved by voting members of the committee, who recommended that our amendment move forward to the university faculty for discussion and approval at the following faculty meeting.
We left the committee meeting under the impression that our amendment was approved and began planning to address the faculty. However, shortly thereafter, we were surprised by an email informing us that the process would be delayed. We were later told that, upon our departure from the meeting, senior staff informed the voting members of the committee that the amendment would not go forward at that time. They noted that the committee’s power extended only as far as ‘advice’ and ‘recommendation’ to the university president. Further consultation with the administration, namely, the president of the university, would be needed before taking our amendment to the faculty.
This prompted additional formal and informal meetings with representatives from the faculty, Sustainability Committee, aforementioned ranking committee, and senior administrators. Students were informed that they would not attend additional meetings unless the issue made it to a meeting of the faculty. In a December meeting hosted by the ranking committee, and attended by faculty supporters and senior administrators (including the president), administrators highlighted several of their concerns about potential outcomes of the clarifying amendment. These included concerns over the term ‘green’, which they argued exclusively called for environmental rather than social sustainability; the original intent of the fund, which was addressed with a review of the documents that accompanied the original legislation; and concerns that this amendment would shift funding away from environmental initiatives, although the chair of the Sustainability Committee suggested there was no evidence of this. No vote was held at this meeting, and the process was seemingly held in limbo until the beginning of the Spring semester, when the ranking committee issued a formal memo that supported our efforts and recommended that the issue go to the faculty for a vote. We were informed that if the proposal moved forward to the faculty, we would have to present our proposal to the full body of the faculty, with senior administrators—including the president—in attendance. In at least two additional instances, efforts were made to delay the proposal from proceeding, including voiced concerns that the faculty handbook restricted student attendance at meetings (it does not).
In the first faculty meeting of the Spring semester, we five students presented our proposal to faculty and administrators. Following a lengthy discussion that included editorial recommendations, requests for examples of financial and social sustainability projects, and minor procedural concerns, the faculty voted on our proposal; administrators are not allowed a vote in faculty meetings. The faculty voted overwhelmingly (92%) in favor of our clarifying amendment. Following the meeting, we were once again reminded that this vote was not for approval of the proposal. Rather, this vote would be considered as a recommendation to the president, who had the ability to veto the measure. Three months later, the president responded. Despite a lengthy explanation outlining his concerns, he ultimately approved the proposal: As I objectively reflect on all of these points—both the pros and the cons generated by the Green Fund—and determine what is in the best interests for [the university], I have decided, first, to continue this initiative and, second, to widen its scope to include original student, faculty, or staff led projects that have the promise to make positive contributions to the university’s environmental well-being that can include connections to social sustainability.
In addition to the president’s approval of our proposal, we received additional good news the following year. The university approved a sustainability coordinator position—a position for which students and faculty members had been advocating since 2015. During the hiring process, both students and faculty argued strongly for a candidate who would be able to express an understanding of intersectional sustainability and social justice, while also supporting these efforts on campus. That candidate was hired in the spring semester of 2019.
