Equal Opportunity and Social Justice

Equal Opportunity

Equal Opportunity concentrates on treating all people equally and providing people with equal rights. Basically, it is about giving everyone a 'fair go'. However, since inequality still exists in society treating everyone the same does not necessarily mean fairness of treatment. The provision of equality of opportunity must be combined with social justice principles to provide substantive equality to marginalised groups. Social justice provides equitable outcomes to marginalised groups by recognising past disadvantage and existence of structural barriers embedded in the social, economic and political system that perpetuate systemic discrimination.

Social Justice

While equal opportunity rights are applicable to everyone, social justice targets the marginalised groups of people in society – it focuses on the disadvantaged. Social justice recognises that there are situations where application of same rules to unequal groups can generate unequal results. Social justice provides a framework to assess the impact of policies and practices.

Equal opportunity and social justice in education calls for: availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability and adaptability.

Racism Revisited

As an important part of promoting equality and social justice, Murdoch University hosted a national Symposium on Anti-Racism Leadership and Practice where a national agenda was adopted and presented to the Race Discrimination Commissioner. The Murdoch Agenda (pdf format) aims at eliminating racism in Australia. The University has a Racism Revisited Newsroom dedicated to this agenda, which provides media with the latest press releases, links, gallery and information during the National Anti-Racism Symposium.

Equal Opportunity and Social Justice