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The Freedom to Learn: Experiences of Students without Legal Status Attending Freedom University

Susana M. Muñoz, Michelle M. Espino

The Review of Higher Education, Volume 40, Number 4, Summer 2017, pp.533-555 (Article)

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Muñoz and Espino / The Freedom to Learn 533

The Review of Higher Education Summer 2017, Volume 40, No. 4, pp. 533–555 Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Higher Education All Rights Reserved (ISSN 0162–5748)

The Freedom to Learn: Experiences of Students without Legal Status Attending Freedom UniversitySusana M. Muñoz, Ph.D. and Michelle M. Espino, Ph.D.

The fact that we had to form a group like Freedom University to just have our own freedom…says something about our education system and America, basically. It’s so special. High school should already be like that. College should already feel like that…but we had to form this group. Now we feel like we have no voice. We have no representation, but Freedom U empowers us to feel like we can. (Laura, Freedom University student)

It was a warm spring day on March 29, 2010 when Jessica Colotl, a senior in political science at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, waited for a parking space and temporarily blocked the entrance of a campus parking lot. The campus police approached the vehicle and ordered her to present a driver’s license. Because she was a student without legal status, Jessica did not have a driver’s license and was promptly arrested. Operating under the guise of the

Susana M. Muñoz is Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the School of Education at Colorado State University—Fort Collins and her research focuses on the college per-sistence, campus climate, social activism, and identity development for undocumented/DACAmented college students.

Michelle M. Espino is Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education at the University of Maryland and her scholarship focuses on institu-tional responses associated with educational achievement and outcomes along the academic life course for racial/ethnic minority students, administrators, and faculty.

534 The Review of higheR educaTion Summer 2017

federal 287(g) program (Department of Homeland Security [DHS], 2014), which allows local and state authorities to act as immigration enforcement, Cobb County deputies transferred her to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who planned to deport her to Mexico, her country of origin. After the university president pleaded for Jessica’s release from an Alabama detention facility, she was permitted to stay in the country for her senior year (Torres, 2010). Jessica is now serving as a paralegal assistant for an Atlanta immigration law firm. What was first deemed as a minor traffic violation led to a statewide immigration controversy and an arduous depor-tation process for one student without legal status.

Jessica Colotl’s arrest prompted discussions about whether students without legal status deserved to access public higher education. The result-ing public discourse pressured state legislators and the University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents to pass laws and policies that marginalized undocumented immigrants (García Peña, 2012; Muñoz, Espino, & Antrop-González, 2014). These policies included House Bill 87, which expanded the state’s power and authority to enforce immigration policies and the USG Board of Regents Policy 4.1.6., which banned students without legal status from enrolling in five selective colleges/universities, including the flagship (University System of Georgia, 2012, pp. 26–27). In addition, Policy 4.3.4 required that students verify their “lawful presence” and acknowledge any attempts to falsify information in order to obtain in-state resident tuition rates (USG, n.d.).

These policies reinforced anti-immigrant ideologies and sparked resistance and community mobilization from students, educators, and immigration activists. The positioning of undocumented immigrants as “undeserving and unqualified to reap…higher education benefits,” was in stark contrast to the 50th anniversary of desegregation that celebrated purportedly equal educational opportunities while simultaneously denying access for students without legal status and reflecting a new form of de jure segregation Munoz et al., 2014, p. 5). In response, four University of Georgia (UGA) faculty members collaborated with Latina/o community activists and students with-out legal status to organize Freedom University,1 which is a non-accredited, volunteer-driven learning sanctuary for high school students and college-eligible students who were banned from the Policy 4.1.6 universities (Freedom University, n.d.).

As an incubator for civil disobedience, Freedom University provides “tuition-free education, leadership development, and assistance in securing admission and full scholarships to colleges out of state” (Soltis, 2015, p. 23). Although it is not accredited, there is a national advisory board comprised of

1Originally located in Athens, Georgia, Freedom University is now housed on the campus of the King Center in Atlanta.


noted scholars, such as Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz, which adds a layer of academic protection for the faculty members. Most students learn about Freedom University through peer networks, social media, radio station an-nouncements and, on rare occasions, through their high school counselors. Although there is an open-admissions policy, prospective students submit an admissions application that is reviewed by Freedom University faculty.

To date, over 250 students from across northwest Georgia have gathered at Freedom University to learn and realize their potential as contributors to society. Despite the possible risks to careers and personal safety, on Sunday afternoons, the Freedom University professors draw from Freirian pedagogi-cal philosophies that encourage students to become producers of knowledge through rigorous college-level courses, such as debate and public speaking, human rights, photography, leadership development, and college prepara-tion (Soltis, 2015). Freedom University serves as an educational counterspace comprised of culturally relevant classrooms where pedagogical practices have the potential to be replicated for students without legal status across systems of higher education.

