Social Justice Education in America by David Randall | Report

Preface & Acknowledgements

Some years ago, in a conversation with the entrepreneur Arthur Rupe, I proposed that he fund a study of the social justice movement on campus. Because it was a conversation and something of a spur-of-the-moment idea, I didn’t have a plan as to how exactly the National Association of Scholars would go about this study. But Mr. Rupe liked the idea and decided on the spot to fund it.

What lay ahead was a larger challenge than I had imagined. It was as if I had committed to clearing a hundred acres of forest equipped only with a jackknife.

“Social justice” was everywhere in higher education. It was the slogan of student activists, the raison d’etre of many academic programs, the research focus of scholars in many fields, part of the formal mission statements of many colleges, and a phrase that rolled off the tongues of sophomores as the smug answer to virtually any question about public policy. Looking for a definition of the term that fit its ten thousand applications proved futile. “Social justice” may have meant particular things to particular people, but in general it signified only an emotional disposition. The term enunciated a sensibility something like this:

I dislike the United States and American culture. American society treats people unfairly. American culture elevates the wealthy and the privileged over everybody else. It is oppressive. I’m oppressed. I want to change everything. I especially want to change things in the direction of redistributing wealth and privilege. Those should be taken away from the people I don’t like and given to me and the people I do like. The key to making this happen is to raise awareness among those who are oppressed and who don’t necessarily know they are oppressed. Calling for social justice is a way of bringing people together to overthrow the systemic injustices all around us.

This, as I said, is a sensibility, not a definition, but it is a sensibility that can be made to fit with any number of ideological programs. Those who seek to end “gender oppression” find it suits them. Those who seek reparations for slavery and an end to racism find that it suits them as well. Those who fight for open borders, the end of a carbon-based economy, the elimination of meat, the normalization of transgender identity, the end of “broken-windows policing,” the dismantling of the “prison industrial complex,” and the eradication of “Islamophobia” find themselves conforming to this sensibility as well.

The shared sensibility makes it seem to the adherents of these disparate causes that they have more in common than the causes themselves would suggest. Under the banner of “social justice,” they are all fighting what looks like the same enemy. They are the fusion party of all those who are alienated from the traditional American republic. The phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” sounds like a bitter lie to the adherents of the social justice alliance. “One nation?” No, we are two nations: one for the super-rich and one for the people the rich exploit. “Liberty?” No, we live in fear of men/cops/corporations/fossil fuels/white nationalists, etc. “Justice for all?” Ha, so-called “justice” is privileged people taking care of each other, while ordinary people are kicked to the curb.

It takes very little time on a college campus to discover ideas and attitudes like this in wide circulation. Perhaps only a vocal minority of students and faculty members adhere openly and forcefully to this worldview, but nearly everyone has heard it expressed. Students hear it from one another as well as from their more progressive teachers. More than that, it has settled on campuses as a general atmosphere. When someone says “social justice,” he need not spell out the underlying propositions. The ideas and the temperament are taken for granted. By contrast, any critique of the social justice ideology will be familiar to hardly any students and very few faculty members

Usage of “Social Justice” from 1800 to 2008¹

It is not that such critiques are scarce. The Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek wrote one of the most famous critiques, The Mirage of Social Justice (1976). Hayek is often quoted explaining that “Justice is an attribute of individual action. I can be just or unjust toward my fellow man.” But, according to Hayek, “social justice” is a “meaningless conception.” American libertarians and free market economists have built a library full of Hayek-inspired debunkings of social justice claims. Such efforts have not gone unanswered. The high-end of social justice philosophizing includes rebuttals of Hayek and other efforts to rescue the concept from the triviality. A Swiss Catholic writer, Father Martin Rhonheimer, for example, argues:

Hayek’s dismissal of the concept of ‘social justice’ is well-known. While we can basically agree with Hayek’s critique, we should not entirely reject this concept, although it is often used in a vague and emotional way—‘social justice talk.’ Drawing on the tradition of classical liberalism and Catholic social teaching, the true meaning of social justice applies to the basic legal and institutional framework of a society rather than the distributional outcomes of market processes. Therefore, while confirming Hayek’s main points, I will try to show that the concept of ‘social justice’ need not be entirely rejected or even relegated to the category of ‘nonsense,’ as Hayek claims.²

These intellectual debates may be important in their own right, but they are not the subject of this NAS study. Rather, we have set out to capture the pervasiveness of “social justice” rhetoric and its embedded concept in contemporary American higher education. That it took us the better part of a decade to accomplish this testifies to the vast, disorganized mass of material we had to digest. Between our first efforts to start clearing those acres of forest with our jackknife and the publication of this report, we began and completed more than twenty other studies, some of them hundreds of pages long. Many of those studies—including What Does Bowdoin Teach? (2013), Sustainability (2015), Inside Divestment (2015), Making Citizens (2017), and Neo-Segregation at Yale (2019)—deal with “social justice” on campus as a prominent theme.

But finding a path that would allow us to present a portrait of the campus social justice movement as a whole proved difficult indeed. I am grateful to the author of this study, David Randall, who stepped in after many others had sunk in the quicksand. He found his footing with the subject by putting aside the long historical background to the concept and providing what we anthropologists call a “synchronic” account, i.e., a portrait of a culture as it exists within one long moment. This report offers a detailed account of “social justice” as it is on campus today, never mind what it looked like in the 1960s, the 1990s, or the day before yesterday.

To digest the material, David broke it into functional categories, such as the curriculum, mission statements, and accreditation. And to achieve reasonable compression he focused on a limited number of representative colleges and universities. These steps make the report readable—readable at least to those who can bear a surfeit of absurdities piled on mountains of head-shaking folly, rising from dismal plains of ignorance. David to his credit has written the report in the spirit of scrupulously factual ethnography. My characterization of what he reports on is mine alone. The reader who comes to the report as an enthusiast for the social justice cause may read it as a progress report and take satisfaction in how far that cause has advanced. Skeptics such as I, however, will see here a picture of American higher education deep in cultural and intellectual decline.

I can accept that there may be a useful way to define “social justice” as a way to distinguish between the injustices that individuals inflict on one another and the injustices carried out by groups against other groups. The dismantling of the core curriculum in the name of multiculturalism, for example, might count as an act of “social injustice.” That dismantling deprives whole generations of students from receiving the benefits of a cogent education founded on good principles. It was carried out not so much by individuals as by a class of faculty members and administrators in conjunction with activist students who collectively sought such an outcome. They aimed to marginalize from the curriculum the American Founding, the concept of Western Civilization, and an approach to learning that emphasized a shared intellectual and cultural heritage.

Harms inflicted on whole categories of people by organized movements count, I think, as instances of social injustice, and under that rubric, I would place slavery, genocide, abortion, and a perhaps quite a few other ways we have of subjecting the innocent to abuses of power.

This is to say that I am not a Hayekian who dismisses social justice as a “meaningless conception.” But American higher education these days seems to be working hard to prove Hayek right by using the label promiscuously.

I trust that the NAS report will serve as gentle pressure on the public to think twice before adopting this fashionable term. When you say “social justice” do you mean what you say? Would the word “justice” plain and simple serve you better? Do you really wish to put yourself in the company of those who deploy this term as short-hand for their generalized alienation from the rule of law and the enjoyment of liberty among their fellow citizens?

These are the questions implicit in the report. I’m grateful for the opportunity at long last to present them to the public and to Arthur Rupe, who, at age 102, has waited patiently for the results of this inquiry.

I’d also like to thank several anonymous donors for their support, as well as the readers of early drafts of the report. These readers include Robert Maranto, Keith Whitaker, and Mark Bauerlein: they greatly improved this report, though none of its faults are theirs.

