Northern Arizona University Will Now Require Students to Take Four ‘Diversity’ Courses to Graduate
“one in each of the following categories: Global Diversity, U.S. Ethnic Diversity, Indigenous Peoples, and Intersectional Identities”
The featured image of this post used to be a joke, but it’s becoming reality. This school used to require two of these courses, and now they’re doubling the requirement.
From City Journal:
A Bachelor’s in Diversity
At Northern Arizona University, a course titled Intersectional Movements of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality promises to analyze “how intersectionality, and the matrix of inequality, have shaped the production of knowledge” and to provide “a critical lens through which intersectional epistemologies can be foregrounded.” Another, Introduction to Queer Studies, covers “queer theory and activism,” the “social and historical construction of gender and sexuality,” and the “role of allies and social change.” Trans Existence and Resilience, meantime, promises to “examine trans epistemologies as well as critiques of Eurocentric models of thinking about genders that explain peoples’ existence within Western frameworks and ontologies.”
Each of these courses counts toward one of NAU’s two “diversity requirements,” which students must satisfy to complete their degrees. Now, NAU plans to take the requirements even further, mandating that students take four of such courses—a policy that the university’s own diversity-curriculum committee describes as “unprecedented.”
These new requirements follow a concerted effort on NAU’s part to weave diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) “into the fabric of the institution.” In a forthcoming case study for the National Association of Scholars, I explore how Arizona’s universities teach American history and civics. The study shows that, increasingly, civic education is simply overshadowed by DEI initiatives, which often provide a gloss on American history and politics using the watchwords of identity politics: oppression, systemic injustice, and intersectionality. NAU provides the most striking example.
NAU’s new General Studies Program, approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in October 2021, requires students to take four Diversity Perspectives courses, one in each of the following categories: Global Diversity, U.S. Ethnic Diversity, Indigenous Peoples, and Intersectional Identities. Meeting notes for the university’s Diversity Curriculum Committee even acknowledge the boldness of this move. “The 12 credits of diversity requirements,” the notes maintain, “are unprecedented and puts [sic] NAU at the forefront of higher education.”
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Comments
Also, students will be asked, “Does anyone in your family have guns at home. If so, you will have to turn them in before you can graduate.”
NAU’s estimated tuition per year is $10,650. If that’s 10 courses a year, that’s about $1,000 per course. No way am I spending $4,000 on this crap. Time to transfer to a reasonable institution–if you can find one.
Requiring students to take these political ideology courses is clearly indoctrination. It’s time to get the legislature involved to stop this nonsense.
The AZ legislature will call for an audit of the vote to expand the DEI. They will then contract with fly by night auditors from out of state. 10 million dollars later they will include that some one did indeed vote to expand DEI.
Seriously, the American Chemical Society and various Professional Engineer Societies, prescribe the curriculum for certain majors. If you take up one semester’s worth of electives with DEI-related courses, there is little room for other electives, such as foreign languages, history, and various social sciences. The article did not state how many credit hours each course is worth. I suppose if it is one credit hour fluff course, it can be worked in without overall harm to the student’s education.
There are a number of schools now that offer a DEI major. Does anyone have research showing how DEI majors fare in the job market?
In my happy dreams, they spend their lives from 30-70 as unemployable as phrenologists.
My Alma Mater has sure fallen by the wayside. When I was there Liberal Professors were in residence but I don’t recall one instance of their politics intruding into the classroom but I may have been lucky receiving a degree in a hard science.
The story is a little garbled. Do all students need 4 of these nonsense courses or just the ones in the General Studies Degree?
I should clarify. There were many lively debates about various topics but by intrude into the classroom I mean impact someone’s grade. Being mid-20’s and a Veteran I was on the right side of many arguments often against the professor and several students but my grades were never impacted. One teacher who vehemently disagreed with my stances on various things still gave me an A in her class and a few after that.
Speaking of, and as, a veteran: will the school allow credit for the indoctrination courses that are now compulsory in the military?