This article is part of a larger case study that analyzed the ways in which Freedom University faculty and students are developing a unique sanctuary for teaching and learning. Our previous research highlighted faculty per-spectives and found that Freedom University’s learning outcomes reached beyond a traditional curriculum into crafting meaningful engagement that could lead to transformational learning and systemic change Muñoz et al, 2014). We recognized the racial/ethnic, cultural, and immigration realities that affected student learning and challenged traditional conceptualizations of how success was defined for a student population that was effectively banned from higher education, yet eager to learn. Based on those findings, we sought a deeper understanding of how Freedom University served not only as a learning sanctuary (see Antrop-González, 2011), but could also be framed within the tenets of Museus’s (2014) Culturally Engaging Campus Environment (CECE) framework, which is an empirically-based theoreti-cal model that stresses the importance of “engag[ing] students from diverse cultural backgrounds, reflect[ing] their diverse needs, and facilitat[ing] their success in college” (p. 210). For this article, we utilized the perspectives of eight students without legal status who are currently attending or have at-tended Freedom University to address the following question: In what ways does Freedom University as a sanctuary of teaching and learning reflect a culturally engaging campus environment?

The Civil RighTs MoveMenT and libeRaToRy eduCaTion

Freedom University is rooted in a legacy of activism and liberatory edu-cation stemming from the 1960s Freedom Schools in the South. Central to


the civil rights movement and the activism organized through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Schools often focused on the political, economic, and social forces that affected the lived experiences of African Americans (Perlstein, 1990). Pedagogical practices encouraged students to ask critical questions and promoted self-discovery and equality through a dismantling of power dynamics between teachers and students in the classroom.

The commitment to a liberatory curriculum fostered through democratic teaching influenced other social movements as well, including the Chicana/o Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. During the late 1960s, Chicana/o youth fought for equity and justice along the educational pipeline. They sought to remedy overcrowded high school classrooms, diversify college campuses, and commit resources for increasing Chicana/o college student enrollment and advancing representation in university administration and faculty ranks (Muñoz, 1989). The fight for educational access and opportunity continued into the 1980s with the landmark Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe (1982) which ruled that, under the Equal Protection Clause, school districts could not deny immigrant children access to public schooling solely on the basis of their immigration status (Olivas, 2012). While the precedent of K-12 edu-cational access was established, the case for higher education access remains a national debate.

Today, immigration is becoming the next major civil rights issue. As students without legal status “come out of the shadows” and enter the po-litical sphere to debate highly contextualized state higher education policies regarding undocumented students, more national attention is centered on immigration and the right to education (Nicholls, 2013). The failed attempts to pass federal DREAM Act legislation, which would provide college-eligible students without legal status a pathway to citizenship, have ignited commu-nity-organizing and demonstrations by undocumented youth and allies.

Unfortunately, the vestiges of white supremacy in the United States con-tinue to maintain social inequities in the education system, and there is a need to create spaces in which oppressed individuals can learn, question, and critique their social conditions in order to advance social change and politi-cal action. In order to illustrate how Freedom University embodies the spirit of liberatory education, we draw from the literature on culturally relevant pedagogy, the concept of school as sanctuary, and the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) model as our conceptual framework.

ConCepTual FRaMewoRk

Our conceptual framework is comprised of two concepts and one model that center the educational needs and lived experiences of diverse students: culturally relevant pedagogy, the school as sanctuary concept, and the Cul-


turally Engaging Campus Environment (CECE) model (Museus, 2014). We assert that these assets-based concepts and model foster the creation of counterspaces or sanctuaries in which marginalized students, such as students without legal status, can acquire knowledge about themselves and their lived realities (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995).

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Providing a meaningful educational experience requires culturally relevant pedagogy that fulfills the academic and social needs of diverse students, frames cultural knowledge as central to the learning process, and cultivates a critical consciousness that encourages a broader critique of the sociopoliti-cal context (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995). Within a classroom setting, culturally relevant pedagogies focus on the equal distribution of power, the cultivation of dialogical processes between students and teachers in which student voices are centered, and sources of knowledge drawn from lived experiences (Truitt, 2003). Culturally relevant pedagogy is rooted in the philosophy of Paolo Freire, and emphasizes the need for action rooted in critical reflection and collective experience of historical and current social conditions as well as the power of consciousness-raising that can lead to educational transformation (Weiler, 2003).

Authentic teaching and care (hooks, 2003; Noddings, 2003; Palmer, 1998) are critical elements of culturally relevant pedagogy as relationships between students and faculty involve “being genuine, becoming more self-aware, being defined by one’s self rather than by others’ expectations, bringing parts of oneself into interactions with students, and critically reflecting on self, oth-ers, relationships and context…” (Kreber, Klampfleitner, McCune, Bayne, & Knottenbelt, 2007, pp. 40–41). Meaningful authenticity occurs when teaching is centered on issues of crucial significance, which are defined by the learn-ers (Kreber et al., 2007). In our previous analysis of the Freedom University faculty members Muñoz et al., 2014), we unveiled their authenticity as they intentionally shifted their teaching approaches based on student needs and presented course material relevant to students’ lived experiences. The faculty’s use of culturally relevant pedagogy created a sanctuary in which education was a political act, curricula reflected the students’ lives and experiences, and the students served as co-contributors to knowledge production (Osei Kofi, Richards, & Smith, 2004).

