Helping Student Leaders Engage as Allies - JCAPS Vol. 2 Issue 1

In fights for social justice, allies and their efforts receive a sigificant amount of attention. This attention can be justified, as allies serve essential functions in efforts to eliminate inequities present in social systems, through the pursuit of social justice (Russell & Bohan, 2016). “Allies are a crucial group in the work of social justice” (Munin & Speight, 2010, p. 249). Add to this that higher education is increasingly looked to as a critical source of leadership development (Dugan & Komives, 2007; Hastings & Sunderman, 2019), and the need to address allyship among student leaders is especially poignant. Embracing action as allies is one avenue to aid students’ learning to integrate social justice into their approach to leadership, which is a key aspect of developing as socially responsible leaders (Dugan & Komives, 2010; Irwin, 2015).