Chapter 6: Equity, Privilege, and Validity: Traveling Companions or Strange Bedfellows?¹

Equity stands as an avowed aspiration of human rights among citizens, policymakers, philanthropists, and service providers. However, intersecting economic and political forces have worked against equity in recent decades, creating and expanding gaps in well-being between the top 1% of the population and the remaining 99% (Stiglitz, 2011, 2013) and uprooting the values of fairness and equality of opportunity that were historically seen as foundational to a democratic society.

As Jolly (2002) pointed out, the assumption of all things being equal, ceteris paribus, is flawed. It fails to acknowledge the unequal realities in which lives are lived and interventions are sited. “Non ceteris paribus—all things are not equal” nor have they ever been so (Jolly, 2002, p. 14). Evaluation necessarily stands in relationship to inequity and inequality in social status, health (personal and environmental), education, and legal protection (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010).