A controversial conventional teacher at Arizona State University has filed a lawsuit against his employer, alleging that the institution’s mandated diversity, equity, and inclusion training violates a two-year-old state laws prohibiting people from pursuing training that “presents any form of blame or view on the basis of…
Owen Anderson, a professor of philosophy, spiritual studies and theology at ASU, is the main plaintiff in the lawsuit filed Tuesday with the help of the traditional volunteer Goldwater Institute, based in Arizona.
According to the complaint, employees at ASU must acknowledge that white heterosexuals are inherently racist and harsh, along with other subpar issues relating to white privilege and social justice as part of their compulsory Della training.
It argues the education, and its check at the end, not just runs short of the relatively new condition rules, but the condition constitution’s protections on free speech as well.
According to Anderson, the lawsuit claims that the requirement that he get the Equitable Communities test and demonstrate his acceptance of its rules by taking an exam that predetermined the” correct” comments violates his constitutional rights.
In a speech to AZCentral, a school director defended the education.
The spokesperson told the outlet that” Arizona State University is committed to the achievement of each of its students, who come from all 50 states, 150 various countries, and from all socio-economic background.” ” To help meet that target, consistent with ]state law], ASU provides its workers Inclusive Communities education which promotes an environment of respect for all backgrounds, values, and career experience”.
Anderson, who has taught at ASU for 21 years, has been an vocal critic of DEI courses and related issues.
” In my own experience, I have found that this kind of La coaching is used to distinguish against Christians. Anderson stated on his individual Substack on Tuesday that Christians are at the center of the “intersectionality” group. According to this theory, Christians are responsible for all different forms of oppression. And so, they can be treated badly. After all, so this contemplating goes, it is their change, and they deserve it”.
The Goldwater Institute’s 14- page complaint is accompanied by 173 pages of exhibits, that being the training and quizzes ASU employees may acquire, all obtained through a common records act request.
The institute states on its website that” the slides included statements or concepts that included, but did not include, acknowledging the history of white supremacy and social conditions for it to exist as a structural phenomenon, how minority faculty are not given access to authority and control, racism poses harmless questions or comments, and heterosexuality is privileged and goes unrequited.”
The video transcript contained the following ideas or statements:” White supremacy was written into the foundational documents of our Nation; it scares people to be called a white supremacist. In violation of Arizona law, the Inclusive Communities training thus promoted and funded concepts of blame or judgment based on race, ethnicity, or sex.
In accordance with the new law, the institute sent a letter to the Arizona Board of Regents in September 2023, requesting that the university immediately stop spending public funds on the training. The university did not end the program.
Concerns that ASU improperly shut down the T. W. Lewis Center for Personal Development after it hosted two well-known conservatives, Charlie Kirk and Dennis Prager, have caused massive protests by professors have already been in the public eye recently.
A bill currently moving through the state legislature in Arizona seeks to “prohibit the Board of Regents and the state’s public universities from spending money on DEI programs,” according to AZ Central, adding that it passed the senate earlier this year.
MORE: Arizona lawmakers learn vile details about the ASU center’s cancellation that housed conservatives
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