OPINION:
“I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
“America is a melting pot.”
“Everyone can succeed if they work hard enough.”
Harmless though they seem, these phrases are actually offensive “microaggressions” that make minorities feel unwelcome, according to new revelations from a mandatory “Diversity and Civility at Cronkite” course at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Leftist activists in Arizona and nationwide are seeking to infuse a discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion agenda into every aspect of campus life. Avoiding these microaggressions is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only is this government-run institution requiring future journalists to invest their time and tuition dollars into learning the nuances of progressive identity politics, but ASU is illegally using taxpayer funds to mandate DEI “training” among all faculty at the university.
Students, faculty and staff at public universities cannot escape DEI’s long reach. And if we don’t break the stranglehold now, DEI is going to cripple higher education as we know it.
Take the Cronkite School, where a new report from the Goldwater Institute, where I work, shows that the mandatory “Diversity and Civility” class hides a radical agenda behind its innocuous-sounding course title. Aspiring journalists are told, for instance, that the statement “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” is offensive because it communicates that “people of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race.”
Course readings teach students the crucial practice of using a person’s preferred pronouns. In one course assignment, students are directed to develop a hypothetical public relations plan for a nonbinary pop star who uses “they/them” pronouns.
The Cronkite School is supposed to be one of the country’s preeminent training grounds for journalists. So why are leftists trying to turn it into a breeding ground for the next generation of progressive activists instead?
Cronkite School students aren’t the only ones having cultural and political indoctrination forced down their throats. ASU requires all faculty to take “inclusive communities” training that teaches some of the most extreme DEI concepts, including references to how White supremacy is “normalized in society” and how “systems of superiority” were “written into the foundational documents of our nation,” as well as references to “white fragility” and the need for “transformative justice.” According to this training, even “seemingly innocuous questions or comments” — like asking people where they’re from — can be “racist.”
Such training isn’t just wrong; it’s illegal under a recently passed Arizona law that forbids government agencies from forcing employees to take trainings that “present any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex.”
As government-run, taxpayer-funded institutions, our nation’s public universities should adopt no dogma besides a commitment to the pursuit of truth through the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Instead, public universities are embracing DEI ideology.
According to this DEI regime, American society — including the university itself — systematically oppresses people of underprivileged races, ethnicities, sexual orientations and gender identities. The only solution is to dismantle these social structures by turning power against the “oppressors.”
As Ibram X. Kendi, a leading figure in DEI “anti-racism” efforts, puts it: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” DEI thus rejects the American ideal of equal opportunity regardless of race, color, or creed. And anyone who questions this ideology is “complicit” with oppression.
At institutions of higher education nationwide, the DEI regime seeks to enforce conformity to progressivism at every turn. Freshman orientations typically include presentations that promote DEI doctrine. Candidates for faculty positions must express their fealty to DEI through “diversity statements,” or more accurately, loyalty oaths. Academic departments require faculty members to “diversify” their courses by including readings by authors from “underrepresented groups,” a clear violation of academic freedom.
But state legislatures and boards of trustees for state-run universities — such as the Arizona Board of Regents — can hold these institutions of higher learning accountable. An important first step would be adopting the Freedom From Indoctrination Act, a Goldwater Institute reform that takes on politicized course requirements like the journalism class at ASU.
The policy prohibits public universities from requiring students to take courses that promote concepts like microaggressions and preferred pronouns. After all, no public university should force students to sit through lectures in DEI dogma as a condition of obtaining a degree.
Public universities should serve the public, not become training grounds for DEI activists and megaphones for DEI ideology. The future of American higher education depends on defeating race- and sex-based discrimination and restoring the pursuit of truth to the center of universities’ missions.
• Timothy K. Minella is a senior fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.
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