Monday, September 30, 2013

When Diversity Training is Oppressive

Jason Morgan, a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, has blown the whistle on their mandatory diversity training. Here's an excerpt but be sure to read his entire email:

As you are probably aware, all new TAs in the History Department are required to attend one orientation session, two TA training sessions, and two diversity sessions. Yesterday (Friday, September 20th), we new TAs attended the first of the diversity sessions. To be quite blunt, I was appalled. What we were given, under the rubric of “diversity,” was an avalanche of insinuations, outright accusations, and suffocating political indoctrination (or, as some of the worksheets revealingly put it, “re-education”) entirely unbecoming a university of our stature.


[HT: Althouse]

1 comment:

LA Grant said...

I volunteered to attend one of these at the school where I teach, and it was about as described.

I've long been exposed to this stuff after a couple of decades in the military, but most of the services don't focus as much on diversity per se as on equal opportunity- and gender awareness-type training.

The best part of the school session was a discussion I had where I questioned the standard line about racism. Turns out only white people can be racist, and I suggested this was not so. Since I have traveled in various countries over the years, I had much empirical data. Also, I used to go out many years ago with a Chinese girl whose parents were not welcoming to a round-eyed boy. Plus, my extended family included Hispanics, Chinese, and Native Americans. Plus, some old pictures of ancestors show suspiciously dark complexions....

I'm just saying all this tells me from personal experience that this line in this class was BS. But the instructors were tone-deaf.