Critiquing the community college stigma through the disability justice principles

Abstract

Click on the DOI link to access this article at the publishers website (may not be free).Educational hierarchies continue to proliferate in the U.S. reifying social inequities and benefitting a select few. Community colleges seek to disrupt this sorting mechanism with their non-elite admissions, varied educational offerings, and integrated student populations. As a consequence for challenging the status quo, community colleges are stigmatized as a haphazard, floundering mistake, but we contend the community college stigma is a tool for social stratification. The stigma, like all stigmas, reinforces and is reinforced by societal biases, and in this case, the value-laden narrative is linked with educational affiliation. By combatting the community college stigma, the many pervasive isms (i.e. racism, ableism, classism) are simultaneously destabilized. Therefore, as a collective of community college alumni and advocates, we critique the community college stigma via the disability justice framework in this article. We specifically engage the principles of intersectionality, collective access, interdependence, leadership of those most impacted, sustainability, and collective liberation to examine who the stigma harms and serves. We pose reflective questions to unsettle coded language and normalized practices that position community colleges and their students in need of external, education saviors. Further, we invite readers to acknowledge the importance of these locally situated, community-engaged institutions and to chart a transformative path forward by enacting community college values. © 2025 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC