Professor Implies Student Is a ‘Cyber Terrorist’ for Objecting to ‘the Problem of Whiteness’ Class

college students
Getty Images/ Vasyl Dolmatov
Spencer Lindquist

A University of Chicago teaching fellow implied that a student is a “cyber terrorist” after he objected to a class she was set to teach called “The Problem of Whiteness.”

“In recent years, whiteness has resurfaced as a conspicuous problem within liberal political discourse,” the description of a class called “The Problem of Whiteness” reads.

The University of Chicago course, which will be taught by teaching fellow Rebecca Journey in the spring of the 2022 – 2023 school year, uses Critical Race Theory to analyze “whiteness.” The course “examines the problem of whiteness through an anthropological lens, drawing from classic and contemporary works of critical race theory.”

Those who take the course will “approach whiteness as a “pigment of the imagination” with “worldmaking (and razing) effects” by “attending to the ways in which various forms of social positioning and historical phenomena intersect in the formation of racial hierarchy.”

Daniel Schmidt, a student at the University of Chicago, criticized the course on Twitter, calling it an “egregious example” of “anti-white hatred.”

Journey postponed the course, which is now set to take place in the spring semester of the 2022 – 2023 school year. The teaching fellow defended the course and attacked Schmidt in an article from WBEZ Chicago, an NPR affiliate.

The article, archived here, claims that Schmidt’s Twitter post helped fuel the “national misinformation campaign against critical race theory.” It also includes statements from Journey, who claims that Schimdt’s post “was a malicious attack not just on me as a teacher, but on anti-racist pedagogy writ large.”

Rebecca Journey

University of Chicago teaching fellow Rebecca Journey (The University of Chicago)

She also says that she received harassment and threats from those who’d heard about the course. Journey blames Schmidt, claiming in a statement to the outlet “these attacks are the direct consequence of this student’s targeted cyberbullying campaign.”

 She also alleges that he “deliberately misrepresented” the course and said that she wants the University of Chicago to publicly condemn Schmidt’s actions.

Journey defended the course, saying that it is not about “the problem with white people,” but rather that it “approaches whiteness as a problem in the philosophical sense of an open question,” looking at “whiteness as an object of critical inquiry.”

Journey even went so far as to imply that Schmidt is a cyberterrorist, telling WBEZ Chicago “I am absolutely moving forward with the class as planned” because “We can’t let cyberterrorists win.”

Schmidt addressed Journey’s comments and doubled down on his opposition to the course in a statement to Breitbart News. “Leftists have ruined the lives of countless people they disagree with, canceling careers and waging harassment campaigns,” Schmidt noted.

He went on to say, “But when I publicly expose a blatantly anti-white course at my university and name the professor teaching it, I am a ‘cyberterrorist’ who, according to the professor, needs to be publicly condemned by my university.”

“We all know the truth,” the University of Chicago sophomore added, going on to say that the university “would have embarked on a months-long apology tour” if Journey’s course had targeted a different racial group.

Schmidt added that he “will not stop” in his fight “against anti-white ideology in universities.”

Journey, whose biography notes “her work examines how the evolutionary and reformist logics of eugenic ideology animate the aesthetics of green urbanism in contemporary Denmark,” did not respond to a request for comment.

The Board of University of Chicago College Republicans said:

We reject the ideas which underpin Critical Race Theory, which this course is built upon. Critical Race Theory, which is fundamentally Marxist in its conception, is a threat to the foundational principles of America which we hold dear, and the academic freedom which forms the basis of our institution.

Another University of Chicago course, titled “Racial Capitalism,” also utilizes Critical Race Theory. Students in the course will examine “the history of race and racism in America from the perspective of ‘racial capitalism’ as a political economy.”

“The course will trace the development of racial capitalism as a concept within Black Marxist thought,” it goes on to say. The description adds, “The course will compare racial capitalism as a political economic approach to race and racism to rival ‘identitarian’ approaches including critical whiteness studies and Afropessimism.”

The course “The Problem of Whiteness” is just one example of anti-white animus in academia. Breitbart News previously revealed that an education journal published a call to “eradicate whiteness” and “send it to its grave.” The academic article claimed that “abandoning whiteness, destroying it, and sending it to its grave” was the “greatest act of love that whites can show.”

Breitbart News also revealed that a college of education department chair wrote an article called “Dead Honky” in which he called on educators to “commit to realizing the death of whiteness.” The author claims “whiteness is itself a violence.”

One article in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association described being white as “a malignant, parasitic-like condition” for which there “is not yet a permanent cure.”

Meanwhile, a lecturer at Yale University fantasized about committing acts of racial violence, more specifically “unloading a revolver into the heads of any white person who got in my way” and then “burying their body … like I did the world a [expletive] favor.” The disturbing lecture was titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.”

A professor at Rutgers University remarked that “white people are committed to being villains,” also saying, “We gotta take these MF’ers out.”

Rutgers University Professor Brittney Cooper is still employed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

In another instance, social workers received credit for attending a training called “Recovery from White Conditioning” that was hosted by the University of Minnesota.

“Classics Beyond Whiteness” is a course at Wake Forest University. The course discusses “white supremacy, fragility, and privilege,” and uses Critical Race Theory.

Meanwhile, colleges across America, including the University of Tennessee Knoxville, the University of North Texas, and the University of California San Diego, have hosted “White Accountability Groups.”

Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com

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