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“The Problem of Whiteness”
Radical academia strikes again at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and an angry Republican state assemblyman has had enough.
We are all aware that the curriculum of many universities has little to do with education, and everything to do with Leftist propaganda. This course is part of a long list of attacks on undergraduate education, and yet little has been done to stop the damage.
Damon Sanjani designed this course called “The Problem of Whiteness” as part of the African Studies Department curriculum:
The course explores “how race is experienced by white people.” But it also looks at how white people “consciously and unconsciously perpetuate institutional racism. The description reads, “Have you ever wondered what it really means to be white? If you’re like most people, the answer is probably ‘no.’ But here is your chance! Critical Whiteness Studies aims to understand how whiteness is socially constructed and experienced in order to help dismantle white supremacy.”
David Murphy is a state assemblyman and is furious about the university’s including this course, saying that taxpayers “are expected to pay for this garbage.” Murphy chairs the assembly’s committee on colleges and universities, and criticized the premise of the course, that people are racist. He also stated that the university should discontinue the class to protect taxpayer funds. Gov. Scott Walker disagreed with Murphy’s idea to withhold funds if the class isn’t discontinued.
To provide further context for Sanjani’s objectives, Murphy included some of Sanjani’s tweets in a news release—
One tweet is a picture of a CNN breaking news report about police officers being shot in Dallas. “Is the uprising finally starting?” Sanjani said. “Is this style of protest gonna go viral?”
Sanjani is a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University. The Washington Post says, “In a statement, the university defended the course and stressed that it was elective, not required, and that it was not designed to offend individuals or single out an ethnic group.’”
Really?
The current state of academia is disheartening. We aren’t teaching college students about the great ideas, the history of our nation or critical thinking. We have acquiesced to an agenda of propaganda, hand-wringing, the racism of the left, and refusing to empower students to follow lives of independent thinking, service and productivity. These are the country’s future leaders.
So what do you think of this course? What do you think about Mr. Murphy’s protest and proposal for action? What about Gov. Scott Walker? What’s your reaction to whether Sanjani should be teaching this course after reading his tweets? Do you have any bright light to shine on the future of college education?
Published in Education
Imagine the outrage if the course was entitled, “The Blessings of Whiteness,” and was based on Alt-Right founder Richard Spencer’s ideas of the superiority of the “white culture” rather than on Damon Sanjani’s ideas of the evils of “white culture.”
But what’s the difference between the two, other than the skin color that each believes should be preferred and should receive preference? Nothing, as far as I can see. Except, perhaps, that Spencer is on the right’s fringe while Sanjani is well within the left’s mainstream.
Or if the course was titled “The Problem of Blackness”, taught by a white instructor.
I looked him up: http://african.wisc.edu/faculty/sajnani His rank is assistant professor so he does not have tenure. It is odd that he was hired at this rank at such an institution as Wisconsin. And Ph.D. candidate merely states that he has passed his qualifying or preliminary exams. There is no indication of where he is in the dissertation process and as one who has gone through all of that he has a lot of work still to do. And this is a world of difference between being a Ph.D. candidate and having that Ph.D.
As to the big question that has been posed, I believe Governor Walker did the right thing by not getting involved. It’s a stupid course and if as other commentators suggested you change a few words in the title there would be a lot more brouhaha over the course from the left.
I was a freshman at UW-Madison in 02/03. In the very first lecture of a poli-sci 101 course that year, the professor referred to John Ashcroft as a “blue balled [expletive]-head.” This was in front of several hundred captive underclassmen that simply wanted a basic understanding of American civics and to satisfy a general requirement.
I guess when it comes to the demented course referenced in the OP, at least they’re advertising it for what it is ahead of time. Anyone signing up knows what to expect.
Here is his full resume
It’s not a risky course. And it appears this is a tenure track appointment in the African Cultural Studies dept. So they hired someone to teach “cultural studies.” It appears this department used to be called African Languages and Literature. The professors listed in this department are mostly cross listed here–that is, there original appointments are elsewhere. So it looks to me like UW is trying to solidify the dept. with a tenure track line. There is also an Afro-American Studies dept. and an African Studies program. It’s bureaucratic program creep.
Hence Madison often being referred to as “The Berkeley of the Midwest.”
Two thoughts: first, I think Governor Walker’s response — that the government shouldn’t be telling the schools what they cannot teach — is absolutely sound. This is the principle of unintended consequences — Wisconsin has a private-school voucher system, and won’t have a conservative governor forever.
