Something interesting is happening. Abolition of whiteness courses not long ago were all the rage and looked like they would become as venerable academically as women’s studies.
Now, progressive colleges are dropping them. Toni Airaksenen at Campus Reform has been covering the trend from both ends. In a recent dispatch, she pointed out that Hunter College shed its AOW offering.
Now, she indicates, Grinnell and Ohio State University are joining the retreat. “The course, “American Whiteness” was taught for three years at Grinnell College by Professor Karla Erickson, a self-described feminist ethnographer, as Campus Reform initially reported in August 2017,” she writes. “Following Campus Reform’s report, numerous outlets covered the class, including Truth Revolt, Legal Insurrection, The Daily Caller, Accuracy in Academia, and others.” We did indeed.
Nevertheless, “The class was offered in 2015, 2016, and 2017, but a Campus Reform follow-up on the course discovered that it is no longer being offered during the upcoming academic year,” Airaksinen writes. “Campus Reform reached out to Erikson and Grinnell College to ask why the course is no longer offered, but did not receive a response despite multiple requests.”
Similarly, “Ohio State University has also scrapped a similar class, Campus Reform learned this week,” Airaksinen reports. “That class, ‘Crossing Identity Boundaries,’ sought to guide students through discussions on privilege and oppression, posing questions such as ‘Why are guys always expected to pay on a date?'”
