A University of California, Berkeley professor and her students are using Wikipedia to document and preserve queer history amid rising misinformation and political efforts affecting diversity and inclusion. Since 2016, Juana María Rodríguez, a professor of ethnic studies, has incorporated Wikipedia editing into her coursework. Over a decade, her students have created 63 new articles and edited 588 others, contributing more than 332,000 words and over 3,000 citations.
Collectively, those pages have drawn more than 900 million views. Rodríguez told PinkNews, “As a professor, I am really proud of the impact my students are having to make sure that Wikipedia reflects the diversity of the world…Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopedia, remains one way that we can continue to document the truth of our histories and our social movements.”
Rodríguez said the work feels more urgent than ever under the Trump administration, citing policy changes and the removal of references to transgender and bisexual people from the Stonewall National Monument website. The initiative is supported through a partnership with Wiki Education, which trains students and academics in Wikipedia editing.
