United for Equity
The United for Equity campaign aims to challenge all forms of discrimination and oppression on our campuses, in our communities, and in our student organizing spaces.
The United for Equity campaign addresses different forms of discrimination and oppression on campus and in our communities and aims to challenge and educate students on barrier-free access to post-secondary education regardless of race, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age and socio-economic background.
The United for Equity campaign aims to challenge all forms of discrimination and oppression on our campuses, in our communities, and in our student organizing spaces. Racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and other forms of oppression can affect how certain groups of people access post-secondary education and perpetuate inequities in society based on gender, race, socio-economic status, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, citizenship status and other factors.
Materials
The campaign involves several awareness building materials, including stickers, buttons, and information cards. The materials focus on educating people about and challenging six forms of oppression: homophobia, transphobia, ableism, colonialism, sexism, and racism.
To order United for Equity materials, contact us at campaigns@cfs-fcee.ca.
Anti-Islamophobia Campaign
Islamophobia is the unfounded hostility towards Islam and, therefore, fear or dislike of Muslims. Broadly, Islamophobia presents Islam as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change and characterizes Muslims as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and the exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society. Xenophobia is the fear or aversion of people and communities who are perceived as being “foreign.” Both Islamophobia and Xenophobia are rooted in racism and are often mutually felt by the victims of either and are often manifested together in public policy or legislation.
Islamophobia and Xenophobia have historic roots in Western imperialism and colonialism. These ideologies and concepts are used to justify colonization and extreme acts of violence by Western colonial forces such as England, France and the United States to name but a few. More recently, the Canadian government has played a unique role in fueling Islamophobia and Xenophobia in order to support an agenda that has targeted Muslim majority countries and defended a rationale for war against these countries.
From governments setting up ‘anti-radicalization’ centers that surveil and investigate the lives of Muslim communities and introducing legislation that limits the civil and human rights of Muslim communities, to post- secondary administrations being complicit in RCMP investigations of Muslim or ‘suspected Muslim’ students and groups on campuses, Islamophobia and Xenophobia are manifested in people’s lives every day in Canada.
The student movement has a responsibility to challenge the narratives that seek to dehumanize and justify the violence and segregations of Muslim communities on campuses and in our communities, and to elevate those who are already doing this work.
