Photo provided by Shailee Koranne
The Strand sat down with Equity Commission candidate, Shailee Koranne, after the VUSAC Townhall to discuss equity issues on campus.
The Strand: Within your position on the strand and writings outside UofT, your experience as a woman of colour is of strong focus. This narrative is an underrepresented one and clearly needs to be discussed. How can you make your advocacy for marginalized groups you aren’t a part of just as significant?
Shailee Koranne: I don’t think I represent everyone; in fact, I represent a very specific spot in social location—it’s so specific. It would be irresponsible of me to think I could present every experience that Vic students have, like gender. I am cis-gender and I can’t represent transgender students nor should I try to. So the way that I’m going to do my best to make them heard is with the help of my equity co-chair, and my commission. I know its extremely difficult to include diversity in the way that you hire people, so I won’t pick people [based on] their social location over their qualifications. But the equity commission meetings will be open, people won’t need to feel that they missed out on their chance to be represented. I’m really hoping that through having a lot of official open meetings people can show up and be heard. Although, I do recognize it is a lot to ask of people, because you have the danger of outing yourself, so there will be online counterparts to that as well. Honestly I read equity stuff for fun, and as an equity major, I am trying to not put the burden on other people to teach me these things. Doing the work of learning myself, keeping commission meetings open, and at no point convincing myself I’m representing anyone but myself.
The Strand: What areas do you think VUSAC equity has succeeded in over the past year? Where do you think they can grow?
SK: A major thing that I really admired was that the current equity commissioner is super outgoing. Because of this, she was able to bring a lot of associations to Vic, like the Black Students’ Association and the Muslim students’ association. Not only does this make Vic and these groups more visible, she is doing exactly what I aim to do, which is letting these groups represent themselves. That’s definitely something I will continue improving on, by also bringing in the Native Students’ Association and also working with the judiciary to increase VicPride’s visibility on campus.
TS: In your platform, you talk about partnering with other organizations across campus. Do you have any practical plans on how to achieve this?
SK: The first thing I am going to do if elected is immediately get in touch with all other elected equity represented at other colleges. So whoever has the role that’s equivalent to mine at their respective college. Either meet with them one or one, or in a group setting, and express to them that I would like that college partnership especially colleges that are close to us, like St. Mikes.
TS: An issue of great significance within equity is hearing the voices of marginalized students. How do you plan on inspiring engagement of these students in equity related events, with the majority of the involved Vic community being cis, and white?
SK: That’s definitely a concern of mine in a lot of events. There was a question asked [in the Townhall] between the difference of equality and equity. The biggest difference is that equality only works on making opportunities available without taking into account that you can put so many opportunities out their and not everybody can make use of those opportunities. [To] increase presence of marginalized communities at Vic events, I have a lot of ideas that I think will not be difficult to put forward, one of them is de-gendering the accessible washrooms. It’s not just about washrooms, when you de-gender the washroom, Goldring becomes a place that trans and gender questioning people can be comfortable being at. It’s bigger than just taking the sign off the door. Goldring is frequently used by other college members, and people from Toronto—so it’s shocking to me that it’s such a hub for student activity, the same people show up to every event, so it’s a systemic issue. I also want to start a fund that would help people afford tickets to Vic events, like grad banquet, and other ticketed events.