Sanctuaries of Teaching and Learning

As a higher education sanctuary, Freedom University “allows students without documentation to be fully human in ways that traditional post-secondary education structures in Georgia do not…” (Muñoz et al., 2014, p. 24). The concept of school as sanctuary was first applied within second-ary schooling contexts to create optimal teaching and learning spaces that


centered students’ psychological, social, and moral safety as imperative to learning (Stanwood & Doolittle, 2004). Parallel to historical Freedom Schools rooted within the Civil Rights movement, learning sanctuaries reflect the following elements: (a) the curriculum centers and validates students’ lived experiences, knowledge, and cultures; (b) familism is cultivated through strong interpersonal relationships and authentic care; and (c) a sense of safety creates temporary escape from the physical and emotional harshness of students’ lived experiences (Antrop-González, 2011).

Culturally Engaging Campus Environments

Unfortunately, students of color and other marginalized populations are rarely centered in traditional educational environments nor are their lived realities within college and university contexts studied in depth. To address these concerns, Museus (2014) analyzed decades of research regarding student engagement, sense of belonging, persistence, and degree completion and developed a model that could guide colleges and universities into becoming more inclusive environments for students of color and, through our interpre-tive lens, counterspaces for students without legal status.

The Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) model has nine indicators that promote “a greater sense of belonging, more positive academic dispositions, and higher levels of academic performance,” which lead to persistence and graduation for all students, particularly students of color (Museus, 2014, p. 210). The CECE model focuses on individual and campus community interactions as well as the campus environment as a whole. While recent studies (Garces & Cogburn, 2015; Turner, 2015) have cited the CECE model as a means for promoting inclusive campus environ-ments, our study investigates the applicability of each of the CECE model indicators (italicized below) in creating a counterspace and optimal learning conditions for students without legal status.

The first indicator, cultural familiarity, involves interactions and con-nections among faculty, staff, and students who share similar racial/ethnic backgrounds as well as with individuals from different racial/ethnic back-grounds who understand students’ culture, experiences, and perspectives. Colleges and universities help students to “develop epistemological cultural connections” by investing and sustaining opportunities to interact with institutional agents (Museus, 2014, p. 210). Culturally relevant knowledge is produced when students are encouraged to delve into issues of oppression and inequities in order to make meaning of their lived experiences and home/community environments. Examples include taking ethnic studies courses or participating in activities that are reflective of students’ salient identities. Sharing knowledge and experiences in order to positively shape home com-munities leads to cultural community service, which can be accomplished through engaging in service-learning opportunities, community activism, or


problem-based projects. Students who also interact with peers across racial and ethnic lines in order to cultivate community building and allyship within their campus environments find opportunities for meaningful cross-cultural engagement and experience higher levels of belonging and cultural aware-ness. As an outcome of enacting these four indicators, culturally validating environments are formed because institutional practices and structures center students’ cultural identities, knowledge, and background.

The first five indicators focus on how institutional environments can emphasize cultural relevance by centering diverse students’ lived experiences. The following indicators reflect the cultural responsiveness employed by institutional agents through their values, behaviors, and care. Institutional agents can apply a collectivist cultural orientation to foster a sense of com-munity by integrating student efforts, engagement, and interactions as a collective rather than a set of individual orientations. Institutional agents who exhibit caring relationships and commitment to diverse students inside and outside the classroom create humanized educational environments that increase the likelihood of student success. By demonstrating care, institu-tional agents enact proactive philosophies whereby information, support, and resources for college success are readily disseminated and easily accessible for students. Finally, institutional agents also provide holistic support in an effort to ensure that students can approach faculty or staff members who can offer the resources and/or support that they specifically need.

The nine indicators in the CECE model are found to facilitate key outcomes such as sense of belonging, motivation, and self-efficacy among students of color enrolled in predominately White campuses (Museus, 2014). Analyzing institutional and pedagogical practices within Freedom University provides an opportunity to uncover how the CECE model may function within a unique environment.

MeThods

We selected case study methodology because the social, economic, political, ethical, and/or aesthetic contexts of a case provide rich and significant insights into how Freedom University has served students without legal status and how state policies affect the educational needs of this particular population (Stake, 2005). Within the broader case study, we utilized interviews, news-paper articles, journal articles by Freedom University faculty members, and the USG Board of Regent’s meeting minutes to paint a descriptive account of Freedom University, its context, key events, and functions from the perspec-tives of the founding faculty members and students (see Muñoz et al., 2014).


Participants

Our sample was comprised of eight students (four males and four fe-males) who have attended or are attending Freedom University for at least one semester and self-identified as undocumented (see Table 1). Freedom University faculty members forwarded our recruitment email and made an-nouncements in their courses. We also posted our recruitment message on the Freedom University Facebook page and asked interested individuals to contact us via email.2 Approximately 40 students were solicited for our study and eight students expressed interest in participating. Most of the sample had Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status and the average age was 21. All of the students arrived to the U.S. before they were 10 years old and were from Mexico, except for one participant who was from El Salvador.

