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November 21, 2009

OU students call for social justice

By Julianna Parker Jones

When many people look at today's college students, they see an apathetic bunch.

University of Oklahoma student Caitlyn Wright disagrees.

"Students at OU do care," said Wright, a women's and gender studies major.

She said OU students want to make a difference in their world, but they often don't know how. They've been waiting, Wright said, for a avenue to channel their activism.

That's what they'll get in the OU Center for Social Justice.

The center was launched Thursday. Although it's part of the Women's and Gender Studies Program, the center will connect activists from all areas of campus to facilitate more efforts for social justice locally, nationally and globally, WGS director Jill Irvine said.

She said the center is a result of students taking the initiative because they want to help others now, not after they graduate or have settled down.

The center will provide internships, events, service learning, mentorships and research addressing a variety of issues, including human trafficking, violence against Native American women, fair trade and feminism in Islam.

It's appropriate that the center is housed within Women's and Gender Studies, said Charlotte Bunch, director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership in Douglas College at Rutgers University.

Injustices are often practiced against women, but the involvement of women is also important in order to right social injustices, Bunch said.

"Women in my lifetime have always played an important role," she said.

She said women often are the leaders of movements to facilitate social change. That's always been the case, she said, but recently women are gaining more visible roles in movements.

Bunch herself got started as an activist during the movement for civil rights for blacks as a college student in the South in the 1960s. Women played a major role in bringing lasting change to the U.S., she said.

"But they weren't the visible leaders because the visible leaders at that time were mostly men," she said.

Bunch started the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers in order to give to others the life-changing experiences she had when she was introduced to activism in college. Irvine said OU's Center for Social Justice is modeled after the center at Rutgers.

Julianna Parker Jones 366-3541 jparker@normantranscript.com



On the Net:

OU Center for Social Justice, peace.ou.edu

OU Women's and Gender Studies Program, wgs.ou.edu

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