It depends on with whom I'm speaking. Even the Wikipedia page for the former is a disambiguation [1].
The historical (and international) use of the former is closer to that of egalitarianism [2]. I fail to see what is gained by redefining equality and creating the term equity
when equal opportunity vs. equality of outcome has decades of scholarship behind it, to say nothing of being clearer on first glance.
I don't know enough to render judgement. But it smells like the tail-chasing semantics the social sciences love, randomly re-appropriating jargon instead of debating the underlying problem.
In any conversation, inter-discplinary or not, agreeing on what a word means is important.
For me, there is a difference between equity and equality.
As you mentioned, people will hammer on the lens of the interpretation without being aware of it, or not being able to explain the core of it.
I would start with the idea of access to education and access to opportunity to apply education to uplift current and future generations.
Removing built in barriers that have been in the public education system (based off the industrial education system to keep turning out reliable and obedient factory workers by omitting certain information) is one place to start.
Still, not every baby starts at the same start line, and not everyone has the same headwinds, or tailwinds. Some argue its impossible to make everyone equal or equitable, but there are some parts of that spectrum that will never be able to to even be close to equals in average, and the conversation starts around that, and those who are in a position to more default succeed by failing upwards, and those who are not.
There's a lot of focus on breaking ceilings. I often wonder about how it looks for the average person, however that is defined to access opportunity compared to someone who is not a part of the majority, for example.
The interpretation on whether this should be made equitable for everyone, or only to a certain degree is definitely a topic of discussion.
Would you say Equality and equity are the same?