The second thought is from Rick Esenburg at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. He posits that the problem isn’t that there are some incredibly silly ideas floating around Madison, but that the university squelches conservative answers:
I think it would actually be possible to teach a meaningful course on the idea of “whiteness”, I just don’t think the end result would be “dismantling” anything in particular. The best remedy for this sort of nonsense is to widely publicize it, so that parents, potential employers and other stakeholders get a glimpse of what the modern college curriculum looks like.
My son tells me he is required to take a “blah-blah studies” class in order to graduate. He is taking “An Introduction to Feminist Theory” and fully anticipates being infuriated and bored. Maybe he will be pleasantly surprised, and the professor will be open to an honest critique of Feminist Theory?
I am so glad my children all love to read.
My son had a friend take a course on that in order to get cultural credit required for a degree. The friend wrote papers satirizing the professors positions by agreeing with everything she said exaggerated to the point of absurdity. She never caught on. He got an “A” in the course.
Seawriter
So if he’s not tenured, what responsibility does the university or even the department have in determining if the class work is appropriate, scientific, rigorous and balanced? I’ve not worked for a university, so I don’t know. Does know one besides the instructor have a responsibility to review and decide if a course belongs in the university? BTW, thanks very much for checking on him, VUtah.
Thanks, Mountie. It’s easy to see where he’s coming from.
I agree with this comment, Leigh. How to get more conservative ideas on the campuses, through course work, speeches or other venues for teaching a range of ideas has been the challenge. It’s ironic to see the Left crying for free speech, unless it’s somebody else’s. Thanks!
I wouldn’t get his hopes up. ;-)
It’s the department that makes curricular decisions. I’m pretty certain he’s teaching what he was hired to teach.
If you like that, it’s worth reading that whole Esenberg column. I think it’s solid on the merits, but it’s also a good example of a conservative talking straightforwardly and honestly to a liberal audience — carefully constructed to undermine some liberal assumptions. He’s telling the conservative legislators they’re taking the wrong approach here, but he’s also making use of their reaction to present some uncomfortable truths to the Journal-Sentinel readership.
Sorry if I sound ignorant, but do they decide specific content, reading materials, etc., or just the topic?
Thanks, Leigh. I’ll read it in the morning and comment. I’m turning in early, y’all. Won’t be watching the ball drop on t.v. Thanks for continuing the conversation while I was off for Shabbat. I’ll be back in the morning! Happy New Year!
I’m sure it varies somewhat at each institution, but he probably just said what he would like to teach and submitted a syllabus. And it’s also likely that this would have been discussed during the interview process. But no, nobody would have told him what books to use–nothing that specific.
Understanding Bipeds and Bipedal relationships might be alternative. That however would likely pull the rug from beneath the the feet of those promoting Contention Promotion Study courses.
The current lot perhaps should be confined to thesis and stern and common sense peer review.
I read it this morning, Leigh; it’s an excellent article. (It’s short, everyone, so I recommend we all take a look–see the link at the top of comment #38. So if leftist professors are hiring people like themselves, it looks like a closed circle to me. Not only that, I understand many conservatives don’t go into academics for a number of good reasons. So the question is, how can we incentivize conservatives to seek out teaching in the university, to at least break in, and have them encourage others to join them? Maybe that way the course offerings will provide more balance to the presentation of ideas. Thanks, Leigh.
I think the course title sounds silly and will probably have an effect of creating heat and attention, as it already did. But also, the description just makes the course sound like it will be heavily biased. This means that it will really sort the students out into a class of ideologues and will probably hurt actual critical discussion of the issue.
For what its worth, the idea of studying ethnic identity and the political responses of ethnicities, even that of whites, isn’t new and has been going on for a while. It’s interesting and legitimate work. I’ve read some articles on research and clever experiments done on the issue. I saw a really neat job talk by an eminent political scientist on the subject. But the issue is that you don’t make your course so obviously biased that it appears like it will just be about propagandizing students as opposed to putting to them a legitimate area for research and inquiry. And had someone done a course on the problem of blackness, as another commentor suggested, they’d probably have been protested out of the school by now.
For what its worth, I don’t think the legislature should be going after specific classes like that.
I’ve reached that conclusion, too, Goldgeller. Although I don’t have a problem with them criticizing the class, withholding funds is probably a step too far.