Student Government at University of Maryland Wants an ‘Intersectionality’ Requirement
“in order for there to be, not just a more all encompassing, but also more accurate understanding of the forms of oppression and how they’re intertwined”
Progressive ideas are so popular they have to be required.
The College Fix reports:
U. Maryland student government wants an ‘intersectionality’ requirement
The University of Maryland Student Government Association recently passed a couple of amendments to legislation which would add an “intersectionality” component to the UMD “diversity general education requirement.”
Any official changes ultimately would have to be approved by the UMD University Senate.
As defined by Google, “intersectionality” is “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.”
According to The Diamondback, the SGA’s Mariam Khan said the intersectionality component is needed at UMD “in order for there to be, not just a more all encompassing, but also more accurate understanding of the forms of oppression and how they’re intertwined.”
However, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies Cynthia Kay Stevens told the SGA if the component was a mandate instead of an “urging,” it might not get past the University Senate. This did not sit well with Khan and other SGA members.
Khan, a junior Spanish major, said she felt that intersectionality being a point of dissent among faculty was concerning. …
[…] Khan was not alone, as several other SGA members pitched in to help refine the drafts. Nicholas Marks, the education representative, helped Khan polish the wording of the amendments.
“I wanted to take an active part in its passing,” the freshman government and politics and secondary education major said. “There comes a point when you’re dealing with the legislative process, every bill has to be refined, and so much of what SGA does is refining bills and making sure they’re as good as possible.”
The bill with the additional amendments was passed unanimously.
Marks said that the opposition among faculty to the inclusion of teaching intersectionality was a reflection of the times. He also said he noticed older individuals tend to oppose it, most likely to do with a lack of understanding.
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Comments
The requirement to study intersectionality is a form of woke oppression.
I really believe that if properly presented, “diversity and inclusion” can be a positive subject presented in a positive light. (I am assuming that “diversity” includes “viewpoint diversity.”) We want our colleges to have a diverse student body where are viewpoints can be heard and where the students come from many different backgrounds. Once the students are on campus, everyone should reach out to each other and treat their fellow students with respect and generosity. Instead, we get very negative and shrill “woke” bullying.
In contrast, I cannot find a way to teach or apply “intersectionality” in a positive way. It started as a legal theory on how to create a remedy after a persons has been adjudicated to engage in illegal discrimination. In effect, it gives out “points” if a particular victim is a member of multiple disadvantaged minority groups. Since the University of Maryland has not be adjudicated to have engaged in illegal discrimination, intersectionality is not relevant to it. It is a means for giving more to people who are a member of multiple groups, and taking away from peole who are a member of just one disadvantaged group or of a group that is not “defined” to be disadvantaged. It is a very negative concept.
Sounds great, but I was struck by your parenthetical, “(I am assuming that “diversity” includes “viewpoint diversity.”). On what are you basing that assumption? The last thing the left permits is viewpoint diversity; indeed, their entire purpose is to ensure that there is none.
When the left advocates for and accepts viewpoint diversity, we can all talk. Until then, they are the enemy of the people, of America, and of our entire culture and society.
“the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.”
No surprise that the progressive Left wants to impose “intersectionality” instruction to legitimate the idea. It is what allows all claimed victims to hang their complaints around the necks of Blacks who have some righteous grievances from failed Reconstruction, embedded Jim Crow-ism (particularly in the South which only recently got rid of the damnable Confederate battle flag and statues of Civil War idols like Nathan Bedford Forrest),
Always amazes me that Black activists stand for it. They get pushed to the back of the bus, this time by anarchists, socialists, trans folks, Sandernistas, Ilhan Omars, Rashida Tlieb, etc. They haven’t asked me but if they did, I’d tell them to separate from that other crowd. I suspect the non-vocal Black people in America would agree.