Interview Protocol

Based on the first author’s prior research experiences with undocumented youth, we approached the interviews not only as the retelling of immigrant narratives but as a political act (Muñoz, 2015). The semi-structured interview protocol reflected questions that accounted for participants’ lived experiences in Georgia, their challenges with educational access, and their learning expe-riences while attending Freedom University. The first author conducted the interviews via telephone, which lasted an average of one hour in duration. To mitigate concerns regarding data collection, the first author focused on being an empathetic interviewer (Fontana & Frey, 2005); developing rapport and trust with the participants by listening carefully to their stories, and provid-ing opportunities for reciprocal conversations that would help “create the space for [us] to reflect on the meaning-making process together” (Jones, Torres, & Arminio, 2006, p. 166).

Data Analysis Procedures

Once the data were transcribed verbatim, the interview transcripts were coded for emerging themes based on an initial reading of the texts. Both authors read through the transcripts multiple times to gather inductive codes that emerged. We then developed a coding scheme based on the inductive codes and the literature review, including our interpretations of the CECE model, our understandings of culturally relevant pedagogy, and the school as sanctuary concept. Since the first author conducted the interviews with the participants, the second author served as the primary coder, which offered a different lens for analyzing the data. The first author served as a second-ary coder by reviewing and refining the second author’s coding. Themes were then shifted and modified through rereading and rethinking the data

2Pseudonyms were used if students indicated they wanted to remain anonymous or if they did not returned a signed waiver of anonymity, which was an option.


as a team (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). Finally, we utilized a peer debriefer who identifies as a DACAmented graduate student to process through the findings.

sTRiving To Find FReedoM: being undoCuMenTed in geoRgia

Before delving into the findings, we set the context for the lived realities in Georgia for those without legal status by presenting the participants’ perceptions of the current anti-immigrant climate and its influence on their educational attainment, as well as how the participants learned about Freedom University.

The influx of immigrants into Georgia can be attributed to the demand for inexpensive labor in construction and agriculture that began in the 1990s (Hamann, 2003; Kochhar, Suro, & Tafoya, 2005). After the 2000 recession, anti-immigrant sentiments escalated with the Latino/a immigrant population as a primary target. Mitzy was raised in Georgia during this time, and similar to a third of the participants, explained that she loves living in Georgia but the anti-immigrant climate is difficult to navigate, “[T]his is your home…but you’re not really safe. [S]hould I really embrace where I’m from, where I live, even though I’m not really wanted?”

Georgia’s hostile political climate led to challenges in college access and persistence. Participants cited a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in high school that seemed to silence students without legal status. By not acknowledging the existence of students without legal status, school administrators and teachers did not have to consider immigration as an issue within secondary education and forced participants to seek alternative pathways for informa-tion about college. When they attempted to access higher education, college administrators and staff did not seem to be trained in providing support and resources for students without legal status (see Nienhusser & Espino, 2016)). Maria, a high school student attending Freedom University, shared

Table 1. paRTiCipanT deMogRaphiCs

Name Age Gender Country of Origin Immigration Status Student Status

Laura 16 Female El Salvador Undocumented High SchoolMaria 18 Female Mexico DACA High SchoolMiguel 18 Male Mexico Undocumented Freedom UniversityMiriam 26 Female Mexico Applied for DACA Freedom UniversityMitzy 22 Female Mexico DACA Freedom UniversityOscar 22 Male Mexico Undocumented Syracuse UniversityOsvaldo 19 Male Mexico DACA Freedom UniversityYovany 22 Male Mexico DACA Freedom University


that “as friendly as the [college administrators] seem…when you tell them [about your immigration status], their…facial expressions change or their tone changes.” This change in tone and facial expression is a physical mani-festation of how policies of exclusion can affect administrators’ interactions with students without legal status and add to the stress that is already pres-ent due to the lack of access to the federal financial aid system and resulting financial difficulties.

Participants’ legal status also affected enrollment in specific majors. Miriam aspired to be a high school math teacher, but did not have the social security number required to process a background check in order to begin her teacher training. Her professor offered few options and Miriam was forced to drop the course and “pretty much gave up on education and the whole system (…)”. She expressed frustration and disappointment that, because of her legal status, she was disqualified from pursuing her career aspirations. In attempting to create their own paths to college, participants had to contend with the risk of disclosing their immigration status and constantly negotiated their identities and realities (Abrego, 2011; Muñoz, 2015; Muñoz, 2016).

Most of the participants were relieved to find Freedom University through social media, friends, and radio commercials. Miriam was among those who were hesitant about Freedom University, indicating it was “too good to be true” and possibly a “scam:”

[A]fter I had contacted them, I was even more skeptical because they said, “We provide lunch…childcare and…rides,” and I…told my husband, “This can’t be true….” I actually told…my younger sister and she was like, “Miriam, are you serious? They’re going to get you all in a van and drive you all to the ICE headquarters.” And I was like, “They very well could do that, I don’t know. I guess I’m taking a risk.”

The participants’ interests in learning seemed to reach beyond the possible consequences. The participants noted that they were willing to enroll in Freedom University, despite not receiving academic credit, because they could engage in college-level material and participate in a form of resistance against the policies that were prohibiting them from applying to the most selective colleges in the state.

