Like lambs led to slaughter, San Jose State University (SJSU) students are paying for their own mandatory social justice indoctrination. Each student must now take an orientation on diversity and microaggression that costs $250 per student – whether they like it or not. According to SJSU’s Frosh Orientation FAQ: “If you do not attend or leave during any portion, you will be blocked from class registration.”
This one-day summer session will include training that “consists of a video of microaggression skits, filmed with the cooperation of a film class in SJSU’s on-campus studio.” The program is designed on recommendations made by the university’s Special Task Force on Racial Discrimination. Part of the recommendations include creating “a first-year experience course (for Frosh students and transfer students) focused on diversity, that includes, but is not limited to culture, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation.”
Campus Reform spoke with SJSU’s Director of Media Relations, Pat Harris, who said the students are given the training due to Title IX obligations:
“Title IX requires San Jose State to ensure our students have access to all educational opportunities provided here. Given our obligations under Title IX, SJSU provides training at freshmen orientation to ensure students understand their rights and responsibilities,” Harris said. “These sessions are interactive, so content varies.”
Isn’t changing the substance of the courses depending on who participates the very discrimination that this course is supposed to prevent? According to SJSU’s FAQ page, there are several dates throughout the summer to choose for attending – which means there will be many different groups of diversified students. To be truly “equal” and treat all students equally, they should all receive the same forced orientation – or none at all.
To put this into perspective, let’s take a look at some of the microaggressions guidelines from the University of North Carolina’s employee forum website. These are not necessarily practices the university has adopted, but rather informational pieces for the forum community.
Even a simple compliment like “I love your shoes,” at least when addressed to a woman in leadership during a Q&A after a speech, really means “I notice how you look and dress more than I value your intellectual contributions. How you look is really important.”
“Please stand and be recognized,” the [guidelines] explains, “assumes that everyone is able in this way and ignores the diversity of ability in the space,” while using expressions such as “I’m totally OCD about my files” and “I get ADHD sometimes” “minimizes the experiences of people who live with mental health issues.”
The document asserts, for instance, that “referring to ‘husband/boyfriend’ of women, ‘wife/girlfriend’ of men who are coworkers instead of partner/spouse … sets the expectation that people do not identify as LGBTQ until they say otherwise or disclose their sexual orientation.”
“How did you get here?” constitutes a national origin microaggression because it acknowledges that some “immigrants get to this country illegally,” while asking “Where are you from?” implies that “you are not American and do not belong to this community.”
None of these examples constitute actual discrimination – especially simple compliments like “I like your shoes.” Birth certificates, death certificates, visa applications and other necessary documentation all ask a person’s origins. At the risk of starting a whole new immigration argument, does this mean the U.S. will be forced to omit this question from legal documentation? Asking where a person is from is a form of curiosity. It is a conversation starter – a way of showing interest in a person and who they are.
This is just another example of how the left is imposing its will on the rest. By starting with the impressionable 18-year-old freshmen, they can mold and create students to their way of thinking. These schools aren’t just teaching students math and English; they are teaching them how to think – though not how to think for themselves.
