Community colleges have long been recognized as enrolling a disproportionate share of first-generation college students, low-income students, women, and students of color. Additionally, community colleges have significant enrollments of students who identify as immigrants; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT); and disabled. Many of these students have been marginalized in previous educational settings because of their status and identity. Community college faculty and staff committed to the eradication of student marginalization may use a variety of contemporary strategies to address this form of oppression. The authors seek to complement these strategies by showing how the work of John Dewey may be used to justify the creation and development of democratic learning communities fundamentally opposed to student marginalization.