Combining identity politics, social justice doctrine and the concept of “safe-spaces,” Hampshire College allows students to self-segregate by living in “Identity-Based Housing.” The college’s website explains:
“Residence Life and Housing facilitates the continuation of many identity-based housing communities started by students. These residential spaces give support to members of our community with social identities that have been historically marginalized in this country, and strive to counter systemic oppression. This arises from our commitment to fostering diverse, socially just, and inclusive communities.”
“We recognize that our society–through its laws, institutional structures, and customs–has privileged some social groups while systematically disadvantaging and disenfranchising others. Even as we struggle to end these practices, we recognize that day-to-day life for members of these disadvantaged groups can be hurtful and exhausting.”
The website’s explanation of identity-based housing also states:
“Identity-based housing is an institutional structure designed to assist members of historically oppressed groups in supporting each other. It helps to create an added level of psychological comfort and safety for those who choose to live in those spaces, often providing the foundation for those students to be able to engage fully in the greater community.”
“Creating these safe spaces, in collaboration with centers on campus, will benefit the entire community. We must have the full engagement of all our community members, especially those whose experiences, ideas, and perspectives are different from those of the College’s mainstream population. It is through these means that we, as a full community, are most likely to challenge assumptions, craft new solutions to problems, and perform to our highest ability.”
The “Permanent Identity-Based Mods” listed include: “LGBTQQIAAP,” “Queer,” “Women of Color,” “Students of Color” and “Asian Heritage.”
“Pan-Afrikan Diaspora,” “Trans Stability Mod” and “QPOC” are designated as “Not-Yet-Permanent Identity-Based Mods.” “Marginalized Gender Identities” is categorized as “On Hiatus for 2017-2018.”
Under the guidelines for developing an identity-based mod, the second guideline explains: “The group must be unified by a social identity (such as race, culture, gender, or sexual orientation).” The third guideline says, “The unifying social identity must currently experience or has historically experienced oppression within or outside the Hampshire community.”
Hampshire College also offers “Intentional Housing Communities” which it explains, “are living spaces in which the residents have chosen to come together around a particular area of interest that will contribute to and cultivate the campus’s culture of learning.” Some of those listed on the website include the “Hampshire Basketball Mod,” the “Kosher Mod,” the “STEM Mod,” the “Mindfulness Mod,” the “Greenhouse Mod” and the “Middle Eastern Immersion Mod.”
The intentional housing community called the “Gender Justice Mod (formerly Women’s Empowerment Mod),” contains the following deluge of leftist lingo within part of its description: “We understand our struggle against cissexist heteropatriarchy as part of a broader struggle against all systems of domination, including–but not limited to–white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, and ableism.”
In 2015 AIA Executive Director Mal Kline documented some of the courses offered at Hampshire College.
Some of the upcoming Fall 2017 course offerings listed under the subject “Critical Social Inquiry” include:
• “White Supremacy and Appropriate Whiteness in the Age of Trump”
• “Critical Ethnic Studies: From Settler Colonialism to Trumpism”
• “Border Matters: Mexico and the United States”
• “Feminist, Queer, and Trans Theories of Race”
• “Feminism’s Sciences”
• “Autonomism, and Labor: Business Ethics for Radicals”
• “Black Girlhood Studies”
• “Queer Feelings: The Emotional and Affective Life of Gender, Sexuality, and Race”
A course titled, “A Philosophy of Tattoos and Tattoo Art” is listed under the subject of “Cognitive Science.”
Hampshire College’s course descriptions are available here.
Alex Nitzberg is a freelance conservative journalist and commentator and the host of “The Alex Nitzberg Show” podcast. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
