Common meaning:

Evaluating student work in some way but not assigning it a grade.

Hidden meaning of the Equity religion: 

Removing grades from a subject in order to make it all about Equity ideology.

Discussion:

The Equityists believe that providing evidence that students have learned a subject by grading student work is a problem.

Part of the reason the Equity believers don’t like grading is they see, as always, an oppressor vs. oppressed dynamic. The teacher has power and is the oppressor and the students are the oppressed. In this context, grading becomes a way for teachers to dominate students by requiring them to come up with answers the teacher considers correct. Of course, the teacher is wrong because oppressor knowledge is always faulty. I suspect this is part of the reason for the push to center students. As the saying goes; “Not the sage on the stage but the guide on the side.”

Another reason the Equity followers dislike grading is it forces them to teach the actual subject when they only want to teach their religion. Remember, just as a virus hijacks the processes of a normal cell, the religion of Equity hijacks subjects. It wants to make the entire subject about Equity without anyone catching on to what is really happening.

Grading people is the only way to determine what they know.