Discussion: intersectional sustainability and student activism
We argue that employing an intersectional sustainability framework advances many of the goals currently pursued by student activists in at least three ways. First, it employs language that universities already use to promote their image and their programs. As noted earlier, universities have increasingly touted themselves as sustainable environments. Reintroducing the ‘social’ into sustainability initiatives not only allows a return to a more comprehensive and intersectional approach, it allows a pathway for universities to actively pursue mission statements and goals that many have already embraced rhetorically as part of their core values. In addition, the language of sustainability may prove to be less political than the term ‘social justice’, which is being increasingly politicized in the United States and elsewhere. While there is no question that the authors of this article support the aims of social justice advocates on college campuses and activism in its name, we also recognize that sometimes politically charged rhetoric can serve as a barrier to successful negotiations. The language of sustainability provides a strategic and useful narrative that can be used to communicate with otherwise resistant administrators. Despite the ideological challenges that can accompany linking the efforts to fiscal manners (discussed in the next section), university administrators respond well when informed that a lack of social justice, inclusion, diversity, and other areas of social sustainability can have long-term financial repercussions as they affect retention and graduation rates. Second, employing an intersectional sustainability framework provides inclusive language for student allies across campus, who find unifying language in an intersectional approach that shows how issues of environmental degradation, economic hegemony, and conflicts over race, inaccessibility, class, gender, sexual identity, and others contain interrelated causes, structures of marginalization, and common solutions. Third, and related to the above, employing an intersectional sustainability framework provides a solutions-oriented language of positive action to issues that all members of the community wish to address. No university wants its students to encounter discrimination, marginalization, violence, or abuse in any context. No university wishes to perpetuate an unhealthy or unsafe environment for its students. Employing the language of sustainability provides a positive forum to discuss seemingly controversial issues in a proactive light while also viewing students, faculty, and other activists as partners working toward a common goal. This last point is perhaps the most important takeaway for students reading this article. Successful activism in the 21st century requires alliance building across diverse constituencies, and activist frameworks that foster positive, inclusive forums for empathy, support, and knowledge sharing are fundamental to the success of any movement.
We encountered all of these positive effects in our efforts. First, we were able to employ language that was already part of university policies and use it to support our amendment. Not only did we find useful and supportive language in the existing sustainability policies, but we also were able to rely on our university’s own language found in its own mission statement, which lists ‘Encouraging activism in the pursuit of justice and the common good’ in its list of university core values (we discuss this further in the next section). Second, advocating for support of social sustainability initiatives allowed us to easily reach out and network with allies across campus, including minority student groups, LGBTQ support groups, environmentalist groups, and staff and faculty who supported marginalized and underrepresented students in their teaching, scholarship, and service. Finally, employing a solutions-oriented approach to sustainability allowed us to present our ideas as proactive solutions that would appeal to prospective students, donors, and members of the community who are increasingly confronted with news about social problems on college campuses throughout the United States.
Ultimately, employing this framework allowed student activism to be viewed in a more positive, proactive, and comprehensive manner that afforded student agency and space for action in their learning environment. If the ‘environment’ is understood as the space in which a community lives, it is clear that anything that makes that space dangerous also makes it unsustainable. Through this framework, issues ranging from the sexual assault epidemic to growing white supremacy across college campuses―including on our own―become sustainability problems, as they damage the university environment.
A new wave of intersectional activism? Evidence from other universities
Before concluding, it is important to situate our case study within a broader landscape of university activism and discuss how our framework has begun to materialize in a similar way at other institutions of higher education. As early as 2015, popular media and higher education news began to acknowledge a ‘new wave of activism’ emerging in universities across the United States and elsewhere—a time period that correlates with our experience (see, for example, Curwen et al., 2015; Jason, 2018; Thomas and Gismondi, 2017). These activists were largely motivated by growing concern over issues such as sexual assault, climate change, police violence (in particular the Black Lives Matter movement), school gun violence, immigration reform, and other issues. The real question is whether or not these movements have had any material impact on college campuses, and if so, how and in what form? The answer requires some context, but that context not only deepens our understanding of the issues, it also opens up numerous avenues for future research.
First, there is ample evidence to suggest that the approach we discuss in this article is already having a significant impact on college campuses throughout the United States. As of the writing of this article, we have identified more than 20 sustainability funds, programs, or campus offices established in recent years that (re)emphasize the ‘social’ pillar of sustainability, many of which explicitly discuss the importance of taking an intersectional and inclusive approach to sustaining the campus community. 1 For example, the Sustainability Office at the University of Santa Cruz notes that it works to ‘promote a culture of inclusive sustainability’ that advances ‘different cultural definitions of how to care for environmental spaces and human communities, and promote multicultural inclusion in sustainability initiatives across campus’ (UC Santa Cruz Office of Sustainability, 2019: para. 5), or the Wesleyan Green Fund, which has made specific efforts to ‘broaden the definition of sustainability’ and encourage and support ‘projects related to the intersection of environmental issues and social justice’ (Rubenstein, 2016: para. 6). Furthermore, new university offices and programs throughout the United States are being established to promote diversity and inclusion, social justice, and disability rights. These include the Georgetown Equity and Inclusion Office, Santa Clara Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Occidental College Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and others. While numerous other examples exist, these are given here because each of the universities mentioned in this paragraph have wording in their ‘Mission Statements’ or ‘Core Values’ that directly promote social justice, activism, diversity, equity, and/or inclusion. We mention this because relying on the university’s core principles was key to justifying the establishment our own initiatives—a situation that we have found true at other universities, and believe it to be an important part of the narrative of future activism. As Stewart and Valian (2018) note, activist leaders are ‘most likely to be successful if they tie any change mission to one of the long-standing “core” missions of the university’ (p. 421).
