This episode features podcasters Nellie Herrera-Martinez, Diana Vera-Alba, and Ildi Carrillo as they unpack the long, complicated history of affirmative action through story, data, and lived experience. Beginning with the Civil Rights Act, Executive Order 11246, and the early foundations of educational equity, we explore how affirmative action sought to repair generations of exclusion rather than provide “handouts.” The episode then examines key turning points such as California’s Proposition 209 and the 2023 Supreme Court decision that ended race-conscious admissions nationwide. Through accessible explanations and counterstories, we highlight how so-called “color-blind” policies have deepened inequities and shifted the burden onto community colleges and under-resourced institutions. Ultimately, we call for admissions systems that honor resilience, belonging, and lived experience alongside traditional metrics of merit.

Hosts: Nellie Herrera-Martinez, Diana Vera-Alba, and Ildi Carrillo

Explicit Content Warning: This episode includes mild explicit language (e.g., “WTF”) and brief discussions of racial inequities and systemic discrimination.

In this episode, we discuss how student-led resistance in the 1960s, particularly within the often overlooked context of community colleges, challenged and redefined the landscape of higher education in California. We provide context by examining the policies that claimed to democratize education but actually reinforced exclusion. By examining the activism of students at San Diego City College in the 1960’s and 70’s as a case study, we highlight the crucial role student activism played in demanding inclusive curriculum that led to the development of Black and Chicano studies at San Diego City College and culturally affirming spaces like Chicano Park. The educational transformation we celebrate and fight to protect today wasn't given - it was taken, through organized student power. Finally, we discuss how this power, found in the movements of student activists in the 60’s and 70’s have a far reaching impact well into today.

Hosts: David Crawford, Rebel Saint Lilith, and Shanell Tyus

In this episode, we will discuss key contradictions in California community college’s history, during the periods of 1920 through 1955. Starting with a focus on the countercyclical relationship between The Great Depression in the 1930’s and the boost on enrollment this period generated for junior colleges across the United States, we will argue that the main stock story of this period is told through a white racial frame, erasing challenging experiences faced by Mexican and Mexican American communities. We will offer a counterstory that highlights the scapegoating and mass “repatriation” (deportation) of Mexican and Mexican-American workers and communities during this period, while also honoring the courage and tenacity of Mexican and Mexican American communities exemplified in two key court cases that we argue must be understood as precursors to the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education.

Hosts: Lawson Hardrick Cervantes and Julio Soto