Peter W. Wood
President

National Association of Scholars

Precis

In the last twenty years a body of “social justice educators” has come to power in American higher education. These professors and administrators are transforming higher education into advocacy for progressive politics. They also work to reserve higher education jobs for social justice advocates, and to train more social justice advocates for careers in nonprofit organizations, K–12 education, and social work. Social Justice Education in America draws upon a close examination of 60 colleges and universities to show how social justice educators have taken over higher education. The report includes recommendations on how to prevent colleges and universities from substituting activism for learning.

Executive Summary

American universities have drifted from the political center for fifty years and more. By now scarcely any conservatives or moderates remain, and most of them are approaching retirement. The radical establishment triumphed on campus a generation ago. What they have created since is an even more disturbing successor to the progressive academy of the 1990s. In the last twenty years, a generation of academics and administrators has emerged that is no longer satisfied with using the forms of traditional scholarship to teach progressive thought. This new generation seeks to transform higher education itself into an engine of progressive political advocacy, subjecting students to courses that are nothing more than practical training in progressive activism. This new generation bases its teaching and research on the ideology of social justice.

The concept of social justice originated in nineteenth-century Catholic thought, but it has become secular and progressive in twenty-first-century America. Justice traditionally judges freely chosen individual acts, but social justice judges how far the distribution of economic and social benefits among social groups departs from how they “ought” to be distributed. Practically, social justice also justifies the exercise of the state’s coercive power to distribute “fairly” goods that include education, employment, housing, income, health care, leisure, a pleasant environment, political power, property, social recognition, and wealth.

What we may call radical social justice theory, which dominates higher education, adds to broader social justice theory the belief that society is divided into social identity groups defined by categories such as class, race, and gender; that any “unfair distribution” of goods among these groups is oppression; and that oppression can only—and must—be removed by a coalition of “marginalized” identity groups working to radically transform politics, society, and culture to eliminate privilege.

A rough, incomplete catalogue of the social justice movement’s political goals includes increased federal and state taxation; increased minimum wage; increased environmental regulation; increased government health care spending and regulation; restrictions on free speech; restrictions on due process protections; maximizing the number of legislative districts that will elect racial minorities; support for the Black Lives Matter movement; mass release of criminals from prison; decriminalizing drugs; ending enforcement of our immigration laws; amnesty for illegal aliens; open borders; race and sex preferences in education and employment; persecution of conscientious objectors to homosexuality; advocacy for “transgender rights”; support for the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement; avowal of a right to abortion; and mob violence to enforce the social justice policy agenda.

Social justice advocates’ emphasis on words such as justice, equity, rights, and impact all register social justice’s fundamental goal of acquiring governmental power. Social justice advocates tend to dedicate any activity in which they engage to the effort to achieve the political ends of social justice. Activism is the exemplary means to forward social justice. This word signifies the collective exertion of influence via social justice nonprofit organizations. Activism may take the form of organization-building (staff work, fundraising, membership recruitment), publicity, lobbying, and actions by responsible officials in pursuit of social justice. It may also take the form of “protest”—assembling large numbers of people on the streets to “persuade” responsible officials into executing the preferred policies of social justice advocates. Social justice activism formally eschews violence, but far too many social justice advocates are willing to engage in all “necessary” violence.

Social justice activists in the university are subordinating higher education toward the goal of achieving social justice. Social justice education takes the entire set of social justice beliefs as the predicate for education, in every discipline from accounting to zoology. Social justice education rejects the idea that classes should aim at teaching a subject matter for its own sake, or seek to foster students’ ability to think, judge, and write as independent goods. Social justice education instead aims directly at creating effective social justice activists, ideally engaged during class in such activism. Social justice education transforms the very definitions of academic disciplines—first to permit the substitution of social justice activism for intellectual endeavor, and then to require it.

Social justice educators define education as the practice of social justice activism. Experiential learning, which is vocational training in social justice activism, is the heart of social justice education. Other prominent elements include action learning, action research, action science, advocacy-oriented research, classroom action research, collaborative inquiry, community research, critical action research, emancipatory research, participatory action research, and social justice research.

Most colleges and universities today operate under tight fiscal constraints, which lead to dwindling numbers of tenure-track faculty jobs and allow expanding numbers of administrative jobs. These constraints shape the means by which social justice educators extend their influence. They focus on four broad strategic initiatives: 1) the alteration of university and department mission statements; 2) the seizure of internal graduation requirements; 3) the capture of disciplines or creation of pseudo-disciplines; and 4) the capture of the university administration.

Social justice advocates’ first goal is to incorporate social justice, or related words, into college and university mission statements. This social justice vocabulary sometimes serves as hollow words to fob off social justice advocates. Yet it also works as a promissory note for more detailed changes to impose social justice education. A social justice mission statement generally indicates that a higher education institute no longer really aims to educate students. It really aims at social justice activism, and it will only provide education that doesn’t conflict with social justice ideology. The ideal of social justice does not complement the ideal of education. The ideal of social justice replaces the ideal of education.

The ideal of social justice does not complement the ideal of education. The ideal of social justice replaces the ideal of education.

Social justice advocates’ most important curricular tactic within higher education is to insert one or more social justice requirements into the general education requirements. They give these requirements different names, including Diversity, Experiential Learning, Sustainability, Global Studies, and, forthrightly, Social Justice. This tactic forces all college students to take at least one social justice course, and thereby maximizes the effect of social justice propaganda. The common practice of double counting a social justice requirement so that it also satisfies another requirement powerfully reinforces the effect of social justice requirements. These requirements also effectively reserve a large number of teaching jobs and tenure-track lines for social justice educators. No one but a social justice advocate, after all, is really qualified to teach a course in social justice advocacy. The direct financial burden of social justice general education requirements is at least $10 billion a year nationwide, and rising fast.

The direct financial burden of social justice general education requirements is at least $10 billion a year nationwide, and rising fast.

Social justice advocates also have taken over or created a substantial portion of the academic departments in our universities. The departments most likely to advertise their commitment to social justice are those most central to the social justice educators’ ideological vision, political goals, and ambition for employment. The heaviest concentrations of social justice departments are the Identity Group Studies, Gender Studies, Peace Studies, and Sustainability Studies pseudo-disciplines; the career track departments of Education, Social Work, and Criminology; and the departments dedicated to activism such as Civic Engagement, Leadership, and Social Justice. Social justice takes over departments by incorporating social justice into their mission statements, inserting departmental requirements for social justice education, and dedicating as many elective courses as possible to social justice education. When social justice educators control departments entirely, they rapidly shift the definition of that discipline so that it requires social justice education. These changes make it practically impossible to study that discipline without embracing social justice.

Social justice departments denominate their vocational training in activism as experiential learning—or related terms such as civic engagement, community engagement, fieldwork, internships, practica, and service-learning. Service-learning usually refers to relatively unpoliticized experiential learning, which habituates students to the basic forms and techniques of activism, while civic engagement usually refers to more avowedly political social justice activism. The term experiential learning disguises what is essentially vocational training in progressive activism by pretending that it is no different from an internship with an engineering firm. Many supposedly academic social justice courses also focus on readying students for experiential learning courses—and for a further career in social justice activism. Experiential learning courses are what particularly distinguishes social justice education from its progressive forebears. Experiential learning courses, dedicated outright to progressive activism, drop all pretense that teachers and students are engaged in the search for knowledge. Experiential learning is both a camouflaging euphemism and a marker of social justice education.

