Frederick Douglass was an enslaved person who escaped from the institution of slavery and fled north where he went on to write a narrative about his life and became a leader for the abolitionist movement. While enslaved, Douglass wrote about how he learned to read and write and how difficult it was for him to gain an education as an enslaved person. His first experiences began when he was moved to work in a house in Baltimore. His Master’s wife, Mrs. Auld, decided to teach young Douglass the alphabet and how to write short three or four-letter words. But as soon as Mr. Auld found out, he put a swift end to the learning. He claimed it was wrong to teach a black child how to read or write and that he would never need to know how to use those skills seeing as he was destined to be an enslaved person for life. However, Douglass had developed a taste of learning and he knew he must continue his studies, claiming “I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.” He then worked to read whenever and whatever he could. When he would go on trips to the market in town, he would trade bread to the little boys on the street in exchange for lessons to read. He befriended as many little white boys as he could to help further his knowledge of the world of literature and reading. “This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.” He says. Once Douglass knew how to read, he used this skill to read everything he could get a hold of, newspapers and books mainly. The more he read about the system of slavery, the more educated he became on the injustices and inhumane treatment that went along with it. He claims in his narrative, “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.” As of that day he promised to escape from this life he knew and venture to the north, to freedom. Douglass used his access to the wharf and the town’s children to help him learn to write as well. Without them, he may never have written the narrative that tells of his life as an enslaved person. Now, obviously, the United States does not still enslave black people and we have a level of equality that is drastically different than that of the 1800s. However, black young people in America still have a hard time gaining an education. Black students have followed behind white students for academic validation for decades black students are viewed and treated differently by teachers and administrators, and their graduation rates continue to drop below that of white students. Equal education for black students has been a major issue since before Douglas began his journey for learning 200 years ago. 

We’ve proven that the education system is racially biased and favors the white student and that to be racially white meets one of our two pieces of criteria for a member of elite society. But what about women gaining an education? Countries and religions all over the world prohibit or regulate women’s education and will go to drastic measures to enforce these rules. Girls everywhere fight and risk their lives for their education, but one girl stood out and brought the girls’ education crisis in Pakistan to the attention of the rest of the world. Malala Yousafzai grew up in Swat, Pakistan in the early 2000s. Her father owned a school for boys and a school for girls in a time when girls’ education was highly controversial. Malala grew up in and around the school system, she loved learning and was an incredibly smart young woman. In the early 2000s, women in Pakistan had to follow a very strict set of rules and meet many expectations to be considered good Muslim women. These included walking a few paces behind their husbands, wearing headscarves, cooking and cleaning, taking care of the home and the children, lowering their gaze when encountering men, and, eventually, they were not allowed to leave the house without the accompaniment of a male family member. Men were considered knowledgeable and strong. “I would often wander away from the children’s games, tiptoe through the women’s quarters, and join the men… I felt a pull to the weighty world of the men… I loved sitting among them, hypnotized by this talk of the big world beyond our valley.” Says Malala in her autobiography I am Malala. As the Taliban took over her country and her city, she fought harder and harder and risked her own life every day just to get an education. The Taliban enforced strict Muslim rules, seeing as women were simply expected to cook and clean there seemed no need for them to gain an education. She says in her book “A tiny voice in my heart whispered to me: ‘Why don’t you go there and fight for women’s rights? Fight to make Pakistan a better place?’” So she did. She spoke in TV interviews, gave speeches, and wrote for newspaper columns in support of girls’ education. In a speech, she said “This is not the Stone Age…But it feels like we are going backward. Girls are getting more deprived of our rights…We are afraid of no one, and we will continue our education. This is our dream.” She goes on to say in her book “I knew in that instant that it wasn’t me, Malala, speaking; my voice was the voice of so many others who wanted to speak but couldn't.” She won many awards and even had an award named after her before she was 15 years old. Due to all the publicity, she gained for her vocal advocacy for a girl’s right to education, she caught the attention of the Taliban. After a few direct threats, men came onto Malala’s school bus one day and shot her three times. She was only 16 years old. She was treated in the hospital for months and miraculously survived. She is now an activist for female rights and girls’ rights for education. She is also the world's youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and second Pakistani to ever receive a Nobel Prize. When asking people whether women deserve an education, you will receive different answers from different people depending on their religion, ethnicity, and gender. No matter what your own personal opinion is, it is a natural fact that women make up two/thirds of the world’s population of illiterate people. Malala and many other women, young and old, are forced to fight for a girl’s right to education all over the world. 

Many factors contribute to these discriminatory conditions within the school system, most of which are strategic to ensure the success and perseverance of the white male student. Distance of schools from certain neighborhoods will drop enrollment rates. Implicit bias within the teachers, instructors, and administrators favors the white male student. This causes policies to be put in place against minority groups, teachers will have different standards for different races or genders and whether they are consciously or subconsciously putting them in place, they are there. According to a study from the fall of 2018, only 31% of students across all public schools were a part of a minority group, the majority of students who belonged to a minority group were more likely to attend a school where at least 75% of the students were also considered minorities, whereas only 6% of white students were attending a school where at least 75% of the students were considered a minority. Malala Yousafzai worked hard for her education as a Muslim woman living in Pakistan in the 2000s, Frederick Douglass was an enslaved African American boy who had to find his own means of gaining an education from little boys on the street. These are two different very different stories that have major similarities. Douglass was denied an education because it was believed that black children would never need to know how to read or write as they were destined to be enslaved for their entire lives. Similarly, Malala was denied an education due to the religious beliefs of dictators in her country, those same beliefs claimed that a woman’s role was to care for the children, cook meals, and clean the home, all jobs that require no education. Expectations, stereotypes, and biases are directly responsible for the lack of education for young people around the world who are a part of minority groups. 

As a young woman in America, I have never taken my access to public education for granted. I have experienced and witnessed the biases of administrators and teachers first hand and I fight every day to help supply everyone with equal educational opportunities. Education around the world has been directly connected to liberty for a long time, freedom and equality for anyone other than white elite males had directly impacted young people’s access to education for centuries. Douglass experienced racial discrimination in the 1800s in America as an enslaved young boy, his freedom and liberty as a human being affected his access to education. Malala was the victim of gender biases in Pakistan in the 2000s, the religious beliefs of her country’s leaders and the strict gender norms that came along with it directly impacted her access to education centuries after Douglass, showing that this has and continues to be a real issue in our society today all over the world.