Social Justice

Merritt College puts students first. Through our rich educational programs, we foster a culture of equity and inclusion that empowers students to achieve their greatest potential and make meaningful contributions to their respective communities and our global society.
Equity Commitment
Believing that it is our obligation to our students to confront societal racism and discrimination, we commit to the intentional and relentless application of equity and social justice as we cultivate academic excellence, self-determination, and informed civic engagement.
Merritt College Core Values
Student Access and Success – We provide rigorous and engaging in-person and remote learning experiences that support the academic and personal achievements of our students, as well as advances in retention, persistence, and completion.
Equity – We commit to supporting all of our students with the instruction, guidance, and resources that they need to achieve their educational goals.
Inclusion – We encourage every member of the campus community to adopt our shared commitment to providing exceptional learning experiences, and to contribute to the ongoing success of the College through participatory governance.
Diversity – We honor and respect the broad spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, languages, values, and cultures reflected by our campus community.
Social Justice – We strive to create a student-centered learning environment that supports equal opportunity and systemic change.

With the goal of ensuring the equal educational opportunity of all students, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges embraces diversity among students, faculty, staff, and the communities we serve as an integral part of our history, a recognition of the complexity of our present state, and a call to action for a better future. Embracing diversity means that we must intentionally practice acceptance and respect towards one another and understand that discrimination and prejudices create and sustain privileges for some while creating and sustaining disadvantages for others. In order to embrace diversity, we also acknowledge that institutional discrimination and implicit bias exist and that our goal is to eradicate those elements from our system. Our commitment to diversity requires that we strive to eliminate those barriers to equity and that we act deliberately to create a safe and inclusive environment where individual and group differences are valued and leveraged for our growth and understanding as an educational community.

To advance our goals of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice for the success of students and employees, we must honor that each individual is unique and that our individual differences contribute to the ability of the colleges to prepare students on their educational journeys. This requires that we develop and implement policies and procedures, encourage individual and systemic change, continually reflect on our efforts, and hold ourselves accountable for the results of our efforts in accomplishing our goals. In service of these goals, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges is committed to fostering an environment that offers equal employment opportunity for all.

As a collective community of individual colleges, we are invested in cultivating and maintaining a climate where equity and mutual respect are both intrinsic and explicit by valuing individuals and groups from all backgrounds, demographics, and experiences. Individual and group differences can include but are not limited to the following dimensions: race, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, immigration status, sex, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, registered domestic partner status, age, political beliefs, religion, creed, military or veteran status, socioeconomic status, and any other basis protected by federal, state or local law or ordinance or regulation. We acknowledge that the concept of diversity and inclusion is ever evolving, and thus we create space to allow for our understanding to grow through the periodic review of this statement.

April 2022. "... many difficult conversations have been taking place regarding the role of faculty in the California Community Colleges system and systems around the country, and indeed, around the globe. The challenges that colleges and colleagues have faced should worry everyone: contending with forces that seek to silence those who speak against injustice, who would prefer that colleges not teach portions of the history of this nation that might make some people uncomfortable, or who believe that faculty should only serve as automatons in the classroom, using the same curriculum as everyone else. For those reasons, faculty must come together now to talk about how to support the efforts of the practitioners on the ground who are doing that work that should be admired instead of pilloried and what campus leaders can do to ensure that their colleges are spaces that are safe for education, for change, and for social justice."

President Dolores Davison

An Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Position Paper. Adopted Fall 2020.
This paper provides foundational information for California community college practitioners to better
understand the origins of today’s racial conflict and reasons why gaps in achieving equitable educational
outcomes for students, particularly for students of color, cannot be closed within current systems.