Penn State University won't acknowledge that there is anything wrong with singling students out ... [+]
Nearly half of all states have passed or are actively considering laws that would restrict the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” (CRT). While that term is an academic one, it has become a stand in for concerns about cancel culture, shaming white students on the basis of their race, and racial separatism. Many politicians are listening to these concerns. If Republicans take control of Congress in the 2022 elections, they are very likely to pass laws threatening the federal funding of universities that they consider overly woke.
Progressives have some understandable worries about these types of laws. Legislation is a clumsy way to address today’s complex racial climate and some of the laws being passed could make it hard for teachers and professors to talk about racial issues.
The best way to address the backlash to CRT would be to recognize that, despite good intentions, there are abuses done in its name. What most critics of CRT want is for those abuses to stop. Unfortunately, many progressives have mimicked the tactics of the most paleo-conservative defenders of the police. They deny there are any abuses, and, when confronted with incontrovertible evidence of abuse, they write it off as the work of a few bad apples. Charles Blow, of the New York Times, has written: “Once more THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CANCEL CULTURE.” Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has said about criticisms of CRT: "That's another right-wing conspiracy. This is totally made up by Donald Trump.”
But abusive practices in the name of racial progressivism are happening at every educational level. One of many possible examples is what happened in a large Penn State lecture class recently. The Professor, Sam Richards, approached a random white student. He didn’t seek the student’s consent to be made an example out of. He said "I just take the average white guy in class, whoever it is, it doesn't really matter. Dude, this guy here. Stand up, bro. What's your name, bro? Look at Russell, right here, it doesn't matter what he does. If I match him up with a black guy in class, or a brown guy... who's just like him, has the same GPA, looks like him, walks like him, talks like him, acts in a similar way...and we send them into the same jobs...Russell has a benefit of having white skin."
It is completely inappropriate to single a student out this way without their consent. Imagine a professor in a health class doing this to an overweight student. The same professor brought a different student to the front of the class and asked him to tell the class how his white privilege made him feel. (The answer was “sad”.)
Penn State’s response to deny that there is any problem. Responding to a query from Fox News, the administration replied that “Professor Richards purposefully teaches in a manner designed to promote discussion across a spectrum of opinions.”
Quite the opposite, Professor Richards seems aware that students are fearful of pushing back against abusive practices done in the name of racial justice. In another class, he showed students a power point used in corporate diversity training sessions that tells participants to “be less white”. To be less white was defined as being less “oppressive”, “arrogant”, and “ignorant” among other things. Professor Richards showed the power point to the students. He asked one student “what white people would find that offensive?” The student responded that “I don’t want to get cancelled so I’m trying to be careful what I say.” Rather than encouraging the student to speak his mind, the Professor replied “whatever you do, don’t get cancelled.”
These are exactly the sort of abuses the anti-CRT movement is responding to. When professors and diversity trainers tell white people that they are “ignorant” and “arrogant”, this naturally provokes an angry response in many people. And, like Professor Richard’s student says, many people feel that they will face serious consequences if they push back.
In this sort of environment, it’s not surprising that many people are looking to their state legislators for help. That help has been coming in the form of legislation that might make things worse rather than better.
It would be far preferable if powerful institutions like Penn State took some responsibility for what happens on their watch. It’s true that in Penn State’s case there are issues of academic freedom to consider. But the university could have stated that they disapprove of publicly singling students out on account of their race while recognizing the professor’s actions are protected.
There is still a lot of racial injustice in country and there is nothing wrong with efforts to more widely acknowledge those injustices. But when things are moving as fast as they are now, there are going to be abuses and oversteps. Denying that is not going to make the problem go away and is already producing backlash that could have been avoided.
