A Letter on Social Equity in the Public Administration Classroom (& Beyond)
By: David P. Carter
Tags: Equity, Pedagogy, Higher Education, Public Affairs, Social Justice

Amid the heightened antiracist activism that followed the killing of George Floyd (and other people of color), the Program of Public Affairs (MPA, MPP, and MIAGE) received necessary and urgent feedback from current students and alumni. In carefully written letters, community members of color and their white allies candidly articulated that the Program had not only failed to live up to the ideals of an antiracist public service that contributes to a more equitable and just society, but had perpetuated systemic racism in its curricula, classrooms, and treatment of students.

The legitimate criticism extended to my own instruction. At the time I was teaching a section of Governance & the Economy, the curriculum of which at no point acknowledged the economic oppression and exploitation experienced by Black citizens and other people of color in the United States. Nor did it speak to the fact that American racial discrimination, oppression, and exploitation are constructed — and the primary tool of oppression is government policy. I’d avoided such topics in most of my classes — out of both privileged ignorance and to avoid discomfort — and I had surely committed and allowed microaggressions in the classroom.

Although it by no means excuses the Program’s or my own failures, a genuine concern for social equity and justice is too often absent from public affairs contexts. Public policy and public administration have long neglected their complicity (both as a professions and academic fields) in perpetuating racism and other forms of oppression. The titles of works that buck the trend expose the fields’ abdications. Examples include Jennifer Alexander’s Avoiding the Issue: Racism and Administrative Responsibility in Public Administration, Matthew Witt’s A Noteworthy Absence: How and why Race and Racism is Ignored by Public Administration Scholarship, and Anthony Starke, Nuri Heckler, and Janiece Mackey’s Administrative Racism: Public Administration Education and Race.

Beyond the confines of public affairs programs (although still relevant to them), critical observers have compellingly argued that educational institutions and the academic enterprise are often characterized by discrimination and hostility towards individuals other than able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual, and white males. Women have always suffered differential opportunities and treatment (especially women of color), as have those whose gender identities do not follow binary gender norms. Discrimination and systemic exclusion are further experienced by individuals with disabilities and those who come from backgrounds of limited resources.

​To be honest, I’m skeptical that the flood of higher education commitments towards anti-racism and justice of recent months will lead to the type of institutional, cultural, and systemic change that is long overdue and urgently needed; the track record of such reactive initiatives is spotty (at best) and they typically fail to address the myriad of inequities indicated above. I sincerely hope I am wrong. Regardless, I’m committed to not wasting the the current moment’s intense focus, momentum, and motivation to make outstanding corrections in my own courses and instructional practices.

Rather than list intentions or promises, I’ll let your experiences gauge the extent to which my instruction lives up to the ideals of antiracism, equity, and social justice. You should find evidence of a (renewed) concern for these principles in the decisions I’ve made regarding course format, pedagogical approach, and curriculum and content. I readily admit that this commitment is a work in process. It is also an open project — and I invite you to join me. Just as I intend to recruit you as a collaborator on my pedagogical journey, I’d like to enlist you as a partner in my efforts to ensure accessible and equitable classes (both physical and digital). The objective can only be truly realized when we individually and collectively accept nothing less than full recognition and respect — for ourselves and one another.

​Sincerely,

Prof David Carter