While social justice education has made great strides among university professors, its dizziest success has been its takeover of the university administration. Higher education administration is now even more liberal than the professoriate. The training of higher education administrators, especially within the labyrinth of “co-curricular” bureaucracies, increasingly makes commitment to social justice an explicit or an implicit requirement. These administrators insert themselves into all aspects of student life, both outside and inside the classroom. Overwhelmingly, they exercise their power to promote social justice. Social justice administrators catechize students in social justice propaganda; select social justice advocates as outside speakers; funnel students to off-campus social justice organizations that benefit from free student labor; and provide jobs and money for social justice cadres among the student body. The formation of social justice bureaucracies also serves as an administrative stepping stone to the creation of social justice departments. Perhaps most importantly, university administration provides a career for students specializing in social justice advocacy.

Higher education’s administrative bloat has facilitated the growth of social justice bureaucracies—among them, Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs; Title IX coordinators; Offices of First-Year Experience and Community Engagement; Offices of Student Life and Residential Life; Offices of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement; Offices of Equity and Inclusion; Offices of Sustainability and Social Justice; and miscellaneous institutes and centers. These bureaucracies focus on co-curricular activities, which consist largely of social justice activities such as Intersectionality Workshops and Social Justice Weekend Retreats. Social justice administrators aim to subordinate the curriculum to the co-curriculum, as the practical way to subordinate the pursuit of truth to social justice advocacy.

Social justice administrators have set up institutions that make social justice advocacy inescapable. Offices of Residential Life have turned large amounts of housing into venues for social justice advocacy. The most intensive advocacy proceeds through Living Learning Communities—housing units dedicated to themes such as Global Citizenship, Gender and Social Justice, and Social Justice Action. Bias Incident Response Teams, which rely on voluntary informers (“active bystanders”) throughout campus, dedicate themselves to gathering reports of “bias incidents”—which, practically speaking, can include any word or action that offends social justice advocates. Bias Incident Response Teams act as enforcers of social justice orthodoxy on campus. Break and Study Abroad programs have also been largely taken over by social justice advocates, and are now frequently exercises in service-learning and social justice advocacy. Offices of Residential Life subject students to social justice education even while they are eating and sleeping, Bias Incident Response Teams monitor every private social interaction, and Study Abroad and Break programs subject students to social justice education even while they are away from campus.

The social justice bureaucracies sponsor a large number of social justice events on campus. These events are the actual substance of social justice education on campus. The varieties of social justice events include activism programs, commencements, community mobilizations, conferences, dialogues, festivities, films, fine arts performances, hunger banquets,³ lectures, projects, residence hall programs, resource fairs, retreats, roundtables, student education, student training, workshops, and youth activities. The subjects of these events have included activism, ally education, Black Lives Matter, civic engagement, community organizing, diversity, food, gender identity, health care, illegal aliens, implicit bias, leadership, LGBTQ, mental illness, policing, power, prisons, racial identity, social justice, and sustainability.

The social justice bureaucracies also engage in large amounts of student training. This student training identifies, catechizes, and provides work experience for the next generation of social justice advocates. This student training is especially useful for training the next generation of social justice educators. By scholarships, the provision of student jobs, and linking social justice cadres to careers, social justice educators ensure that social justice education is linked to social justice jobs for graduates. The Diversity Peer Educator of today is the Dean of Diversity of tomorrow. Today’s Social Justice Scholar will become tomorrow’s Dean of Student Affairs. Student training provides the cadres for social justice activism.

The Diversity Peer Educator of today is the Dean of Diversity of tomorrow. Today’s Social Justice Scholar will become tomorrow’s Dean of Student Affairs.

Social justice education, in addition, prepares students for positions in private industry (human resources, diversity associates), progressive nonprofit organizations, progressive political campaigns, progressive officials’ offices, government bureaucracies, K-12 education, social work, court personnel, and the professoriate. University administration and faculty directly provide a massive source of employment for social justice advocates: the total number of social justice advocates employed in higher education must be well above 100,000.⁴ Soon all of higher education may be reserved for social justice advocates, since university job advertisements have begun explicitly to require affirmations of diversity and social justice. These ideological loyalty oaths will effectively reserve higher education employment to the 8% of Americans who are progressive activists.⁵

Since social justice educators have to publish a minimum amount of peer-reviewed academic research to receive tenure, they have also created an apparatus of journal and book publication as cargo-cult scholarship—an imitation of the form of academic research, largely consisting of after-action reports on social justice activism on campus. The core of this cargo-cult apparatus is a network of hundreds of academic journals dedicated to social justice scholarship, whose editors and peer reviewers are also social justice educators. Their specializations mirror the range of social justice education—ethnic studies and gender studies, education journals and sustainability journals, journals devoted to critical studies, dialogue, diversity, equity, experiential education, inclusive education, intercultural communication, multicultural education, peace, service-learning, social inclusion—and, of course, social justice.

The bureaucracy of accreditation plays an important role in forwarding social justice advocacy at America’s colleges and universities. Some accreditation bureaucracies require diversity, or other keywords that can be used to justify the creation of social justice requirements, programs, or assessments. Where accreditation bureaucracies do not explicitly require social justice advocacy, college bureaucrats often justify social justice advocacy as a way to fulfill other accreditation requirements. In both cases, social justice advocates within colleges and universities twist accreditation to advance their own agenda.

Education reformers must disrupt higher education’s ability to provide stable careers for social justice advocates. These reforms cannot be aimed piecemeal at individual campuses. Social justice education is a national initiative, which has taken over entire disciplines and professions. Social justice’s capture of higher education must be opposed on a similarly national scale. Above all, the opposition must aim at cutting off the national sources of funding for social justice education. A priority should be to deny public tax dollars for social justice education.

Nine general reforms would severely disrupt social justice education:

eliminate experiential learning courses;
remove social justice education from undergraduate general education requirements;
remove social justice education from introductory college courses;
remove social justice requirements from departments that provide employment credentials;
remove social justice positions from higher education administration;
restrict the power of social justice advocates in higher education administration;
eliminate the “co-curriculum”;
remove social justice requirements from higher education job advertisements; and
remove social justice criteria from accreditation.

Most importantly of all, college students must cease cooperating with social justice requirements. A mass, coordinated campaign of civil disobedience, in which students simply stop taking social justice classes, attending social justice events, or obeying social justice administrators, would deal a body-blow to social justice education.

A mass, coordinated campaign of civil disobedience, in which students simply stop taking social justice classes, attending social justice events, or obeying social justice administrators, would deal a body-blow to social justice education.

Report Structure

Prologue. San Francisco State University’s web of social justice advocacy illustrates how the nationwide movement to subsume higher education to the pursuit of progressive political activism operates in one institution.

Introduction. Social justice theory subordinates all endeavors to the pursuit of political activism to enact social justice’s political goals. Radical social justice advocates have established themselves in higher education, and now seek to subordinate all aspects of higher education to the pursuit of social justice. The Four Strategic Initiatives of social justice educators are

the alteration of university mission statements;
the seizure of internal graduation requirements;
the capture of disciplines or creation of pseudo-disciplines; and
the capture of the university administration.

Social justice advocates have established themselves throughout the 60 colleges and universities we have examined, and have succeeded alarmingly well at their goals.

Mission Statements. University and department mission statements act as promissory notes for future social justice initiatives, and register the fundamental abandonment of education as a goal of these universities and departments.

General Education Requirements. Social justice advocates have inserted requirements that students take courses in areas such as diversity, experiential learning, and social justice, and also erected a system of multiple requirements and double-counted courses that steer students to take social justice courses to fulfill other general education requirements. Social justice advocates capture immense numbers of tenure lines and tuition by requiring students to take social justice courses.