Findings

The findings illustrate how Freedom University fulfills various, but not all, elements of the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) model (Museus, 2014) by centering the needs and lived realities of students without legal status. We also uncover how Freedom University is culturally responsive, views students as collaborators, fosters student outcomes that move beyond the classroom into broader interests regarding systemic change,


and crafts unique pathways to higher education at accredited colleges. Three major themes emerged from this study: (1) Culturally relevant pedagogy is essential to fostering culturally relevant knowledge and helping students gain understanding of themselves; (2) Humanizing interactions with authenticity and care between institutional agents and students demonstrate how students gain a sense of belonging and validation of their experiences as individuals without legal status; and (3) By creating a humanized educational environ-ment that encourages resistance, students express empowered identities, activism, and gain college access.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as a Pathway to Culturally Relevant Knowledge

Culturally relevant knowledge is a key indicator for cultivating inclusive campus environments and hinges on whether students have opportunities to learn and exchange knowledge about their cultural background and com-munity histories (Museus, 2014). We found that faculty collaborate with stu-dents without legal status to infuse their particular needs within the Freedom University curriculum. The culturally relevant pedagogical practices lead to culturally relevant knowledge (a CECE indicator).

Students’ interviews emphasized the intentional centering of their lived realities within Georgia and the U.S. through the Freedom University cur-riculum, leading to optimal learning opportunities. The faculty and students connected contemporary struggles within historical contexts, immigration policy, educational opportunity, and economic systems. According to several students, the Freedom University curriculum offered “real” history, acknowl-edging lived experiences that are often subtracted from traditional curricula in K-12 education and in college (Valenzuela, 1999):

Freedom University is its own civil disobedience. Because in the classroom, that’s where we occupy. We occupy literature and education. I’ve learned my roots. I just learn things that I wasn’t even able to learn in high school. We’re learning about the Montgomery Bus [Boycott] and…the Mexican Revolution and Zapata, and when the Spaniards came and took the natives’ land. (Yovany)

Curricular examples centered on civil rights issues within the participants’ Southern locale. When we asked participants to describe their favorite day or topic at Freedom University, narrowing their responses to one instance or one example was a challenging task. For many of the participants, their favorite topic focused on the theme of social activism. For example, capitalizing on their proximity to Atlanta, participants recounted stories of venturing out-side the confines of the traditional classroom to visit with activists involved in the Civil Rights movement who not only shared insights into organizing protests, but made parallels to the current undocumented youth movement. Miguel shared the day he visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta:


[A] professor at Emory [University]…brought in two people that worked with Martin Luther King [Jr.] back in the Civil Rights movement. [W]e talked to them about what we were doing and how we were trying to get in-state tuition…for the DACA students. They gave us some tips, and we talked about some strategies. We also talked about how not to lose the faith. They told us never to stray away from our goal that is in-state tuition, going to college, getting that higher education, that better-paying job.

Other lessons involved simulation activities in order to make sense of how systems of oppression operate. Mitzy gained insight about the government when her professors held a soccer game in which one team made the rules and the other team had to follow all the established rules. She explained that the rules “might not be the most fair or the most reasonable” for her community and acknowledged that in order for those without legal status to live, they often have to find ways to “get around the rules. [T]hey might be looked bad for somebody else like it’s a crime, but in our eyes, we’re not really committing a crime, we’re just providing for our family….”

Maria, along with several participants, discussed the powerful lessons learned from a photography project:

[W]e basically had to do a project about our background and our immigra-tion status and how that affects us in our lives. A lot of us wrote about how being here so many years we never see our family again back in Mexico. [W]e provided photography also that provoked some kind of emotion in us. Things like cop cars, or licenses, or colleges…. A lot of us read our essays out loud. [T]hat night was really emotional. I…invited two of my friends that knew about [my legal status] and it opened their eyes to how hard…our situation is because a lot of people aren’t aware. [I]t also united a lot of people and made us feel stronger.

Students were empowered to construct their identity narratives in order to not only make meaning of their lived experiences but to learn from others and stand in solidarity with allies. The curricular examples illustrate the pathway from culturally relevant pedagogy to culturally relevant knowl-edge that heightens students’ understandings of their legal status and the importance of higher education and leads to optimal learning experiences. The next section more closely identifies student observations of the ways in which the faculty cultivate a humanizing educational environment that centers the lived experiences of Freedom University students.

A Holistic Approach to Serving Students without Legal Status: Humanizing Interactions

The CECE model contends that student success hinges on institutional agents who work from a collectivist orientation (a CECE indicator) to de-velop meaningful relationships, provide support and opportunities, and


collaborate with students in the learning process. We found that the Freedom University faculty members’ roles in co-creating culturally relevant knowledge were based on authenticity, care, and a sense of solidarity with the students. Consistent with the findings from our previous study (Munoz et al., 2014), the participants described how the faculty dismantled the power dynamics within the classroom space and conferred with students about the curricula:

[T]he professors are awesome. They include us in everything. They get panels for us where we can represent youth. They’re not like, “This is what you need to learn. This is what you’re going to do.” They’re more like…“Okay. Now, you have this space. We’re behind you. What do you want to do? What should we do?” (Yovany)

Another student concurred:

It was a…very good democratic experience because the teachers would ask us, “What do you guys need?” I remember one particular time. The teachers didn’t know yet what course they were going to teach the next semester. We all took a vote. We decided that we wanted to learn Ethnic Studies. That was really powerful what they did. (Oscar)

Creating a classroom space where learners are free to be their authentic selves results in deep-rooted connections and relationships with those who are part of Freedom University. Because students are positioned as co-creators of knowledge and their voices and needs are privileged in the educational environment (Osei Kofi, Richards, & Smith, 2002), the learning process becomes a community task.

