Leroy N. Soetoro
2016-12-29 09:14:33 UTC
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/12/28/a-professor-
wants-to-teach-the-problems-of-whiteness-a-lawmaker-calls-the-class-
garbage/?tid=pm_local_pop&utm_term=.36ca9e04775f
Every Wednesday next semester, the students in Damon Sajnanis class will
meet to discuss, in depth, The Problem of Whiteness.
But the title of the course and its description has the University of
Wisconsin at Madison mired in controversy before students have cracked
open a book or peeked at a syllabus.
Have you ever wondered what it really means to be white? If youre like
most people, the answer is probably no. But here is your chance! the
description reads.
Critical Whiteness Studies aims to understand how whiteness is socially
constructed and experienced in order to help dismantle white supremacy.
The course explores how race is experienced by white people. But it also
looks at how white people consciously and unconsciously perpetuate
institutional racism.
The class has injected the university into a decades-old debate about
whether taxpayer-funded educational institutions have an obligation to
tackle the important issues of the day or to stay out of them
altogether.
The class is taught in the African Cultural Studies Department of a
university where 2 percent of the student population identifies as black
and more than 75 percent are white.
The most vocal opponent of the course is David Murphy, a Wisconsin state
assemblyman who expressed outrage last week that taxpayers are expected
to pay for this garbage.
The legislator, who chairs the assemblys committee on colleges and
universities, took issue with what he calls the underlying premise of the
class: that white people are racist.
His criticism comes with a not-so-veiled threat: UW-Madison must
discontinue this class. If UW-Madison stands with this professor, I dont
know how the University can expect the taxpayers to stand with UW-
Madison.
In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, Murphy (R) said the
decision to approve the class makes him question the judgment of
university leaders.
I support academic freedom and free speech, he said. Free speech also
means the public has the right to be critical of their public university.
The universitys handling of controversies like this appears to the public
as a lack of balance in intellectual openness and diversity of political
thought on campus.
Gov. Scott Walker (R) told the Wisconsin State Journal that he didnt
agree with Murphys call to withhold funding from the university if it
doesnt drop the class.
View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
Follow
Nico Savidge ? @NSavidge
***@GovWalker says he doesn't support calls for UW-Madison to drop "Problem
of Whiteness course" or lose funding
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-
budget-will-include-more-money-for-schools-sales/article_bc322c25-84f9-
5135-a923-08e4167cdf1c.html
11:27 AM - 21 Dec 2016
23 23 Retweets 13 13 likes
I could certainly as a citizen or as a father who pays part of my kids
tuition roll my eyes and raise concerns about some of the classes, Walker
told the newspaper. But our focus in the budget should be on overall
performance and not individual classes.
Murphy takes issue not just with the class, but with Sajnanis vocal
public opinions. Even more troubling, the course is taught by a self-
described international radical professor whose views are a slap in the
face to the taxpayers.
Murphy included copies of some of Sajnanis tweets in his news release.
One tweet is a picture of a CNN breaking news report about police officers
being shot in Dallas. Is the uprising finally starting? Sajnani said.
Is this style of protest gonna go viral?
Another, from a few weeks later, is in response to former U.S. attorney
general Eric Holder: No @EricHolder it is not true that an attack on a
police officer anywhere is an attack on all of us, since they DO NOT
equally protect us all.
Sajnani didnt immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday. He
received a PhD from Northwestern Universitys African American studies
Department, according to a University of Wisconsin spokesman. He has
published papers on Rachel Dolezal, a former president of the NAACP
chapter in Spokane, Wash., who was outed as not being black. He also has
written about West African hip-hop and Canadian abolition.
In a statement, the university defended the course and stressed that it
was elective, not required, and that it was not designed to offend
individuals or single out an ethnic group.
We believe this course, which is one of thousands offered at our
university, will benefit students who are interested in developing a
deeper understanding of race issues, the universitys statement said.
The course is a challenge and response to racism of all kinds.
Greg Bump, a spokesman for the university, told The Washington Post that
he didnt know of any criticism that had come from students.
Several organizations have criticized the class or called for tighter
restrictions, including Breitbart, a conservative news site.
The Young Americas Foundation posts a list of a dozen college courses
that it calls the most bizarre and concerning instances of leftist
activism supplanting traditional scholarship in our nations colleges and
universities. The Wisconsin course is not on that list.
Every semester, universities make similar decisions about controversial
courses. Among them: Queering God: Feminist and Queer Theology, a
Swarthmore College course that examines feminist and queer writings about
God. Theres also Bowdoin Colleges Transgender Latina Immigration:
Politics of Belonging and Labor in the United States, which focuses on
the social conditions of transgender Latinas.
And a new website called Professor Watchlist lists the names of
academics a conservative group says advance leftist propaganda or
discriminate against conservative students.
Sajnanis name isnt on the site, but UW-Madison has a history of wading
into racial controversies that goes back decades.
Earlier this year, hundreds of people protested at Bascom Hill after a
black student was arrested for spray-painting anti-racist messages on
campus, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. At the protest, students
taped a list of demands to a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
And in 1964, UW-Madison student Andrew Goodman was one of three activists
killed by the Ku Klux Klan while registering black people to vote near
Philadelphia, Miss.
--
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party has run out of gas.
ObamaCare is a total 100% failure and no lie that can be put forth by its
supporters can dispute that.
Obama jobs, the result of ObamaCare. 12-15 working hours a week at minimum
wage, no benefits and the primary revenue stream for ObamaCare. It can't
be funded with money people don't have, yet liberals lie about how great
it is.
His Omnipotence Barack Hussein Obama, declared himself "Pooptator" of all
mentally ill homosexuals and crossdressers, while declaring where they
will defecate.
Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he has been in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
Loretta Fuddy, killed after she "verified" Obama's phony birth
certificate.
wants-to-teach-the-problems-of-whiteness-a-lawmaker-calls-the-class-
garbage/?tid=pm_local_pop&utm_term=.36ca9e04775f
Every Wednesday next semester, the students in Damon Sajnanis class will
meet to discuss, in depth, The Problem of Whiteness.
But the title of the course and its description has the University of
Wisconsin at Madison mired in controversy before students have cracked
open a book or peeked at a syllabus.
Have you ever wondered what it really means to be white? If youre like
most people, the answer is probably no. But here is your chance! the
description reads.
Critical Whiteness Studies aims to understand how whiteness is socially
constructed and experienced in order to help dismantle white supremacy.
The course explores how race is experienced by white people. But it also
looks at how white people consciously and unconsciously perpetuate
institutional racism.
The class has injected the university into a decades-old debate about
whether taxpayer-funded educational institutions have an obligation to
tackle the important issues of the day or to stay out of them
altogether.
The class is taught in the African Cultural Studies Department of a
university where 2 percent of the student population identifies as black
and more than 75 percent are white.
The most vocal opponent of the course is David Murphy, a Wisconsin state
assemblyman who expressed outrage last week that taxpayers are expected
to pay for this garbage.
The legislator, who chairs the assemblys committee on colleges and
universities, took issue with what he calls the underlying premise of the
class: that white people are racist.
His criticism comes with a not-so-veiled threat: UW-Madison must
discontinue this class. If UW-Madison stands with this professor, I dont
know how the University can expect the taxpayers to stand with UW-
Madison.
In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, Murphy (R) said the
decision to approve the class makes him question the judgment of
university leaders.
I support academic freedom and free speech, he said. Free speech also
means the public has the right to be critical of their public university.
The universitys handling of controversies like this appears to the public
as a lack of balance in intellectual openness and diversity of political
thought on campus.
Gov. Scott Walker (R) told the Wisconsin State Journal that he didnt
agree with Murphys call to withhold funding from the university if it
doesnt drop the class.
View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
Follow
Nico Savidge ? @NSavidge
***@GovWalker says he doesn't support calls for UW-Madison to drop "Problem
of Whiteness course" or lose funding
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-
budget-will-include-more-money-for-schools-sales/article_bc322c25-84f9-
5135-a923-08e4167cdf1c.html
11:27 AM - 21 Dec 2016
23 23 Retweets 13 13 likes
I could certainly as a citizen or as a father who pays part of my kids
tuition roll my eyes and raise concerns about some of the classes, Walker
told the newspaper. But our focus in the budget should be on overall
performance and not individual classes.
Murphy takes issue not just with the class, but with Sajnanis vocal
public opinions. Even more troubling, the course is taught by a self-
described international radical professor whose views are a slap in the
face to the taxpayers.
Murphy included copies of some of Sajnanis tweets in his news release.
One tweet is a picture of a CNN breaking news report about police officers
being shot in Dallas. Is the uprising finally starting? Sajnani said.
Is this style of protest gonna go viral?
Another, from a few weeks later, is in response to former U.S. attorney
general Eric Holder: No @EricHolder it is not true that an attack on a
police officer anywhere is an attack on all of us, since they DO NOT
equally protect us all.
Sajnani didnt immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday. He
received a PhD from Northwestern Universitys African American studies
Department, according to a University of Wisconsin spokesman. He has
published papers on Rachel Dolezal, a former president of the NAACP
chapter in Spokane, Wash., who was outed as not being black. He also has
written about West African hip-hop and Canadian abolition.
In a statement, the university defended the course and stressed that it
was elective, not required, and that it was not designed to offend
individuals or single out an ethnic group.
We believe this course, which is one of thousands offered at our
university, will benefit students who are interested in developing a
deeper understanding of race issues, the universitys statement said.
The course is a challenge and response to racism of all kinds.
Greg Bump, a spokesman for the university, told The Washington Post that
he didnt know of any criticism that had come from students.
Several organizations have criticized the class or called for tighter
restrictions, including Breitbart, a conservative news site.
The Young Americas Foundation posts a list of a dozen college courses
that it calls the most bizarre and concerning instances of leftist
activism supplanting traditional scholarship in our nations colleges and
universities. The Wisconsin course is not on that list.
Every semester, universities make similar decisions about controversial
courses. Among them: Queering God: Feminist and Queer Theology, a
Swarthmore College course that examines feminist and queer writings about
God. Theres also Bowdoin Colleges Transgender Latina Immigration:
Politics of Belonging and Labor in the United States, which focuses on
the social conditions of transgender Latinas.
And a new website called Professor Watchlist lists the names of
academics a conservative group says advance leftist propaganda or
discriminate against conservative students.
Sajnanis name isnt on the site, but UW-Madison has a history of wading
into racial controversies that goes back decades.
Earlier this year, hundreds of people protested at Bascom Hill after a
black student was arrested for spray-painting anti-racist messages on
campus, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. At the protest, students
taped a list of demands to a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
And in 1964, UW-Madison student Andrew Goodman was one of three activists
killed by the Ku Klux Klan while registering black people to vote near
Philadelphia, Miss.
--
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party has run out of gas.
ObamaCare is a total 100% failure and no lie that can be put forth by its
supporters can dispute that.
Obama jobs, the result of ObamaCare. 12-15 working hours a week at minimum
wage, no benefits and the primary revenue stream for ObamaCare. It can't
be funded with money people don't have, yet liberals lie about how great
it is.
His Omnipotence Barack Hussein Obama, declared himself "Pooptator" of all
mentally ill homosexuals and crossdressers, while declaring where they
will defecate.
Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he has been in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
Loretta Fuddy, killed after she "verified" Obama's phony birth
certificate.