Second, while there is evidence for a new wave of university offices being opened to address the issues we discuss in this article (offices which are ostensibly funded by the university operating budget), there is also evidence to show that new ‘green funds’, grants, and similar programs to support these issues rely upon the labor and funding of students themselves. This second approach is problematic, because as scholars have noted, the financial situation and labor conditions of contemporary university students are more precarious than ever, and this has significant ramifications for student activists who find themselves vulnerable to expulsion or repression (Fernandez, 2012; Linder et al., 2019). Indeed, the ‘neoliberalization of academia’ has created precarity at numerous levels and has fostered a problematic landscape of activism that leaves students and faculty increasingly vulnerable while simultaneously promoting solutions that require self-funding and the formation of commodifiable ‘products’—most commonly in the form of a marketable image that can be used to attract donors and prospective students (Karter et al., 2019; Linder et al., 2019; Mohanty, 2013). As a result, we strongly suggest that—when possible—the goals of student activism be directed toward official, written university commitment to these initiatives. Doing so formalizes university policy and devotes official resources to these causes while avoiding placing the burden of unpaid, and often invisible, labor on the shoulders of students and faculty.
Ultimately, while it seems that there is momentum on university campuses in recent years to acknowledge, frame, and take action on issues of social justice and sustainability, it is too early to know if these efforts will be sustained. As Karter et al. (2019: 1) state, ‘student activism is a highly underresearched topic’ and ‘even less is known about the ways in which student activists navigate the neoliberal or “corporatized university”’. We hope that this article is one step in the direction of remedying the absence of scholarship on this topic while also offering a useful framework for students, faculty, and staff to recognize and act upon issues that lie at the intersection of social justice, sustainability, and inclusion. We encourage students and scholars to conduct research and activism that investigates the ways that universities are acting (or not) on issues of sustainability and inclusion, with a particular focus on holding university administrators and boards accountable to their commitment to the institution’s core values and mission.
Conclusion
In recent decades, universities have rhetorically embraced the goals of sustainability and selectively incorporated these principles into university mission statements, project goals, and initiatives. The environmental greening of universities and the tightening-up of university budgets have become a nearly universal trend in higher education. However, as noted earlier, universities have struggled to address issues of social injustice, sexual assault, inaccessibility, and mental health—issues which have become important targets for student activism. In this article, we explored the significant disconnect between rhetoric and action in higher education’s commitment to the social aspects of sustainability, and we outlined strategies for student activists who wish to address these issues of social injustice and marginalization. By implementing socially sustainable policies on universities, the systemic problems that students face can be addressed across all facets of the institution. Our discussion of intersectional sustainability suggests its usefulness as a framework for student activism in that it (1) explicitly acknowledges the intersectionality of campus issues, (2) uses language that parallels and supports existing university commitments to sustainability, and (3) provides a forum for fostering alliances among diverse constituencies across campus. All challenges faced by students on college campuses (whether they be environmental, economic, or social) can be seen as part of a broader pattern of societal marginalization and oppression. Our hope is to bring greater empowerment and agency to students that confront these issues on college campuses, and further, better prepare ourselves as citizens who will be forced to address these issues in an increasingly polarized world.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
