ASU’s flower quarter offers 100 programs that include DEI: record
Arizona State University’s required journalism program has received criticism for its syllabus, which includes teaching students that posing questions like “where are you from?” constitute cultural microaggressions.
The media key sure,” Diversity and Civility at Cronkite”, taught within the Cronkite School of Journalism, places a strong focus on the “importance of variety, addition, equity and civility”, its website description reads.
The program includes a section focused on microaggressions, and students are asked to evaluate a list of “typical microaggressions”. On that list, questions such as” Where are you from”? and” Where were you born”? are listed as “racial microaggressions”.
Timothy Minella, top sovereignty fellow at the Goldwater Institute, said the” program goes through a number of very controversial principles, and popular among them, for instance, are defining certain microaggressions”.
” What’s concerning”, he told The College Fix in an appointment, “is that what they are defining as microaggressions include claims such as ‘ I think the most skilled people should get the job.'”
Based on requests for public records and published training materials, the Goldwater Institute published a report in the middle of March that detailed the course’s lesson plans and education.
ASU said in a speech to The Fix that Goldwater’s criticism does not consider the motivations behind the program, which is beneficial to students because it exposes aspiring journalists to the complex and complex cultural dynamics of American society.
The Diversity and Civility course is “intended to deliver intelligent, opened- thinking discourse to issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, income, geography and different aspects of individual identities”, an ASU spokesperson told The College Fix. The course’s goal is to teach students how to appreciate differences and turn disagreements toward civil discourse.
In fall 2023, more than 400 students took the required course, taught by four professors and faculty associates, the institute reported.
The course’s different sub- topics and assignments include discussions on race and ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, and geography and income, among other issues.
Readings include titles such as:” Examples of Heterosexual Privileges”,” Examples of Male Privileges” and” Examples of Cisgender Privileges”.
The students are taught that” spaces reserved for women, such as single- sex locker rooms and bathrooms—and even women’s prisons—should be open to biological men who identify as women”, the report reads.
Minella said” this is a whole course of concepts that you find in progressive, activist circles, and it’s a mandatory course for journalism students”.
” What I find problematic is the assumption built into the course that we need to teach people to be nice to each other, using academic courses, when we could be developing students ‘ skills in research, reporting, and writing”, he said.
” By defining all of these very benign statements as microaggressions—as offensive, problematic, and unwelcoming—universities may be trying to control a lot of the conversations that are happening among students and faculty in a very narrow way”, Minella said.
However, ASU claimed that once students started the course, they should be able to approach reporting and communications projects from a “multicultural perspective and foster mutual respect among students from various backgrounds and beliefs while at the university and beyond.”
Moreover, ASU’s statement noted:” Students may opt out of specific discussions by letting the instructor know through private email”.
The course is among more than 100 courses that either include terms such as “diversity”, “equity” and “inclusion” or fulfill the school’s mandatory DEI graduation requirement, the Goldwater Institute investigation found.
This includes courses such as” Inequality and Diversity in Education” and” Diversity and Design”. According to online descriptions and documents that the institute obtained through public records requests, others are dedicated to studying the history of identity politics.
Academic freedom is a pillar of higher education in America. Unfortunately, too many institutions are aggressively pressed on faculty to incorporate politicized ideas into their instruction while making students who only want to finish their studies in key fields participate in politically divisive programming with little academic rigor, according to the report, which was released on March 18.
The group demanded that Arizona’s lawmakers pass legislation to curtail such curricula.
But these courses reflect the university’s commitment to what it calls “inclusive excellence”, which requires staff and faculty “reflect a workforce of diverse identities” so students may learn from the broadest perspectives possible.
The university claims that it incorporates global and historical awareness into its core curriculum in addition to the three “awareness areas” that the university lists as one of.
MORE: Conservative professor sues ASU over its mandatory DEI training
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