Diversity Overreach at American University

American University’s pervasive left-wing political climate has not prevented nasty racial incidents, but it sure has facilitated official overreaction antithetical to academia. AU is rapidly moving further than many other colleges and universities to enshrine ideological indoctrination into the curriculum in the name of diversity and inclusion.

Racist Incidents on AU’s Campus

The campus witnessed two dramatic racist events during the past academic year. A white student threw a banana at an African-American student in her dorm room and scribbled obscene graffiti on her door’s whiteboard. Later, during final exams, someone hung nooses with bananas marked with racist messages, including one attacking the African-American sorority of the new student body president, at three separate locations on campus, and vicious white supremacist attacks on her followed.

Both incidents were widely and laudably condemned by students, faculty, and administration alike in a positive exercise of free speech. The student who perpetrated the invasion of another student’s room was caught and disciplined by the university. AU has enlisted the FBI’s assistance and vowed to catch and to punish the other guilty parties.

But as those who follow campus news well know, racist or sexist events rarely end with punishment or a return to normality. They often trigger cries of “systemic” racism or sexism, curable only by reform programs, usually mandatory, to reshape the attitudes of all students.

Required Indoctrination Courses

Framed as courses designed to help students “transitioning into their first year of college,” two courses to be taught by diversity staff—not regular faculty– will focus heavily on ideological indoctrination. The themes of AUx2 emphasize the correct viewpoints on marginalization and victimization:

This is a bare-bones outline of one course:

Theme 1: Getting to Know Our Social Identities & Key Concepts

• Identity Grid: Exploring Our Social Identities
• Class Agreement: Supporting Respectful and Productive Dialogue
• Bias Discrimination and Racial Formation
• White Privilege vs. White Disenfranchisement

Theme 2: Intersections of Social Identity: Race in America

• Code Switch Video Game About Multiracial Identity
• Manifest Destiny and Native American Touch Points Group Presentations
• Slavery’s Realities & Resonance Through Poetry
• Allyship, Abolition, and Early Women’s Movement
• Immigration, Exclusion and Shifting Definitions
• Letter to Civil Rights Leader
• The Complexity of Contemporary Identities

Theme 3: Letter to a Former Stranger

• Research the Life & Stories of a Former Stranger
• Informal Reading of Letters

AUx1 also contains four full weeks on promoting “A Culture of Inclusion” with topics such as “Diversity, Bias, and Privilege.”

The allocation of university resources for these required courses is considerable. According to AU’s website, there are 19 instructors, all staff rather than faculty, as well as an even greater number of peer leaders. The administration has also expanded with the addition of a director and program coordinator, as well as seven full or part-time staff people to assist AUx.

Expanding Indoctrination into Regular Classes

The university is now in the process of converting AUx into regular classes and beyond. The Senior Director for the Center for Diversity & Inclusion (CDI) has suggested “Allowing students’ participation in the seven-week Intergroup Dialogue program to serve as an alternative to another assignment/project or extra credit. I look forward to hearing the administration’s explanation to parents who pay phenomenal sums to send their kids to AU when they find out that a student managed to get out of a math assignment to attend a discussion group.

The two Intergroup Dialogue topics for Fall 2017 are “Islamophobia” and “Black Issues & Experiences on and off Campus.” There are also three segregated dialogue groups, creatively named as “intragroup dialogue” open only to “those who identify within Black/African diasporic communities” on three topics: “Immigration & Nationality,” “Stay Woke: A Dialogue on the themes of ‘Get Out’,” and “Whiteness & Anti-racism.”

“Allyship” refers to the proper role for heterosexual whites—secondary, passive and supportive of leadership. In plain language, it means doing as you’re told.

My guess is that an African-American student who questioned affirmative action would not be deemed “woke” even in his segregated safe space. In the AUx classes themselves, one cannot help but wonder if repeated challenges to the official dogma on “white privilege” or “allyship” might not harm the student’s grade in these mandatory diversity courses.

Beyond promoting Intergroup Dialogues in place of academic work, the Center for Diversity & Inclusion also encourages faculty to “incorporate CDI programs into their syllabus” by “Inviting Rainbow Speakers Bureau to host a panel in your class” or “Requesting a workshop/training or Diversity Peer Educator session.”

Not a bad way to get out of grading and teaching if you can stomach the agitprop.

Faculty Reaction

Faculty reaction to the initial AUx proposal was somewhat muted. Arts and Sciences Dean Peter Starr co-chaired the committee in charge of it, and Provost Scott Bass pushed it heavily, so people were none too keen on futilely challenging the people who determine their salaries or become identified as an opponent of diversity.  Nevertheless, faculty feedback included complaints about AUx inculcating a political viewpoint.

Despite ritualized requests for feedback, Starr made clear that he was uninterested in more than cosmetic changes. Here is the official short summary of changes made to AUx:

“AU Experience I & II: Course content is being developed for an online platform by faculty members with expertise in each area. Both courses will blend academic content and discussion methods, much the way traditional courses do. AUx2, in particular, now focuses on inclusion, with the explicit goal of creating a community of learners. The staffing of discussion leaders for AUx is a complex concern involving other campus initiatives such as the Reinventing the Student Experience (RiSE) project, and will likely be solved outside of this proposal. That said, all discussion leaders for AUx1 & AUx2 will be highly credentialed and complete training in advance of leading these courses.”

The above is an impressive example of managing to write a whole paragraph saying nothing. The short summary sent to the Faculty Senate notes, however, that “In addition to focusing on psycho-social development, AUx1 will include attention to academic freedom and freedom of speech.” The sole class on free speech remains heavily outweighed by the far greater number spent indoctrinating students on white privilege, bias, and exclusion.

The Faculty Senate approved the changes to the general education curriculum, including the AU experience, unanimously—not really surprising, as the faculty contains many promoters of this approach and is normally cowed by the administration anyway.

Never Enough, so the Cycle Repeats

Ironically, albeit utterly unsurprisingly, these changes were deemed wholly insufficient by student protesters who berated the administration and faculty alike at an administration-organized public meeting and during a student takeover of a Faculty Senate meeting. The response of both faculty and administration has been to double down.

During the Faculty Senate takeover, one student complained about the response of a fellow student on Facebook that included a photo of a noose. Provost Scott Bass took down the name of the offending student. Others demanded the immediate firing of faculty for racist comments and expulsion of students for racist actions.

The Faculty Senate immediately adopted a resolution calling for a permanent university commission on discrimination with a mandate to create a “cutting edge model of campus inclusivity” as well as creating a related Faculty Senate committee, which was immediately constituted by four volunteers. Apparently, this is on top of the Faculty Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Diversity & Inclusion.

Fortunately, the university shortly thereafter adjourned for summer break but one imagines that AU’s cultural revolution will continue as the Fall Semester proceeds and the AUx curriculum goes into full swing.