A class at Ohio State University (OSU) is reportedly making its students address their so-called “whiteness,” as well as explain what the term “white” means, and how they “navigate race” in their daily lives.
The course requires students to take part in discussions and assignments about gender and race, including one task that involves addressing their so-called “privileges” if they are white, heterosexual, or able-bodied, according to documents obtained by Fox News.
The class, titled, “Individual Differences in Patient/Client Populations,” is offered through OSU’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.
One required assignment, called “Unpack the Invisible Knapsack,” demands that students complete a series of “activities” about their “privilege.”
For this assignment, students were asked to choose from three activities: the “White Privilege Knapsack,” the “Heterosexual Privilege Knapsack,” and the “Able-Bodied Privilege Knapsack.”
Students were also reportedly given the option to substitute the heterosexual privilege and able-bodied privilege activities for another, more recent “knapsack topic” from other scholars and activists.
The course material comes from a 1989 essay titled “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” by feminist activist Peggy McIntosh, who helped popularize the concept of “white privilege” in the late 1980s.
As Breitbart News reported, this is not the first time McIntosh’s ideas have seeped into higher education.
In 2017, students at San Diego State University were given the opportunity to earn extra credit by determining their personal level of “white privilege” — an extra credit assignment inspired by McIntosh.
“Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color,” the course documents at Ohio State reportedly read.
The assignments also asked students to write a reflection and “consider how this differs or does not differ from how you’ve framed your relative privilege before, what you can do with the amount of privilege you DO have, how things would be different if you had more privilege, etc.”
Watching a documentary, titled, “White People,” was also mandatory for students who took the class at OSU. Students were asked to discuss their thoughts about the film.
Additionally, students had to read “Ten things everyone should know about race,” which claimed that “race is a modern idea, race has no genetic basics, and race is not biological, but racism is real.”
“The curriculum within Ohio State University’s Health Sciences Program highlights a broader trend found in many universities nationwide — the adoption of divisive and political ideologies aimed at indoctrinating students,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, who serves as chairman of Do No Harm, told Fox News.
Do No Harm, which obtained the course documents via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, is a group of physicians, health care professionals, medical students, patients and policymakers who seek to “protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology.”
“They theorize that interactions between groups must be viewed through the lens of critical race theory and the oppressor/oppressed dyad,” Goldfarb said. “This is pure identity politics and can only lead to divisiveness and intergroup hostility.”
“Rather than veering into polarizing debates that deviate from health care’s core values, universities should prioritize equipping future health care providers with the crucial skills, knowledge and empathetic understanding essential to deliver the best care possible,” he added.
OSU spokesperson Ben Johnson told Fox News that “Ohio State believes in academic freedom and freedom of expression, including the free exchange of ideas by students and instructors.”
“The university seeks to foster and maintain a campus environment where all viewpoints are welcome and respected,” Johnson added.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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