Departments. Social justice advocates have seized or created large numbers of disciplines explicitly dedicated to social justice activism. The heaviest penetration of social justice advocacy is in Identity Group Studies; American Studies; Gender Studies; Sustainability; Global, Human Rights, and Peace Studies; Health Policy and Urban Studies; Law, Political Science, and Public Policy; Education; Social Work; Criminology; Psychology and Sociology; Civic Engagement; Leadership; and Social Justice. These disciplines select and form social justice advocates by a combination of mission statements, requirements, and electives. Social justice has penetrated so far into the departments that it now has colonized writing instruction and even mathematics. Every university we studied has its complement of notable social justice courses.

Experiential Learning. Social justice educators use experiential learning to provide vocational training in progressive activism. The presence of experiential learning courses signals that social justice educators have taken over a department. A representative catalogue of experiential learning courses registers the disciplinary range and the ambitions of social justice education.

University Administration. Social justice advocates have taken over much of university administration, particularly those offices devoted to the “co-curriculum.” They have also taken over the education of higher education administrators, and their professional organizations, and redefined their professional goals as the advancement of social justice.

Social Justice Bureaucracies. Bureaucracies taken over by social justice advocates include Offices of Student Affairs, Offices of First-Year Experience, Offices of Community Engagement, Offices of Social Justice, Offices of Sustainability, Offices of Equity and Inclusion, Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, Miscellaneous Institutes and Centers, and Title IX Offices. For each of these bureaucracies, we list the number of institutions that possess that office, their varieties of sponsored social justice commitments, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

Pervasive Social Justice. Social justice advocates make sure there is no escape from social justice advocacy. Social justice now affects where students live and sleep, by way of Offices of Residential Life and Living Learning Communities. Social justice organizes voluntary informers to enforce social justice advocacy in all private life, by way of Bias Incident Response Teams. Break and Study Abroad programs ensure that students remain yoked to social justice even in off-campus academic programs. For each of these bureaucracies, we also list the number of institutions that possess that office, their varieties of sponsored social justice commitments, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

Social Justice Events. Individual events make up the fabric of campus life. A sample of social justice events gives a sense of the variety of means by which social justice education operates. We list the number of institutions whose events included explicit social justice commitments, their varieties of social justice commitments, the subjects of social justice activism, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

Student Training. Student training identifies, catechizes, and provides work experience for the next generation of social justice advocates. This student training is especially useful for training the next generation of social justice educators. We list the number of institutions whose student training included explicit social justice commitments, their varieties of social justice commitments, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

Social Justice Jobs. Social justice education prepares students for positions in private industry, progressive nonprofit organizations, progressive political campaigns, government bureaucracies, K–12 education, social work, criminal justice, and the professoriate by way of graduate school. Higher education administration directly employs massive numbers of social justice advocates. Social justice job requirements, such as diversity statements, ensure that only social justice advocates will qualify for positions in higher education. We list extracts of social justice requirements from several institutions’ job advertisements. We also list a sample of the variety of jobs reserved for social justice advocates.

Journals. Hundreds of academic journals publish social justice pseudo-scholarship, frequently consisting of after-action reports on social justice activism on campus that act as how-to guides for other social justice educators. These publications allow social justice educators to pretend to outsiders that they are engaged in academic research. We list a sampling of 250 academic journals largely or exclusively devoted to social justice education, to illustrate the range of pseudo-disciplines that rely on this pretense of scholarship.

Accreditation. The bureaucracy of accreditation plays an important role in forwarding social justice advocacy at America’s colleges and universities. We briefly survey the criteria used by the six major regional accreditors to forward social justice, and then examine how a sample university in each accrediting region uses accreditation to assess and make more effective its own social justice initiatives.

Conclusion. Higher education reform must disrupt higher education’s ability to provide stable careers for social justice advocates. We recommend Nine General Reforms:

eliminate experiential learning courses;
remove social justice education from undergraduate general education requirements;
remove social justice education from introductory college courses;
remove social justice requirements from departments that provide employment credentials;
remove social justice positions from higher education administration;
restrict the power of social justice advocates in higher education administration;
eliminate the “co-curriculum”;
remove social justice requirements from higher education job advertisements; and
remove social justice criteria from accreditation.

These reforms should come at the federal level and the state level. Moreover, students should cease cooperating with social justice regulations.

Charts. The substantiating data for this report is contained in twenty charts. These charts appear in the PDF version of the report, available online, but not in the print version.

Prologue: If You Come to San Francisco

San Francisco State University (SFSU) emphatically proclaims in its mission statement its “unwavering commitment to social justice,” and its intention to prepare “its students to become productive, ethical, active citizens with a global perspective.”⁶ And SFSU has succeeded to a remarkable extent. Social justice indoctrination is more pervasive at SFSU than in virtually any other college in the country. San Francisco State University is a model for how social justice advocates are taking over American higher education.

What does that mean?

SFSU defines social justice as practically synonymous with progressive political activism. Its Equity & Community Inclusion bureaucracy cites “non-profit national organizations [that] are committed to social justice advocacy” that include bastions of progressive advocacy such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Transgender Law Center.⁷ SFSU professor Rabab Abdulhadi, College of Ethnic Studies, interprets “social justice” to mean radical anti-Zionism and support of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement: “I consider the statement from … President Wong, welcoming Zionists to campus, equating Jewishness with Zionism, and giving Hillel ownership of campus Jewishness, to be a declaration of war against Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians and all those who are committed to an indivisible sense of social justice on and off campus.”⁸

SFSU’s commitment to social justice is a commitment to progressive political activism—and SFSU has given that commitment detailed administrative backing in every aspect of campus academics and life.

SFSU’s commitment to social justice has distorted its general education requirements. SFSU imposes a complex series of general education requirements, which restricts student choice for at least 17 courses.⁹ Every single requirement can be satisfied by a course devoted to social justice. RRS 276 Race, Activism and Climate Justice satisfies the Life Science (Area B2) requirement, AFRS 260 Power, Racism, and Africana Liberation satisfies the Social Sciences (Area D) requirement, and H ED 120 Educational Justice, Health Equity, and Academic Success satisfies the Humanities (Area C2) requirement.¹⁰

SFSU uses the general education requirements system to carve loopholes into government mandates. California state law requires public universities to teach a course in U.S. history and government. SFSU lets students satisfy that requirement with courses such as AIS 103 Introduction to Pacific Studies, AIS 205 American Indians and U.S. Laws, and WGS 150 Women and Gender in U.S. History and Society.¹¹

SFSU imposes four distinct social justice course requirements. Students must take a course apiece in American Ethnic and Racial Minorities, Environmental Sustainability, Global Perspectives, and Social Justice. Students satisfy these requirements with courses such as SOC 410 Grassroots Organizing for Change in Communities of Color, AFRS 256 Hip Hop Workshop, WGS 440 Native Sexualities and Queer Discourse, and H ED 520 Structural Oppression and Social Foundations of Health.

The Social Justice requirement includes a range of courses that further illustrate the nature of social justice at SFSU—courses such as A U 116 Algebra and Statistics for Social Justice, LS 403 Performance and Pedagogy of the Oppressed for Educators, RRS 375 Queer Arabs in the U.S., TPW 490 Grant Writing, and WGS 220 Introduction to Feminist Disability Studies.¹²

A growing number of SFSU departments and concentrations explicitly dedicate themselves to social justice. These include the Critical Social Thought Program; Education: Concentration in Equity and Social Justice in Education; Education Leadership; Environmental Studies: Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice Emphasis; Global Peace, Human Rights, and Justice Studies; Health Education; LGBT Studies; Race and Resistance Studies; Sexuality Studies; and Women and Gender Studies. All these academic programs subordinate intellectual inquiry to social justice activism.

SFSU pays professors to teach social justice courses. Among the many courses subsidized by taxpayers are AFRS 466 Black Lives Matter: Race and Social Movements, RRS 201 SFSU’s Palestinian Cultural Mural and the Art of Resistance, and WGS 552 Transgender Identities and Communities.