Authenticity and care. Authenticity and care are fundamental to craft-ing humanizing educational environments (a CECE indicator). Among the sample, there was an overwhelming acknowledgement of the faculty who volunteer their time and resources on Sundays when classes are scheduled, as well as the type of connections made among the students. Miriam men-tioned, “Everyone’s Sunday is sacred. It’s the best day of the week for most people [yet the faculty are at Freedom U].” Both Miguel and Osvaldo echoed Miriam’s sentiments about the faculty:

[T]he time put forth to come on a Sunday afternoon and teach us, how they don’t get paid, how they don’t come out benefiting with anything. They could be doing something else, preparing for their classes, or spending time with their family. (Miguel)

Osvaldo described how the faculty’s commitment went beyond the confines of the classroom setting:

[T]hey just don’t stop in the classroom. They constantly email us telling us about scholarships or calling us to do interviews for colleges, opportunities


to help their students or organizations, so their help and inquiry in our life doesn’t stop in the classroom. [T]hey’re very involved and actually care about what we do for our future.

The participants also acknowledged the fellowship among students who shared what it meant to live without shame of their legal status. As Mitzy pointed out, “Everybody there was undocumented and felt like you belong, like I finally belong somewhere. Like these people understand me, they know what it feels like…and I felt very comfortable.” There are not many spaces in which students without legal status can openly and freely grapple with what living without legal status means. Many students are conditioned to conceal their status from peers, yet drawing attention to one’s legal status at Freedom University seemed to give students comfort. For example, Miriam’s process of embracing her legal status identity (see Muñoz, 2016) exemplified how Freedom University offered a nurturing community in which identities could be examined and accepted:

[B]efore [attending Freedom University] I was…ashamed and embarrassed. I didn’t want people to know I was undocumented, other than my closest friends and of course my family…. [I]t was something that I should hide and something that I should not tell everyone, because it might end up hurting me and putting me in a bad situation, but now…with Freedom U, I’ve seen so many students that are so embraced…and…I feel like a lot of the shame has been fading….

Freedom University is not only a counterspace for teaching and learning but harbors a humanizing educational environment that consists of holistic support (a CECE indicator) among faculty and student peers. More im-portantly, the space offers students a place in which students without legal status can be their authentic selves and make meaning of their legal status in a nurturing context.

Outcomes of Humanizing Educational Environments: Empowered Identities, Activism, and College Access

The founding of Freedom University was an act of resistance against exclusionary higher education policies and offers a unique perspective on how humanizing educational environments can lead to empowerment, re-sistance, and activism and, for some, to admission into mainstream colleges and universities. Because students were encouraged to be their authentic selves and work through their legal status identities, the participants noted that they felt less fearful and less ashamed of their legal status.

Rooted in their understandings of political movements and organizing embedded within the curriculum, a majority of the participants began to share their stories in public spaces as “undocumented and unafraid.” Most


were involved in various forms of activism such as the Georgia DREAM Team, which is suing the University System of Georgia Board of Regents to allow DACA students who can now claim “legal presence” to pay in-state tuition rates3; organizing rallies at the University of Georgia; and participating in student-led organizations such as the Georgia Undocumented Student Alli-ance (GUSA). Mitzy detailed her involvement in the “Camping for a DREAM” rally held in Washington, DC; “an amazing experience to see [undocumented students] and how they embraced themselves.” Inspired to take action, she helped to organize a rally at UGA in December 2012 with over 300 people in attendance.

Mitzy attributed her interest in organizing to Freedom University, which offered time and space for students to mobilize, “We sit down and learn and then we’re like, ‘Okay, we have an announcement. We’re gonna have a rally at this place at this time where we need y’all to make phone calls for deportation procedures.’” Because Freedom University served as the gateway for activism and resistance, Mitzy uncovered her passion:

I never imagined that I was gonna be able to be in front of hundreds of people and tell them I am undocumented and I am unafraid. [The faculty] did help me to find my place and helped me to be more confident in myself and helped me to really find what I would like to do with organizing. I really like bringing people together. Organizing does work. It just doesn’t happen overnight, you know?

Mitzy and her fellow students learned the fundamental aspects of com-munity organizing, which led to broader leadership opportunities at the state and national levels. As Osvaldo explains, he “became a leader because of Freedom U.” The experience of creating the Georgia DREAM team led to additional opportunities to advocate and protest at U.S. Congressional offices for families who have members who have crossed from Mexico into the U.S. As evidenced in Mitzy’s and Osvaldo’s experiences, some of the Free-dom University students viewed activism as an unexpected, but welcomed outcome of attending this sanctuary.

