University of Michigan School of Public Policy Launching New ‘Center for Racial Justice’
“expand knowledge about the complex intersections between race and public policy”
Do you ever wonder where young people get such a warped sense of race in America today? Look no further than your local college campus.
The College Fix reports:
U. Michigan creates new ‘racial justice’ center to deal with ‘societal challenges’
The University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy will be launching a new Center for Racial Justice which, according to a university press release, will “expand knowledge about the complex intersections between race and public policy.”
It also will “create a community” of students and scholars who are engaged in social justice and racial equity work. Diversity and Social Transformation Professor Celeste Watkins-Hayes will be in charge of the new center.
According to her faculty page, Watkins-Hayes is an “internationally-recognized scholar and expert” whose research deals with the “intersection of inequality, public policy, and institutions, with a special focus on urban poverty and race, class, and gender studies.”
As usual with academy diversity matters, the language is flowery yet vacuous.
“At the Center for Racial Justice, we believe in the power of public policy to help address the societal challenges that we all face,” Watkins-Hayes says. “As we examine the fraught histories and consequences of some of our policies and the transformative power of others, we learn a valuable lesson: Effective and just public policy can only be achieved if we bring diverse perspectives to the table.”
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Comments
This theoretically academic institution is, by creating this center, engaging in pure politics. Yet they will be lauded for it.
Higher education is dead. Politics killed it.
I believe in a free marketplace for ideas and for research funding. For years, the Tabaco industry funded research to prove that there was no causal relationship between smoking and cancer. Ibram X. Kendi started a research program at American University, and did to attract significant funding. In 2020, he moved to Boston University and managed to land over $15 million in outside grants. If he wants to fund salaries of his research assistants and produce biased research papers, he has that right and other scholars are free to call him to account. The Boston University Board of Trustees must maintain the academic freedom so that both sides can be heard.
Now it is great that competing programs emerge to compete with Kendi for funding. I would be disappointed if Michigan taxpayers funded any of it.
Eventually, academia will learn that “the emperor has no clothes”. All the “big data” racial analysis will not show a causation between race and the various disparities in our society. For example, the fact that black graduates pay off student loans slower than white students does not mean that student loans are intentionally or inherently racist. Rather it means that a number of factors lead to the disparity.
The above quote, “Effective and just public policy can only be achieved if we bring diverse perspectives to the table.” means that both conservative, progressive, and all other views must be allowed at the table. We need not fear diverse perspectives — we need to fear the fuzzy thinking and polemic rhetoric of Ibram X. Kendi
I think these fools don’t understand what the word “complex” means.