ABSTRACT
This chapter is a modest attempt at a thoughtful consideration of a university’s CSR in a multicultural country whose political elites have racialized issues resulting in the marginalization of some ethnic groups. Attention is given to the climate of advocacy in a postcolonial context. Malaysia has indeed witnessed various forms of national protests and activism where citizens have engaged with the government and other institutions of power to address perceived or experienced discrimination and injustice. How one disenfranchised ethnic sector used its economic muscle to address lived educational discrimination by establishing non-profit universities to provide higher learning opportunities to those whose doors were shut by government policy favoring Malays is discussed.
The chapter then explores CSR in educational institutions to contextualize the examination of one university’s CSR. Its clever use of CSR to integrate curricular aspirations in its pursuit of academic excellence with the development of socially responsible students and a caring campus community is highlighted. Employing the concept of CSR as aspirational talk, the discursive elements and approaches of this university’s CSR are presented in an effort to make sense of how CSR and PR discursive representation is used to advocate on behalf of marginalized sectors of society, or merely to perpetuate the dominant perspectives of the elite. As such, this chapter excavates another layer of CSR and PR practice; one that has relatively remained underexplored.