Students also felt affirmed in their other intersecting identities. Yovany’s reflections on his insecurities about his racial/ethnic identity prior to attend-ing Freedom University demonstrated the personal outcomes for a majority of the participants:

3In January 2017, a Superior Judge in George ruled that the University System of Georgia officials should apply the federal definition of legal presence which includes DACA recipients. The Judge also ruled that DACA students should be granted in-state tuition (Redmon, 2017). However, the Georgia Court of Appeals granted the Board of Regents Emergency Motion for Supersedeas, which means in-state tuition will not be granted during the appeal (“Friday Update on In-State,” 2017).


[B]efore Freedom University, I was insecure about myself. I went to…a really privileged [high] school and a lot of White people attended there. So grow-ing up there I was like, “Man, I don’t want to be Mexican.” I was ashamed to speak Spanish. I don’t like being Brown, but after that experience I found Freedom University. It would recover my identity…. [The faculty] told me [that my identity is] not something that holds me back but rather keeps me going forward.

Participants indicated a sense of belonging in a space that validated their various identities and their desires to learn. Their openness and willingness to discuss their struggles cultivated community. Miriam explained how Freedom University affected her development:

I feel like the material they choose to teach us and the curriculum they do is very much empowering and it gives you a sense of belonging, and at the same time it teaches you things that you might not know. I want [the public] to know how empowering it is, how life changing it is, and just how rare it is. I think a lot of people would be surprised that…organizations like this actu-ally exist, but definitely how empowering it is, how much support you gain from this, how many friendships…. It’s almost like a new stage in your life. It’s very inspiring, I think.

Students without legal status who enroll in higher education are the exception and not the norm. Freedom University attempts to disrupt the educational system by creating a counterspace whereby students without legal status can focus on the rewards of learning as a means of empowering themselves as change agents within society while acknowledging that the learning will not lead to a college degree or gainful employment. Freedom University acts as a respite from anti-immigrant sentiments and hostile educational environments for students without legal status in which they find community, validation, and identity affirmation.

disCussion

I want [the public] to know about Freedom University…. It doesn’t exist just because it wants to. It exists because it’s forced to. We are not allowed to go to school. We were encouraged to create our own project, our own side school…. I want [the public] to…figure out a way that it doesn’t have to exist anymore. Freedom University exists because there are imperfections. So we must strive to make a better education system. (Oscar, former Freedom University student)

From a civil rights perspective, Freedom University represents the con-tinued struggle for human, civil, and educational rights in contemporary U.S. society. Like the Freedom Schools from the Civil Rights era, Freedom University’s existence draws attention to the lack of access to education and


the realities of developing a culturally engaging campus environment that supports students without legal status in a very unique environment.

Through this study, we illustrated how a sanctuary that affirms and validates students’ lived experiences through culturally relevant pedagogy, authenticity, care, and holistic support, and a humanized educational envi-ronment that fosters resistance and activism allows marginalized individuals to analyze themselves, their communities, and hegemonic structures in order rectify, affirm, and centralize their culture, values, and needs in promot-ing self-determination and human rights (Freire, 1970). We contend that Freedom University employs aspects of the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments model (Museus, 2014) and cultivates a space in which students can analyze their cultural lives in order to understand their own identities and gain validation and support.

Contribution to Theory

Museus (2014) encouraged the utility of his model’s indicators to guide conversations about implementing culturally engaging campus environ-ments; in this case, we applied the CECE model to a unique higher education counterspace. Based on our findings, we found that culturally relevant peda-gogy was an essential aspect of developing culturally relevant knowledge, and humanizing educational environments are built upon authenticity, care, and holistic support. Specific to the experiences of students without documenta-tion, we found that Freedom University offers a unique set of outcomes that are not necessarily emphasized in the current iteration of the CECE model. In the following section, we describe the ways in which the nine indicators aligned (or not) with Freedom University.

We contend that incorporating a culturally relevant pedagogy at Freedom University helped students to develop a critical consciousness in order to ad-dress the societal inequities. Faculty and students co-constructed culturally relevant knowledge drawn not only from research, but from lived experi-ence and found innovative and compelling ways to talk about community organizing and issues of injustice. By mirroring the curriculum and activities with the Freedom Schools of the past, Freedom University seemed to fuse together CECE indicators such as culturally relevant knowledge, cultural fa-miliarity, and cultural community service into a culturally relevant pedagogy that encouraged critical reflection and educational transformation. These indicators do not necessarily stand alone, but are in relationship with each other, which creates a challenge in terms of data analysis. For example, the definition of the cultural community service indicator did not fully reflect what we found in our analysis. From our vantage point, students without legal status are merely not “giving back” to their communities; they are at-tempting to ignite social change by transforming the xenophobic discourse on undocumented immigrants through activism and resistance to injustices.


We also found that institutional agents who apply proactive philosophies, offer holistic support, and demonstrate authenticity and care can propel higher education institutions to become culturally validating, humanizing educational environments. The concepts of authenticity and care are dem-onstrated in the meaningful relationships cultivated among the community of learners. We acknowledge the difficulty in implementing this type of environment at mainstream institutions since authenticity and care require faculty members to be versed in areas of critical pedagogy, reflexivity, and praxis; tools that may not necessarily be thoroughly understood by all fac-ulty members. We also acknowledge the importance of further developing the terms within the model such as validating/humanizing, and proactivity/availability, which seem to be related terms, yet seemingly distinct within the model. All of these concepts illustrate the quality of relationships between students and institutional agents, which can prove challenging in decipher-ing the differentiation.

