April 4 through 8 is social justice week here at UW-La Crosse. This means that along with a general presence on campus, there will be several diverse speakers and events for raising social justice awareness on campus. While these are all great resources for our students to become more aware about some of the social justice issues on campus, it is still somewhat difficult for students to get a good grasp on what is actually going on.

This raises a few questions for our students. First of all, what exactly is “social justice?” How does it pertain to me as a student? What can I do to increase social justice awareness on campus and in other environments around me?

According to Dictionary.com, “social justice” is defined as “the distributions of advantages and disadvantages in society.” This could range from many topics such as racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism in society. These are not the only ways people can be discriminated against in society, but these are many of the most common of the social justice issues. For example, it is sexist that women get paid less than men for doing the exact same job. These issues are more prevalent in society—and even on campus—than you may think.

While it is no secret that UW-L is not the most diverse campus, we do have many students from different backgrounds, cultures and countries that all come to campus for a great education. It is important for us to not only welcome these diverse groups of students into our campus with open arms and open minds, but to also recognize the issues they deal with everyday and how we can advocate for everyone’s social justice and create a safe learning environment. If a student feels unwelcome or attacked in any way on campus, they will have a very negative college experience and not be getting as much out of their education as possible. As fellow students, we should be putting our efforts into making sure everyone feels safe and secure while they are here.

One way we can do this is by raising awareness on our campus of social justice issues we are faced with. UW-L does a pretty good job with this. We bring in speakers who have experience with these issues, and we have students who are passionate about making sure everyone is included and represented. However, even with all these people advocating for social justice, there are still individuals who either choose to ignore these issues or are simply unaware of what is going on around them and the difference they can make. It should be each and every one of our responsibilities to make sure everyone—whether they be student, faculty, gay, lesbian, bisexual, African American, Cuban, Chinese, German, Muslim, Catholic or Atheist—feels safe and welcome on campus. We should be going out of our way to assure safety and inclusion of these members of campus.

If we all do our part to understand what exactly social justice is and raise awareness for how it affects people on campus, we can create a safe and inspiring space for everyone to be able to learn and grow.