Daily Lumina News 030424

Current events—the end of race-conscious admissions, the unrest over the Israel-Hamas war, and the wave of state laws banning diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts—have created a unique opening for colleges founded to serve certain identities. These institutions are making a provocative pitch: If your institution has failed you, come here, and we will protect you.
Campus leaders insist that what they’re doing isn’t some thinly veiled enrollment hack. Identity-based marketing is a way of spelling out what they stand for, they say, at a time when brand matters more than ever. Will students take them up on the offer?

Incarcerated learners are all too often an afterthought, encountering limited access to the internet and scarce funding and support for higher education in prisons. JSTOR wants to change those circumstances.
At the end of 2023, JSTOR—a vast digital library of secondary and primary sources to support teaching and learning—reached a once unimaginable goal: providing JSTOR access in 1,000 prisons. Spread across four continents, the JSTOR Access in Prison initiative now supports the education and growth of more than 550,000 incarcerated people.

As California’s cost of living goes up, community college has become unaffordable for many students. Thanks to a $30 million pilot program, some California community college students will get paid for every hour they spend in class and on homework.
Hire UP is modeled after the state’s guaranteed income programs. It focuses on students who are formerly incarcerated, former or current foster youth, and those receiving CalWorks benefits, the state’s cash aid program for low-income adults with children.

For young people who have been incarcerated, it can be hard to find a job or get the training they might need to start a career or go to college.
California is trying to improve that picture with a program called #CaliforniansForAll Youth Jobs Corps. The effort places individuals ages 16 to 30 in jobs for a few months or up to a year and helps them prepare for careers that they might not otherwise be able to access. Program leaders and participants explain more in this interview.

State lawmakers have been targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts for years now. Bills from different states that seek to curtail DEI programs or the spread of arguably DEI-related, so-called divisive concepts—such as the idea that meritocracy is racist—can all seem to blend together.
But Alabama’s Senate Bill 129, which suddenly appeared Feb. 20 and passed the Senate two days later, might break new ground if it ultimately becomes law.

Disability stigma is a persistent challenge on college campuses. Research shows that students who have a disability—whether visible or invisible—are often belittled by other individuals, considered a challenge to understand, and often experience pity and avoidance. In some cases, experiencing stigma for an extended period of time can result in decreased self-esteem, depression, and suicidal ideation.
Stephanie A.N. Levin shares her personal experience with disability stigma—and what colleges can do to help—in this essay.