Courage and clarity demand that we examine what is happening on our college campuses with unflinching honesty. At the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, a webpage hosted by the Culture and Family Lab has raised serious questions about the direction of publicly funded higher education in America.
The webpage, part of the university’s Institute of Child Development, presents what it calls the “Whiteness Pandemic.” According to the materials, anyone born or raised in the United States has “grown up in the Whiteness Pandemic” and must take action to “halt and reverse” this condition.
The language is stark and uncompromising. White adults are told they bear responsibility for “self-reflection” and “re-education” to develop what the university terms a “healthy positive White identity” through “courageous antiracist parenting.” The implication is clear: being raised in what the university describes as “the culture of Whiteness” requires corrective measures, even if the socialization occurred during childhood and was beyond one’s control.
Make no mistake about the scope of what is being proposed here. The university materials explicitly state that racism should be viewed as a pandemic, but that “another” pandemic lurks behind it, driving the problem. That pandemic, they say, is whiteness itself.
The watchdog organization Defending Education released a comprehensive report on Tuesday documenting these efforts at Minnesota’s flagship public university. The timing is significant, as universities across the nation face increasing scrutiny over diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
According to the university’s own explanations, “Whiteness refers to culture, not biology” and features what they describe as “colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility.” These characteristics, the materials assert, are “covert expressions of racism common in the United States.”
The webpage goes further, arguing that the focus should shift “from the victims and effects of racism onto the systems that perpetrate and perpetuate racism, starting with the family system.” White families, according to this framework, socialize their children into whiteness from birth, making the family “one of the most powerful systems involved in systemic racism.”
Resources on the website include materials “especially for white parents” that reference the death of George Floyd and offer guidance on developing what they term a “healthy white racial identity.” Several experts are featured, providing various resources on the subject matter.
One research paper highlighted on the site surveyed primarily liberal White mothers with household incomes averaging over $125,000. The study concluded that family socialization into what it calls “the centuries-old culture of Whiteness” perpetuates American racism.
This is not happening at a private institution accountable only to its donors and students. The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities is a public university, funded by taxpayer dollars and charged with serving the citizens of Minnesota and the broader public interest.
The questions that arise are fundamental. Should public universities be promoting materials that characterize an entire culture as a pandemic requiring reversal? Is this the kind of scholarship and public service that justifies the significant public investment in higher education? And perhaps most importantly, what message does this send to students and families who are told their very cultural background constitutes a public health crisis?
These are not easy questions, but they demand answers. The American people have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent and what ideologies are being advanced in their name at public institutions of higher learning.
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