The conservative blogs are going nuts over the University of Delaware forcing students to undergo "treatment for student's incorrect beliefs."
Apparently, the U of Del is forcing students to admit that all whites are racist.
Here's the money quote:
"[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality."
Here's some excerpts from the forced "training" that the students go through: Link to excerpts.
What do you think of the U of Del's training program? Is it defensible? I mean, calling all whites racist by nature is a bit extreme, I think.
Here's some more details. This is taken from Fire, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Eduction ( I think that's what the acronym means).
Apparently, all U. of Del freshmen are required to live on campus. So there's about 7000 or so students this applies to.
This "training" consists of, apparently, a series of mandatory meetings where the students will be changed. There's mandatory group meetings, mandatory one-on-one meetings--where the RA's then write up the students responses and rate the students as "best" or "worse" depending on how they react. As FIRE notes,' "Students are then expected to learn and articulate certain "competencies" in order to "become fully functional and effective citizens towards a sustainable society." '
The "core values" are prominently displayed all over the residence halls. These views are very specific views on race, sexuality, social philosophy and environmentalism.
I'm not quite sure how this differs from a massive "re-education" campaign. Is there one?
Edit: The U of Delaware responds to the claims. Interesting tidbits: they deny it's mandatory, though they admit that the RA's made it mandatory to attend. They also appeal to the intelligence of their students to see through the brainwashing? I.E. that they are too smart to be brainwashed (which begs the question of why have all the diversity training if it wouldn't have any effect). It's up to FIRE to respond.
I saw a comment from a student currently at UDel where they basically confirmed that it was mandatory and also brought out something new: students were awarded "points" for going to diversity events. Points were redeemable for prizes. And the only events eligible were for politically correct things. Interesting.