Equity Week organizer and adjunct English instructor Geoffery Johnson speaks to a sparse crowd by the Student Center. Photo by Thomas Contant.
Turnout was low at this semester’s Equity Week, a series of daily discussions and lectures advocating social equity.
Equity Week’s final event was empty while students gathered for the nearby Disability Awareness Celebration in front of the Student Center.
Organizers said they were not surprised.
Equity Week organizer Geoffrey Johnson, an English adjunct instructor, urged the remaining students to vote “yes” on Proposition 55 as staff signaled for him to wrap up his speech.
Johnson said he wanted this year’s Equity Week to cover equity issues, including income inequality, mental health and homelessness.
Trustee Humberto Peraza voiced his strong support. Adjunct instructors deserve to be called professors, he said, the same as full-time tenured faculty, because of the amount of work they do.
“They work the same amount as a professor or more, and yet they do not get paid a living wage,” he said. “Before last year (adjunct) professors weren’t getting paid for the office hours that they did just like every other professor on this campus.”
Peraza praised SWC adjuncts for the hard work they do and said many put in hours they are not paid for.
“They were doing (office hours) for free,” he said. “Why? Because they care about the students on this campus and want to make sure that you get a good education.”
Peraza said it is wrong to consider adjuncts as expendable.
“They are taken advantage of for their cheap labor,” he said. “It’s time that we actually stood up for them and (ask) our (state) legislators to help us out.”
Peraza said California’s legislators need to take seriously the issues faced by adjuncts.
“At our college alone we have 700 part-timers,” he said. “We only have 200 full-timers. We are supposed to be one of the most progressive states in the nation. We are the ones that actually fight for workers, we fight for living wages and you see that all the time out of our legislators. These people work from night to day, traveling from one college to the next just to be able to make a living. Our state needs to recognize that these workers are not just employees of one college, but employees of the state of California, and therefore deserve a living wage. How can our legislators stand up and ridicule corporations and businesses for not paying a living wage when they don’t even pay their own employees a living wage? It’s time for us to ask our leaders these questions and demand that the people that educate our future get paid a living wage.”
ASO President Mona Dibas said minority students also face inequalities.
“As the first Muslim ASO President, (I’m) always under that form of attack of ‘She probably doesn’t know what she’s doing, she comes from a third world country, she has no idea what’s going on in life,’” she said. “People (speak) to me in slower English because they don’t think I understand.”
Dibas said students should not have to worry about discrimination so that they can focus on their education.
Governing Board President Nora Vargas said Latinas still face discrimination.
“English is not my first language,” she said. “So I am very sensitive to when people say things like ‘I don’t really understand what you’re saying,’ or ‘Oh my God, you’re so articulate’ when I have a graduate degree.”
Part-time instructor Carol Stuardo discussed the nation’s recent social and political climate.
“What’s been revealed as of late is that we do not live an equitable society where everyone is treated equally and it needs to change,” she said.
Stuardo described one of her early fights for equity.
“I was four years old and they were trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment and watching women on TV who wanted equal treatment,” she said. “I decided to get a group of girls together and walk down the street with our shirts off. Boys didn’t have to wear shirts, so why should we?”
CSEA President Andre Harris said black professionals often face double standards.
“I have to be fair to everybody,” he said. “If I’m not fair and (if) I voice my displeasure, I’m the angry black man in the room.”
Harris said college employees must to work together regardless of their job or constituency group.
“My predecessor refused to talk to a board member or even speak to SCEA, but we are all in the same group,” he said. “I think we have a long way to go with our hourlies and our adjuncts, but it’s a process we have to follow. It’s not going to change any time soon, but if we have these discussions maybe things will start to turn.”