SFSU’s basic writing instruction now forwards social justice. SFSU’s Communication department, which teaches basic writing, includes the courses COMM 120 Language, Culture, and Power, COMM 304GW Writing About Communication and Masculinities, COMM 348GW Writing About Environmental Rhetoric, COMM 403 Transgender Communication Studies, COMM 503 Gender and Communication, COMM 525 Sexualities and Communication, COMM 542 Dialogues Across Differences, COMM 552 Performance and Feminism, COMM 553 Performance and Identity, and COMM 557 Performance and Pedagogy of the Oppressed for Educators.¹³

SFSU’s basic mathematics instruction now also forwards social justice. Students who wish to learn mathematics at SFSU can now take A U 116 Algebra and Statistics for Social Justice or A U 117 Statistics for Social Justice. The latter course uses “topics such as education equity, income inequality, racism, and white supremacy and gender inequality to examine data using statistics.”¹⁴

SFSU uses Experiential Learning Courses to provide course credit for vocational training in progressive activism. Environmental Studies offers ENVS 530 Environmental Leadership and Organizing and ENVS 570 Applied Local Sustainability; Race and Resistance Studies offers AFRS 694 Community Service Learning; and Women and Gender Studies offers WGS 798 Feminist Internship: Gender and the Nonprofit Industrial Complex.

But SFSU’s commitment to social justice doesn’t stop in the classroom. Very large portions of SFSU’s bureaucracy are also dedicated to social justice.

SFSU’s “co-curricular” bureaucracies work together to orient student activities toward social justice activism. In the Division of Student Life, the Dean of Students distributes an annual Social Justice Award.¹⁵ The First-Year Experience bureaucracy’s Course Expectations & Student Learning Outcomes include “Opportunities to discuss social justice, equity, and inclusion.”¹⁶ The Institute for Civic and Community Engagement sponsors community service-learning as “a way to strengthen your understanding of social justice.”¹⁷ Other SFSU bureaucracies explicitly dedicated to social justice include Equity & Community Inclusion;¹⁸ the Office of Diversity & Student Equity,¹⁹ and the César E. Chávez Institute.²⁰

Social justice advocates’ capture of the professoriate and the administration ensure that SFSU events forward social justice advocacy. The Constitution Day 2018 program featured talks on subjects including “Social Ontology of Police Violence: Social Groups and Social Institutions,” “How the Second Amendment Reveals White Nationalism,” and “The Future of Whiteness: Dog Whistle Politics or Cross-Racial Solidarity?”²¹ The 2019 SF State Faculty Retreat invited proposals for talks on subjects such as “How do you infuse social justice into your classroom? How does social justice inform your curriculum? How do students grapple with social justice in their coursework and assignments? How does social justice inform your teaching, service, scholarship, and creative work?”²²

SFSU is now crafting its job advertisements to make sure that only social justice advocates will be hired in the future. Ads for both an Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek/Roman Philosophy and a tenure-track position in Linguistics: Sociolinguistics include the stipulation of “Providing curricula that reflect all dimensions of human diversity, and that encourage critical thinking and a commitment to social justice.”²³

Throughout San Francisco State University, a web composed of mission statements, general education requirements, departments, bureaucracies, events, and job advertisements forwards “social justice”—a fig leaf for progressive political advocacy. Each individual strand of this web degrades SFSU’s ability to provide a proper education for its students. Jointly, these strands have deformed SFSU as a whole. SFSU is an institution far gone in a terrible metamorphosis—from an institution dedicated to the pursuit of truth to an institution which takes adherence to progressive political beliefs to be the precondition for the pursuit of knowledge, and which is dedicated to the pursuit of progressive political advocacy.

San Francisco State University is a normal American institution of higher education. It’s a bit farther along in its social justice metamorphosis than its peers, but virtually every college and university in America is undergoing the same transformation. A national movement by social justice advocates is transforming all of American higher education into a tool for progressive political advocacy.

This report looks at 60 representative colleges and universities, and demonstrates how each strand of social justice advocacy is a national trend, frequently forwarded by countrywide institutions such as disciplinary and professional organizations, nonprofit organizations, academic journals, and accreditation agencies. It intends to inform the public that any particular example of social justice advocacy in a college is not a one-off, but part of a nationwide campaign. The report’s conclusion is that any attempt to restore our colleges and universities to institutions devoted to the pursuit of truth cannot satisfy itself with reforms within individual institutions. We need a nationwide campaign to oppose the nationwide campaign of the social justice advocates.

We should not forget, however, that social justice education works by a multitude of reinforcing strands within each institution—mission statements, general education requirements, departments, experiential learning courses, bureaucracies, events, job advertisements, and more. The individual portrait of San Francisco State University illustrates how the web of social justice advocacy operates within each institution.

The web gets thicker each year. Keep an eye for news from the Bay Area. Every change SFSU makes to tighten social justice education soon will be standard across the nation.

Remember San Francisco State University as we examine the nationwide movement to subsume higher education to the pursuit of social justice advocacy.

Introduction

Social justice theory subordinates all endeavors to the pursuit of political activism to enact social justice’s political goals. Radical social justice advocates have established themselves in higher education, and now seek to subordinate all aspects of higher education to the pursuit of social justice. The Four Strategic Initiatives of social justice educators are

1. the alteration of university mission statements;

2. the seizure of internal graduation requirements;

3. the capture of disciplines or creation of pseudo-disciplines; and

4. the capture of the university administration.

Social justice advocates have established themselves throughout the 60 colleges and universities we have examined, and have succeeded alarmingly well at their goals.

Academia’s Radical Drift

American universities have drifted from the political center for fifty years and more. As they lost their moorings in the American mainstream they became close-minded. In the 1980s, when the academic mind was still closing, a substantial minority of academics still professed conservative or moderate politics. By now scarcely any conservatives or moderates remain, and most of them are approaching retirement. A large number of university departments have no conservatives at all.²⁴ Ideological pluralism in American academia is effectively dead. Universities almost entirely teach progressive ideas, hire progressive administrators and faculty, and invite progressive speakers to campus. They subject students to courses that are nothing more than practical training in progressive activism.

The radical establishment triumphed on campus a generation ago.²⁵ What they have created since is an even more extreme successor to the progressive academy of the 1990s. In the last twenty years, a generation of academics and administrators has emerged that is no longer satisfied with using the forms of traditional scholarship to teach progressive thought. This new generation seeks to transform higher education itself into an engine of progressive political activism. This new generation bases its teaching and research on the ideology of social justice.

Social Justice Theory

The Concept

The concept of social justice originated in nineteenth-century Catholic thought, received a modern reformulation by way of John Rawls’s Theory of Justice (1971),²⁶ and has become secular and progressive in twenty-first-century America. Justice traditionally judges freely chosen individual acts, but social justice judges how far the distribution of economic and social benefits among social groups departs from how they “ought” to be distributed.²⁷ Lori Molinari of the Heritage Foundation helpfully summarizes how social justice advocates in America describe social justice. They call it the moral obligation for mankind to create “a ‘fair and compassionate’ distribution of goods and burdens within society.” Social justice advocates have an expansive view of the goods that government and society are morally obligated to distribute “fairly.” These goods include “income; employment opportunities; wealth; property ownership; housing; education (including access to relevant technology); access to health care, transportation, and child care services; and personal safety.” Many social justice advocates add to this list “access to political power, political participation, social recognition, recreation or leisure opportunities, and the right to ‘a healthy and pleasant environment.’”²⁸

The self-understanding of social justice advocates can seem quite attractive. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, puts it this way: “Social justice means moving towards a society where all hungry are fed, all sick are cared for, the environment is treasured, and we treat each other with love and compassion.”²⁹ Paul George of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center says that “Social justice means complete and genuine equality of all people.”³⁰ Rabbi Michael Lerner, co-founder of the Tikkun Community, defines the concept at greater length:

By social justice I mean the creation of a society which treats human beings as embodiments of the sacred, supports them to realize their fullest human potential, and promotes and rewards people to the extent that they are loving and caring, kind and generous, open-hearted and playful, ethically and ecologically sensitive, and tend to respond to the universe with awe, wonder[,] and radical amazement at the grandeur of creation.³¹

Social justice solely defined as moral aspiration seems unobjectionable.³² As we shall explore at greater length below, the trouble is that social justice theory also justifies the exercise of the state’s coercive power to bring its particular moral aspirations into practice—and that it does not recognize as equally important such rival moral aspirations as individual liberty and the rule of law.³³ But if social justice were nothing more than an uncoercive exhortation that every one of us should be our brother’s keeper, there would be nothing about it to raise concern.

