Colleges Got Comfortable Talking About Privilege. Now It’s Being Scrutinized.

March 12, 2024 1 min read

Erin Gretzinger
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: The newsletter seemed innocuous. In January, the chief diversity officer at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine kicked off her “Monthly Diversity Digest” with a list of nearby events for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Then Sherita Hill Golden outlined a “diversity word of the month”: privilege. “Privilege is a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group,” Golden wrote. “Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels, and it provides advantages and favors to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of other groups.” Administrators and faculty members have been parroting similar definitions for years. This time, however, it struck a nerve online.

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