Arizona State University, like all major universities these days, is committed to “diversity.” Its Intergroup Relations Center, one of many ASU organizations, committees, etc., devoted to promoting “diversity,” asserts that it — and through it presumably ASU as an institution —
adheres to the principle that diversity in the classroom is an asset that, used properly, can be used to achieve educational outcomes including critical thinking, cultural awareness, intergroup understanding, global awareness, cross-cultural understanding, personal and social identity development, decrease in prejudice and discrimination, empathy, development of a broader worldview, intercultural friendships, and other outcomes related to diversity.
How odd, then (or is it?), that, as a recent press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education states,
State-sponsored racial segregation has found a home at Arizona State University (ASU). ASU’s ironically named “Rainbow Sections” of English 101 and 102 have been advertised on flyers and on the university’s website as being open to “Native Americans only.”
….
The “Rainbow Sections” of English 101 and 102, ASU’s freshman composition courses, were advertised as “restricted to Native Americans only” on the faculty webpage of Professor G. Lynn Nelson, the course instructor….
A sidebar to the Intergroup Relations Center web site linked above states that
Some of the ideas reflected on this website emerged during a faculty institute that was organized for the ASU English Department. Special thanks to Duane Roen, Director, the Center for Learning and Teaching Excellence and Tiffany Winman, English Composition Instructor for their support of and participation in the institute.
At first glance this may all seem strange, but given the way “diversity” is preached and practiced on campuses today there is no reason to be surprised that ASU would attempt to promote it through segregated classes. That makes as much sense, after all, as all those ubiquitous university offices of “equal opportunity” whose reason for being is to promote hiring by race and gender.
Big lies are the tribute that attempted despotism pays to sense, while hoping to deceive by flooring those who can hardly imagine themselves developing the effrontery needed for this. Corruption is deep and ingrained, when academic institutions, with hardly an exception, delight in these big lies. Coerced diversity is freedom, quotas are equality, racialized conformity is liberation, and how many more of these power seeking lies?