Traditional American Propositions

The following list of propositions have had broad-to-overwhelming assent among Americans for most of our nation’s history:

• the free market can distribute economic goods more fairly than the government;

• it is inefficient for the government to redistribute goods;

• it is immoral for the government to redistribute goods;

• it is dangerous to liberty to grant government the power to redistribute goods;

• economic and social goods are not “rights”

• compassionate redistribution of goods should operate through the freely given consent of individual charity rather than the coercive dictates of government;

• the rule of law and procedural fairness are essential goods;

• government should guarantee equality of opportunity, not equality of results;

• individuals are primarily responsible for their own success or failure in private life;

• the individual self, American citizenship, and common humanity are the most important American “identities”

• American citizens have a duty to advance American national interests; and

• America is a republic of free and equal citizens that requires no liberation from “oppression.”

Liberal social justice advocates tend to give these propositions short shrift; radical social justice advocates usually contradict them explicitly. Even the broadest, most anodyne definition of social justice fits awkwardly with the traditional American political consensus.

Unfortunately, social justice is not just uncoercive exhortation. Molinari also emphasizes the important distinction between liberal and radical advocates of social justice. Radicals, unlike liberals, also “tend to view society as fractionalized into various social identity groups (defined by class, race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, etc.) that occupy ‘unequal social locations.”’ These radicals define as oppression “the unjust social processes and relations that have produced and work to perpetuate society’s unfair distribution” of goods and burdens. Radicals believe that oppression can only—and must—be removed by radically transforming “the mechanisms of political participation, workplace decision-making processes, the division of labor, and the overall organization of society, as well as the culture that pervades it.” They also believe that the way to achieve this end is to assemble “coalitions among the various ‘marginalized’ identity groups in order to maximize political influence.”³⁴

**Oppression and Privilege Framework**
Social Group	Privileged	Oppressed
Gender	Male	Female, Intersexed, Transgendered, Gender Queer
Age	Adults (18 – 64)	Children and elders
Ability	People without impairment	People with impairment
Religion	Christianity	Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Baha’i, Paganism, Taoism, Atheisms, Rastafari, Sikhism, Judaism, Zoroastrian, etc.
Ethnicity	European	People of color
Social Class	Middle and upper class	Poor and working class
Sexual Orientation	Heterosexual	Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirited, Queer, Questioning
Indigenous Culture	Non-Aboriginal	First Nation, Métis, Inuit, Indigenous, Aboriginal
National Origin	North American-born	Immigrant or Refugee
(First) Language	English	Other than English

Oppression and Privilege Framework, Stage Left Productions Workshop for Canada World Youth, p. 4, https://acgc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Oppression-and-Privilege-Framework.pdf

The radical advocates of social justice also speak the language of coercion. In 2018, a Social Justice Task Force at SUNY Plattsburgh recommended that “The college develop and disseminate to administration, faculty, and staff its own employee conduct manual … and employ it as part of a comprehensive and compulsory social justice training program for employees and service personnel.”³⁵

Fiction writer and essayist Johnny Townsend, writing in the LA Progressive, says that “Every degree from every accredited college, university, or trade school must include at least one mandatory course on race, gender, and social justice. … My current employer feels it important to address racial and social justice. Every employee is required to participate in an all-day training.”³⁶

Some radical advocates have already gone a considerable distance toward justifying outright violence. In 2019, Dr. Billie Murray, “a rhetorical activist scholar … [who] believes that her research should contribute to social justice and the public good,” gave a lecture at Villanova University meant to “challenge the violence/nonviolence binary that limits our understanding of activist practices. Drawing on examples from her fieldwork with anti-fascist activists, she will argue that we should reimagine activism as combative. Such an expanded understanding will allow us to better discern the efficacy and ethics of combative tactics and how they work in concert with traditional, nonviolent activism.”³⁷ Radical social justice advocates habitually resort to coercive policies to pursue their goals, a growing number use the language of revolution,³⁸ and some such as Dr. Murray are already inching toward the blunt call for violence.

Radical social justice advocates have the upper hand within the national movement as a whole. And social justice in higher education means radical social justice. The introduction to a 2018 Social Justice Summit at the University of Florida provides a good illustration of what social justice means in America’s colleges:

Social justice refers to identifying and understanding social power dynamics and social inequalities that result in some social groups having privilege, power, and access; and others being disadvantaged, oppressed, and denied access. Social justice promotes cross-cultural interactions and demands that all people; regardless of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social class, gender identity and expression, language, national origin, worldview (religion, spirituality, and other values), physical or mental (dis)ability, or education; have a right to basic human dignity and have their basic needs met. It involves social actors who have a sense of their own agency to make an impact, as well as a sense of social responsibility toward and with others and to society as a whole through engaging in allyship.³⁹ [Punctuation, italics, and bold-face reproduced unchanged.]

The University of Florida defines social justice by invoking identity-group politics and oppression. The social justice the University teaches is the social justice of the radical activists.

Radical social justice theory—which we’ll just call “social justice” from now on, since the radicals dominate higher education—draws heavily on scholarly schools that have grown up around the work of a few notable intellectuals. Key words in social justice vocabulary make this debt clear. Power invokes the writings of Michel Foucault and Saul Alinsky.⁴⁰ Gender identity and expression draws upon Judith Butler.⁴¹ Critical race theory cites Derrick Bell.⁴² Privilege depends upon the work of Peggy McIntosh.⁴³ Virtually every abstract concept in the University of Florida’s definition of social justice—access, allyship, inequality, needs, social responsibility—draws upon social justice’s theoretical framework instead of the common-sense definitions of the dictionary.⁴⁴

The Pronoun Wars—the zealous campaign by social justice advocates to replace a fixed he and she with a mutable phantasmagoria of self-proclaimed genders, each with its own pronoun—are another front in social justice advocates’ desire to liberate every individual. In this case, every individual must be liberated from the oppression of language that faithfully reflects immutable biological reality.⁴⁵

ABC’s of Social Justice: A Glossary of Working Language for Socially Conscious Conversation: Selected Definitions

Department of Inclusion & Multicultural Engagement, Lewis & Clark College

Allyship: an active verb; leveraging personal positions of power and privilege to fight oppression by respecting, working with, and empowering marginalized voices and communities; using one’s own voice to project others’, less represented, voices

Cisgenderism: a socially constructed assumption that everyone’s gender matches their biological sex, and that that is the norm from which all other gender identities deviate

Classism: any attitude or institutional practice which subordinates people of a certain socioeconomic class due to income, occupation, education, and/or their economic status; a system that works to keep certain communities within a set socioeconomic class and prevents social and economic mobility

Disability: being differently abled (physically, mentally, emotionally) from that which society has structured to be the norm in such a way so that the person is unable to move, or has difficulty moving—physically, socially, economically—through life

Discrimination: actions or thoughts, based on conscious or unconscious bias, that favor one group over others

Educate yourself: taking time to learn about issues from other communities for oneself without making people of those communities spend time teaching you. By learning about the histories and experiences of target groups, we can become better allies and advocates.

