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FIRE - The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence
halls to a program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the
university's own materials as a "treatment" for students' incorrect
attitudes and beliefs. The Orwellian program requires the approximately
7,000 students in Delaware's residence halls to adopt highly specific
university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race,
sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is calling for the
total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of
students' rights to freedom of conscience and freedom from compelled
speech.
The university's views are forced on students through a comprehensive
manipulation of the residence hall environment, from mandatory training
sessions to "sustainability" door decorations. Students living in the
university's eight housing complexes are required to attend training
sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their Resident
Assistants. The RAs who run these meetings have received their own
intensive training from the university, including a "diversity
facilitation training" session at which RAs were taught, among other
things, that "[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on
the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term
applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in
the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or
sexuality."
The university suggests that at one-on-one sessions with students, RAs
should ask intrusive personal questions such as "When did you discover
your sexual identity?" Students who express discomfort with this type of
questioning often meet with disapproval from their RAs, who write
reports on these one-on-one sessions and deliver these reports to their
superiors. One student identified in a write-up as an RA's "worst"
one-on-one session was a young woman who stated that she was tired of
having "diversity shoved down her throat."
According to the program's materials, the goal of the residence life
education program is for students in the university's residence halls to
achieve certain "competencies" that the university has decreed its
students must develop in order to achieve the overall educational goal
of "citizenship." These competencies include: "Students will recognize
that systemic oppression exists in our society," "Students will
recognize the benefits of dismantling systems of oppression," and
"Students will be able to utilize their knowledge of sustainability to
change their daily habits and consumer mentality."
At various points in the program, students are also pressured or even
required to take actions that outwardly indicate their agreement with
the university's ideology, regardless of their personal beliefs. Such
actions include displaying specific door decorations, committing to
reduce their ecological footprint by at least 20%, taking action by
advocating for an "oppressed" social group, and taking action by
advocating for a "sustainable world."
In a letter sent yesterday to University of Delaware President Patrick
Harker, FIRE pointed out the stark contradiction between the residence
life education program and the values of a free society. FIRE's letter
to President Harker also underscored the University of Delaware's legal
obligation to abide by the First Amendment. FIRE reminded Harker of the
Supreme Court's decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v.
Barnette, a case decided during World War II that remains the law of the
land. Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the Court, declared, "If
there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that
no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in
politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force
citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
"The fact that the university views its students as patients in need of
treatment for some sort of moral sickness betrays a total lack of
respect not only for students' basic rights, but for students
themselves," Lukianoff said.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thefirecache/8555.html?PHPSESSID=
de4a52a600d045acb9b6ab5daf011fd9
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FIRE - The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence
halls to a program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the
university's own materials as a "treatment" for students' incorrect
attitudes and beliefs. The Orwellian program requires the approximately
7,000 students in Delaware's residence halls to adopt highly specific
university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race,
sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is calling for the
total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of
students' rights to freedom of conscience and freedom from compelled
speech.
The university's views are forced on students through a comprehensive
manipulation of the residence hall environment, from mandatory training
sessions to "sustainability" door decorations. Students living in the
university's eight housing complexes are required to attend training
sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their Resident
Assistants. The RAs who run these meetings have received their own
intensive training from the university, including a "diversity
facilitation training" session at which RAs were taught, among other
things, that "[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on
the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term
applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in
the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or
sexuality."
The university suggests that at one-on-one sessions with students, RAs
should ask intrusive personal questions such as "When did you discover
your sexual identity?" Students who express discomfort with this type of
questioning often meet with disapproval from their RAs, who write
reports on these one-on-one sessions and deliver these reports to their
superiors. One student identified in a write-up as an RA's "worst"
one-on-one session was a young woman who stated that she was tired of
having "diversity shoved down her throat."
According to the program's materials, the goal of the residence life
education program is for students in the university's residence halls to
achieve certain "competencies" that the university has decreed its
students must develop in order to achieve the overall educational goal
of "citizenship." These competencies include: "Students will recognize
that systemic oppression exists in our society," "Students will
recognize the benefits of dismantling systems of oppression," and
"Students will be able to utilize their knowledge of sustainability to
change their daily habits and consumer mentality."
At various points in the program, students are also pressured or even
required to take actions that outwardly indicate their agreement with
the university's ideology, regardless of their personal beliefs. Such
actions include displaying specific door decorations, committing to
reduce their ecological footprint by at least 20%, taking action by
advocating for an "oppressed" social group, and taking action by
advocating for a "sustainable world."
In a letter sent yesterday to University of Delaware President Patrick
Harker, FIRE pointed out the stark contradiction between the residence
life education program and the values of a free society. FIRE's letter
to President Harker also underscored the University of Delaware's legal
obligation to abide by the First Amendment. FIRE reminded Harker of the
Supreme Court's decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v.
Barnette, a case decided during World War II that remains the law of the
land. Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the Court, declared, "If
there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that
no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in
politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force
citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
"The fact that the university views its students as patients in need of
treatment for some sort of moral sickness betrays a total lack of
respect not only for students' basic rights, but for students
themselves," Lukianoff said.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thefirecache/8555.html?PHPSESSID=
de4a52a600d045acb9b6ab5daf011fd9
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