SWA Community
S
BECKY PETITT
ince Southwest Airlines’
beginnings, the LUV
airline has always
approached business
differently; democratizing the skies with affordable air travel,
delivering Legendary Customer Service and connecting people
to what’s most important to them. One thing that has remained
constant since Southwest took to the skies is doing the right
thing, and it always comes from the Heart. Southwest Airlines
champions diversity and inclusion by fostering an inclusive work
environment that encourages diversity of ideas, knowledge and
actions. Our investment in the communities we serve is also
reflective of that commitment to diversity and inclusion. This
same commitment is exemplified by
Becky Petitt, the new Vice Chancellor
for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
at UC San Diego. She carries these
goals with her as a passionate advocate for others, helping
make great strides toward a more inclusive and dynamic
campus and community. Southwest Airlines is
proud to support Dr. Petitt’s advocacy goals!
Lidia S. Martinez
Manager, Community Affairs &
Grassroots Southwest Airlines
M
any have heard the story
of six-year-old Becky
Petitt having been sent
to the principal’s office
after asking a teacher if
she could make silhouettes of Martin Luther
King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, who were as
famous as the old White men the class had
been assigned. In the story, after Petitt called
her mother to convey that she had been
disciplined for being “disruptive,” her mother
angrily rushed to the elementary school. When
she arrived, however, it was the principal who
met her wrath, not Becky. Becky learned
enduring lessons about the costs of exclusion
and the importance of “speaking truth to
power.” The episode, however, conveys the
tenacity and advocacy she would learn by
her mother’s example. Just as when Petitt’s
brother, who is deaf, was told he needed to
attend a school separate from his siblings,
their mother began a tireless campaign to win
the accommodations necessary for him to
attend his siblings’ school, thereby improving
the quality of education for other children
facing similar structural challenges.
50 GBSAN.COM | FEBRUARY 2019
Latinx Chicanx Academic
Excellence Initiative
Her father, too, was a source of inspiration, instilling in her the fact that, as a
Black woman in an overwhelmingly White world, she must fight for inclusion. He
also provided her the resources to do so. Indeed, he had bought her the series
of African American heritage books in which she learned about the civil rights
leaders she had wanted to make into silhouettes.