Gender identity: a person’s individual and subjective sense of their own gender; gender identities exist in a spectrum, and are not just masculine and feminine

Genocide: the intentional attempt to completely erase or destroy a people through structural oppression and/or open acts of physical violence

Nativism: prejudiced thoughts or discriminatory actions that benefit or show preference to individuals born in a territory over those who have migrated into said territory

Privilege: benefit, advantage, or favor granted to individuals and communities by unequal social structures and institutions

Social justice: the practice of allyship and coalition work in order to promote equality, equity, respect, and the assurance of rights within and between communities and social groups

Unconscious bias: negative stereotypes regarding a person or group of people; these biases influence individuals’ thoughts and actions without their conscious knowledge. We all have unconscious biases.

White privilege: the right or advantage provided to people who are considered white; an exemption of social, political, and/or economic burdens placed on non-white people; benefitting from societal structuring that prioritizes white people and whiteness

“ABC’s of Social Justice: A Glossary of Working Language for Socially Conscious Conversation,” Department of Inclusion & Multicultural Engagement, Lewis & Clark College, https://www.lclark.edu/live/files/18474-abcs-of-social-justice.

Political Goals

Social justice’s core claims are a series of abstractions rather than concrete political goals. No one person or institution speaks with recognized authority to define the credo of social justice. The social justice movement has no universally recognized political program.

We must instead cite what large numbers of social justice advocates say social justice requires, and use this to approximate the social justice movement’s actual political agenda. The following political program—which I describe in language that I take to represent the actual, frequently negative effect of these policies—should be taken as a rough, incomplete catalogue of the social justice movement’s political goals:

increased federal and state taxation;⁴⁶
increased minimum wage;⁴⁷
increased environmental regulation;⁴⁸
increased government health care spending and regulation;⁴⁹
restrictions on free speech;⁵⁰
restrictions on due process protections;⁵¹
maximizing the number of legislative districts that will elect racial minorities;⁵²
support for the Black Lives Matters movement;⁵³
releasing cop-killers from prison;⁵⁴
mass release of criminals from prison;⁵⁵
decriminalizing drugs;⁵⁶
ending enforcement of our immigration laws;⁵⁷
amnesty for illegal aliens;⁵⁸
open borders;⁵⁹
race and sex preferences in education and employment;⁶⁰
persecution of conscientious objectors to homosexuality;⁶¹
advocacy for “transgender rights”;⁶²
support for the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement;⁶³
avowal of a right to abortion;⁶⁴ and
mob violence to enforce the social justice policy agenda.⁶⁵

The Green New Deal of 2019 also illustrates the political agenda of the social justice movement.⁶⁶

Political Orientation and Activism

Many social justice keywords derive from the world of the law—not only justice and equity but also advocate and (in its modern sense) diversity. Social justice advocates use justice polemically, but the word also signals their interest in achieving their ends through judges and bureaucrats. Equity likewise builds upon legal equity, that aspect of the legal tradition most open to departing from the letter of the law, so as to leverage judicial power for progressive ends. All rights (as Hannah Arendt noted in The Origins of Totalitarianism) look to the state to enforce them⁶⁷—as opposed to liberties, which are the birthright of every human being. The multiplication of concepts such as food justice, educational poverty, and health equity elaborate new extensions of state power to tax the citizenry to fund progressive spending priorities. This broad invocation of legal language registers social justice advocates’ ambitions to enact social justice via state power.

San Francisco State University, Equity & Community Inclusion, National Organizations

These non-profit national organizations are committed to social justice advocacy and education and can provide a wide array of opportunities for further learning and exploration. … (Note: SF State does not necessarily endorse or support the views of these organizations. These resources are provided to promote self-learning and critical analysis.)

• American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity

• American Association of People with Disabilities

• American Civil Liberties Union

• Anti-Defamation League

• Campus Pride

• CATALYST

• Center for the Study of Race & Equity in Education

• Council on American-Islamic Relations

• Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund

• Diversity Collegium

• Ford Foundation

• Human Rights Campaign

• Institute for Women’s Policy Research

• LGBT Rehab Centers

• Louis D. Brandeis Center

• Lumina Foundation

• Men Can Stop Rape

• Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund

• National Coalition Building Institute

• National Congress of American Indians

• National LGBTQ Task Force

• National Women’s Law Center

• Southern Poverty Law Center

• The Innocence Project

• The Representation Project

• Transgender Law Center

National Organizations, Resources for Self-Learning, Equity & Community Inclusion, San Francisco State University, https://equity.sfsu.edu/resources.

The corollary to social justice’s political orientation is that social justice advocates seek to dedicate whatever activity in which they engage to the effort to achieve the political ends of social justice. Art should be a mural for Black Lives Matter. Literature should be a novel whose moral is that we should amnesty illegal aliens. At Pomona College, the Introduction to Statistics class now dedicates itself to social justice: “Topics include global poverty, global climate change, environmental rights, death penalty, labor laws, civil rights, access to education, healthcare, water rights, elections, and debt.” The class is “a community partnership class, [where] the final group projects will be conducted in the service of local organizations.”⁶⁸

Activism is the exemplary means to forward social justice. This word signifies the collective exertion of influence via social justice nonprofit organizations. Activism may take the form of organization-building (staff work, fundraising, membership recruitment), publicity, lobbying, and actions by responsible officials in pursuit of social justice. It may also take the form of “protest”—assembling large numbers of people on the streets to “persuade” responsible officials to execute the preferred policies of social justice advocates, or to fail to execute policies they oppose. Social justice activism formally eschews violence, but the recent string of social-justice riots to suppress free speech argues that, for far too many social justice advocates, achieving social justice by any means necessary practically includes all “necessary” violence.⁶⁹

The great body of social justice activists in American colleges and universities have been subordinating higher education toward the goal of achieving social justice.

Social Justice Education

Social justice education is taking over ever larger portions of our colleges and universities.⁷⁰ Social justice education takes the entire set of social justice beliefs as the predicates for education, in every discipline from accounting⁷¹ to zoology.⁷² But the spread of social justice in our campuses does not just mean a radical narrowing of intellectual horizons. It also subordinates all education toward forwarding social justice political activism.

Sustainability’s Social Justice Pillar: The Triple Bottom Line

Social justice education’s sustainability component incorporates scientific disciplines such as environmental science and pre-existing movements such as environmentalism. Sustainability frequently refers to the “triple bottom line”—the need to pursue economy, environment, and equity (or social goals). Equity and social goals euphemize social justice and its political agenda. So at Northwestern University the Sustainability Director cites the Office of Institutional Diversity and the Women’s Center as supporting “the social justice pillar of sustainability”—which includes race preferences and abortion rights. The Sustainability movement’s Social Justice Pillar—its dedication to equity and social goals—distinguishes it from environmentalism.