Elements of the collectivist cultural orientations were, however, easily identifiable given the historical underpinnings of Freedom University. Since its inception, Freedom University demonstrates a collectivist approach in much of their operational behaviors. For example, asking students for their input on course offerings is indicative of this collectivist orientation. Yet, we question the feasibility of this indicator in traditional college settings where one may find pockets of collectivity rather than an institutionalized commitment to this approach. The opportunity for meaning cross-cultural engagement indicator was valuable for students when they engaged with African American civil rights leaders and found similarities between the Civil Rights movement and the contemporary immigration movement. However, we extend this indicator by including the concept of solidarity in order to push beyond engagement. Lastly, while the model describes institutional agents as faculty and staff who provide holistic support, our study revealed that peer support and sense of community also aided in their sense of belonging and self-affirmation. Peer support should be considered an integral source of support in the CECE model.

Implications for Higher Education

Freedom University was established within highly contentious political climates and has evolved to become a counterspace for teaching and learning. Freedom University could not offer college credit or a formal degree, but the types of outcomes gained as a result of attending this sanctuary moved beyond traditional notions of student success such as learning, develop-ment, satisfaction, and persistence. In order for mainstream universities to adopt Freedom University practices, professors and academic administra-tors are encouraged to develop a humanizing educational environment in which students without legal status can explore their identities, and gain a


deep validation of their lived experiences as immigrants within larger anti-immigrant contexts. As change agents, institutional stakeholders should adopt a collectivist orientation, incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy across the curriculum and co-curriculum and, offer holistic support .

Freedom University buffers students without legal status from the emo-tional and physical harshness of their anti-immigration contexts, and we contend that traditional higher education spaces could employ similar transformative tactics. Rather than excluding students without legal status, colleges and universities should construct counterspaces for teaching and learning and enroll college-eligible students without legal status. Taking into consideration the sociopolitical context and institutional type, curricula di-rectly related to the experiences faced by students without legal status could be developed. Through various living-learning communities on campus, (inter)national issues regarding immigration and migration could be the centerpieces of already-existing programs.

Higher education institutions can effectively serve students without legal status by also facilitating peer systems of support that can enhance commu-nity building and a sense of solidary, which may lessen feelings of isolation on college campuses. We view Freedom University as a potential university-community partnership model whereby students without legal status gain the college preparatory and planning assistance needed to be successful. For instance, colleges and universities can develop intentional partnerships with national non-profit advocacy organizations like United We Dream, who have already crafted training modules and curricula that support students without legal status. Further, institutions that can provide financial resources for students without legal status should work with Freedom University to formalize a pathway to college that directs this population to inclusive edu-cational environments.

We implore institutions of higher education to cultivate a more hu-mane and just society; exclusionary educational policies not only fuel the anti-immigration sentiments but provide few substantive solutions to the very pressing immigration issues that have social, political, and economic implications. If higher education institutions and professional associations choose to oblige these exclusionary state policies, they are, in turn, indirectly reproducing anti-immigration rhetoric.

Future Research

More studies should analyze the extent to which institutions of higher education are reflective of culturally engaging campus environments and whether campuses serve as sanctuaries for students without legal status. In-stitutional research offices should incorporate questions that reflect aspects of the CECE model as well as student perceptions of school as sanctuary in annual assessment reports and accreditation studies. With the emergence of


DREAM centers in the State of California, the CECE model could be used to gauge how students without legal status are served. While the CECE indica-tors focus on individual influences, researchers and practitioners must also acknowledge societal contexts that perpetuate systems of exclusion. Future research should consider how the CECE indicators incorporate state contexts and policies, coupled with acts of microaggressions and institutional racism. Scholars need to account for the difficulty faced by students without legal status when navigating college access and persistence within an exclusion-ary and anti-immigrant climate perpetuated by state-enforced polices and laws across all facets of the educational system. In other words, how does one enact these CECE indicators while interrogating systemic inequities and injustices against students without legal status?

ConClusion

The state of Georgia is denying students without legal status access to higher education, and Freedom University responds to this indignation by providing students a space to intellectualize their political, social, and eco-nomic contexts and claim their human rights. In order for educators and higher education administrators to respond effectively to Oscar’s call to ac-tion, an overhaul of the P-20 educational system is needed. Such an overhaul shouldincorporate equity and justice in research and practice. First, if the U.S. is truly invested in cultivating a society of learners who can compete at a global level, we contend that access to a college education must be a public benefit for all, including students without legal status, and include access to federal financial assistance. At the institutional level, faculty members should develop democratic class spaces and prompt the dismantling of the power dynamics within the classroom in order to incorporate students’ voices and lived experiences. Curricula across disciplines and general education require-ments should centralize the cultural backgrounds and lived experiences of all students enrolled at the institution. Differences across legal status should be incorporated in diversity and equity conversations in an effort to reflect institutional commitments to the holistic development of all students.

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