PHENOM strives to be profoundly anti-racist and anti-oppression in all our work. The core mission of PHENOM is to fight for a more just, accessible and affordable public higher education system. This mission is driven fundamentally by the principle of a more equitable world that allows the same opportunities to everyone. Education is one of the most profound predictors of class mobility, and our work aims to remove the financial and cultural barriers that contribute to generational inequity, structural poverty, and discrimination.
Our Core Beliefs and Actions
- Education as a Path to Equity: We recognize education as a key factor in class mobility and work to remove the financial and cultural barriers that contribute to generational inequity and structural poverty. 80% of high-paying jobs now require postsecondary education, and income levels tend to increase significantly with education. To tackle generational wealth inequality and structural racism, we need financial accessibility in public higher education.
- Intersectionality in Advocacy: Our approach considers the unique challenges faced by students from diverse backgrounds, including race, class, immigration status, and ability, as well as the intersections between these social identities. Students from intersectional and oppressed backgrounds experience unique challenges in accessing and thriving in higher education, such as financial costs and lack of support services.
- Comprehensive Support: We advocate for debt-free education that covers all aspects of student needs, including housing, food, textbooks, childcare, and transportation. A student’s success is affected by factors beyond tuition. Addressing all costs ensures that students from all backgrounds can fully engage in their education without financial barriers.
- Economic Justice: We support progressive taxation and public funding to address wealth inequality and improve the public higher education system. Additional funding for public higher education should be generated in ways that target wealth inequality and shift resources from the private to the public sector.
- Support for All Higher Education Workers: We stand with union organizing efforts for fair wages and benefits, particularly for marginalized workers like adjunct professors. Many public workers come from marginalized backgrounds, hold student loans themselves, and do not receive fair pay or significant benefits. Advocating for fair treatment of workers leads to a stronger higher education system overall.
- Empowering Future Leaders: We hire and empower student organizers from diverse backgrounds to drive legislative change and shape the future of higher education governance. Grassroots power is fundamental to propelling lasting legislative change. By empowering these student voices, we ensure that the communities most affected by these issues are leading the charge for change.
- We reject partial solutions that maintain racist power dynamics while claiming “progress.” Our anti-racist stance demands comprehensive change that addresses the root causes of educational inequity.
- We include and encourage marginalized voices in our leadership and decision-making processes. This ensures our work is guided by the lived experiences of those most impacted by racial and economic injustice in higher education.
- We recognize that complacency in the current system perpetuates racism. Our anti-racist commitments require active and ongoing efforts to dismantle oppressive structures in higher education. We aim to challenge our own beliefs as to not contribute to complacency, taking into account the perspectives and experiences of students of color to ensure we are actively following anti-racist practices through our language, actions, and recommendations.
- We strive for authentic representation and transformation, not tokenization. The complex voices and stories of our community members are catalysts for genuine systemic change.
- We empower grassroots advocacy as a tool for combating racism and fostering personal growth. By engaging in this work, individuals not only contribute to policy changes but also develop as leaders equipped to fight against systemic racism in all areas of society.
PHENOM is committed to accountability to each of these tenets of our anti-racist strategy. This statement was prepared in consultation with PHENOM leadership, community, and students of color.