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An Overview of Equity, Equality and Justice
This resource guide provides an overview of equity, equality and justice.
Establishing Common Vocabulary
Equality: Everyone has the same rights, opportunities, and resources. It stresses fairness and parity in access to social goods and services. Essentially, equality is concerned with giving everyone the same pair of shoes.
Equity: Recognizing that the same thing for everyone (equality) doesn’t truly address needs, and therefore, specific solutions and remedies—which may be different for different people—are necessary. Essentially, equity is concerned with giving everyone a shoe that fits.
Justice: Dismantling barriers to resources and opportunities in society so that all individuals & communities can live a full & dignified life. These barriers are essentially the “isms” in society: racism, classism, sexism, etc.
Equality vs. Equity vs. Justice
Scroll through the three slides and then read the description below.
What's Happening Above?
Image 1 (Equality): This illustrates the idea that equality is all about making sure everyone gets treated the same. In this case everyone gets a single box each; everyone gets the same resources and support. That’s equal. This seems to be an approach that leads to justice — or does it? The middle spectator can see over the fence and is now included, while (despite receiving equal treatment) the smaller spectator still cannot see and remains excluded. However, they both remain at a disadvantage to the tallest spectator who has an even better view than before.
Image 2 (Equity): In this case, the two shortest spectators are given enough boxes to see over the fence. Now everyone can see. This illustrates the idea of equity, which is all about ensuring everyone gets what they need. One could very much argue that this represents fairness and inclusion. But consider if there were only one or two boxes. Equity relies on having enough resources to go around and assumes they can be shared.
Image 3 (Justice): This image illustrates the idea of justice. Justice is all about removing barriers and thresholds completely. In this case, the wooden picket fence is the barrier that was removed. By changing the wooden picket fence for a chain link fence, everyone can see.
