As a result of the economic recession, the State of California has set in motion new policies for its community college system known as the Student Success Act, fundamentally altering open-access (Yamagata-Noji, 2014; Bennett et. al. 2013). Individuals most vulnerable to the policy shift are under-represented college students who constitute the greatest number of low-income and first generation students in the community college system (Provasnik & Planty, 2008). Fundamentally, this policy shares continuity with No Child Left Behind which scholars have described as an "act of whiteness" (Broderick & Leonardo, 2011). A critical analysis finds that the formation of such policies as hegemonic "common sense" (Gramsci, 1971) is perpetuated through the framework of social efficiency theory (Taylor, 1911). One strategy for challenging the oppression of the Student Success Act is the application of standpoint epistemology (Smith, 1987) to raise awareness from the location of students negatively impacted by the reform.