Social justice education rejects the idea that classes should aim at teaching a subject matter for its own sake, or seek to foster students’ ability to think, judge, and write as independent goods. Social justice education instead aims directly at creating effective social justice activists, ideally engaged during class in such activism. As Shirley Mthethwa-Sommers (Associate Professor in Education, Nazareth College) puts it,

Social justice education theories encourage teachers and students to be actively involved in fighting for social justice and ameliorating discriminatory policies and practices. For example, students are encouraged to investigate social class inequities and work to eliminate them as part of their classroom projects and work. In an English Language Arts classroom for example, the students might examine the Harry Potter series for gender construction and question the roles girls and boys and women and men occupy in the series; they might explore construction and ‘normalization’ of hierarchy based on sexuality and disability; or they might examine the subtext of colorblindness. Through examination of the characters, students might uncover covert ideologies of oppression delineated in the series and participate in writing a letter to either the author or the publisher highlighting their findings and requesting books that affirm everyone. This project meets social justice education criteria by unveiling oppressive structures and practices within a fictional book series and calling for transformation of those structures and practices.⁷³

Social justice education transforms the very definitions of academic disciplines—first to permit the substitution of social justice activism for intellectual endeavor, and then to require it.

Social justice’s general stipulation that theory and practice are inseparable—that the point of thought is to engage in (political) action—forwards social justice education’s shift toward classroom activism. Translated into the world of education, social justice theory, borrowing from older education theorists such as John Dewey⁷⁴ and Paolo Freire,⁷⁵ argues that the most effective form of education is learning by doing. The unmodified word effective tacitly mixes up pedagogically effective and politically effective. As Heather Hackman (Founder, Hackman Consulting Group: Deep Diversity, Equity and Social Justice Consulting) puts it, “To be most effective, social justice education requires an examination of systems of power and oppression combined with a prolonged emphasis on social change and student agency in and outside of the classroom.”⁷⁶ Social justice educators define education as the practice of social justice activism.

Much of social justice education consists of the capture of classes, departments, general education requirements, and entire disciplines. The most notable aspect of this deformation of education is experiential learning—also known by related terms such as service-learning, civic engagement, and community learning.⁷⁷ Experiential learning justifies itself as an extension of the engineering or the education internship.⁷⁸ But experiential learning is not just an internship, which is intended to complement classroom learning. Experiential learning substitutes “learning by doing” for classroom learning. At the most practical level, we may measure this substitution by way of colleges’ permitted or required credit hours for experiential learning, and the determination of how many hours of work replace how many hours in the classroom.⁷⁹

University of Pennsylvania, Civic House Mission Statement, Social Justice Framework

Social Justice Framework and Theory of Change, Civic House, University of Pennsylvania, https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/civichouse/socialjusticeframework.php.

Experiential learning’s substitution of work for study fundamentally undermines the idea of the university as a place dedicated to the disengaged search for truth, where the search for truth precedes action and does not presuppose what that action should be. Spencer Case (Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder) notes that the assumptions of experiential learning disparage classroom learning: “Presumably, what makes Engaged Philosophy engaged are the students’ service projects. If so, then the implication is that philosophy classes without service projects are disengaged, or at least less fully engaged than those that have them. Engagement with ideas seemingly doesn’t count as genuine engagement.”⁸⁰ Case also notes that experiential learning’s assumptions, “[t]he anti-theoretical tone of the service-learning movement, implicit even in the rhetoric of moderates,” encourage the increasing displacement of classroom learning. “The slope here really is slippery,” writes Case. “If we accept that even 20 percent of a student’s grades should be service-based—on, say, the grounds that philosophy belongs in the ‘real world’—then the open question will be ‘Why not more?’”⁸¹

Experiential learning also accelerates the decline of academic standards. John Kijinski (Professor of English and Emeritus Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, SUNY Fredonia) notes,

Many of the same programs that require or strongly recommend “engaged learning” also allow students to graduate who are unable to read or speak proficiently any language other than English, whose quantitative abilities don’t allow them to understand even midlevel mathematical analysis, and who are not demonstrably able to write clearly and persuasively about complex topics.⁸²

Moreover, “experiential learning” also doubles as “credit for prior learning”—a procedure by which colleges give academic credit for “prior life experiences.”⁸³ Experiential learning destroys higher education’s aspiration to teach students how to search out truth for its own sake, and not to achieve a worldly purpose. It also destroys the expectation that students will graduate from college with a substantial amount of hard-won knowledge.

Experiential learning has also been politicized. Social justice educators have subordinated it to social justice activism, both to intensify students’ commitment to social justice and to provide vocational training for activist careers.⁸⁴ Dan Butin (Professor of Education, Merrimack College) notes that

Service-learning has a progressive and liberal agenda under the guise of a universalistic practice. … The service-learning literature is replete with students’ resistance to the implicit and/or explicit social justice emphasis. … Service-learning thus finds itself positioned as attempting to deliver a very specific and highly political notion of the truth under the guise of neutral pedagogy. Its overarching stage theory of moving individuals and institutions from charity-based perspectives to justice-oriented ones, in fact, maps directly onto our folk theories of what constitutes Republican and Democratic political positions: Republicans believe in individual responsibility and charity while Democrats focus on institutional structures and social justice. … To claim service-learning as a universalistic practice available to all political persuasions is thus to ignore its politically liberal trappings as presently conceptualized and enacted.⁸⁵

Politicized experiential learning courses teach students skills ranging from writing press releases to organizing demonstrations. They also instruct students how to apply these skills to career tracks such as K–12 education, higher education administration, and nonprofit organization.

The students’ vocational training doubles as free labor for progressive organizations. More precisely, the labor is free for the beneficiaries. The tuition must still be paid, whether by the student, the student’s family, or government loans and subsidies. The student also pays the opportunity cost of forgoing classroom education.⁸⁶

Social justice education also gives theoretical preference to research dedicated toward supporting social justice activism. Such forms of research include action learning, action research, action science, advocacy-oriented research, classroom action research, collaborative inquiry, community research, critical action research, emancipatory research, participatory action research, and social justice research.⁸⁷ Qualitative research retains an unpoliticized meaning in some disciplines, but it is rapidly being assimilated into social justice education. As Deborah O’Connor and Brian O’Neill (both of the School of Social Work and Family Studies, University of British Columbia) put it, writing about social work, that

Social work is committed to promoting social justice, inclusion and the empowerment of people. Qualitative research methods offer exciting possibilities for operationalizing this commitment. Drawing predominantly on constructivist and/or critical paradigms for understanding, qualitative research fosters a rebalancing of power within the researcher/researchee relationship and encourages a focus on marginalized understandings and experiences. More than this, it lends itself to an analysis of power.⁸⁸

None of these forms of “research” are true intellectual inquiry, since 1) they presuppose their conclusions; and 2) they seek to forward political action rather than to discover truth. This research provides a simulacrum of intellectual support for social justice advocacy. It also provides the publications that social justice educators use to contend they deserve tenure in a university. We may measure social justice’s transformation of higher education by the universities’ acquiescence in accepting political advocacy with footnotes as research that merits a tenure-track job.

Social justice education operates both within and without the classroom. Social justice education is at least as prominent in university administration as it is among the professoriate. Social justice activists work to monopolize students’ time with social justice activities sponsored by co-curricular bureaucracies including Student Life, Residential Life, First-Year Experience, the Office of Sustainability, the Office of Equity, the Office of Diversity, and Study Abroad.

These social justice activities use a whole dictionary of social justice vocabulary. Words and phrases that reveal that a department or an administrative office has been taken over by social justice advocates include ableism, activism, advocacy, agent, ally, awareness, bold, celebrate, change, civic engagement, civility, classism, commitment, community, competence, conscious, conversation, critical, democratic, dialogue, difficult, disruptive, diversity, effective, empower, engagement, equity, ethical, experiential, exploration, gender, healthy, heterosexism, honest, identity, inclusion, injustice, intentional, intercultural, intersectional, involvement, justice, leadership, livable, meaningful, multicultural, oppression, organizing, outreach, peace, privilege, power, pronoun, racism, radical, reciprocal, reflection, respect, rights, safe, sensitivity, service, social, spiritual, structural, sustainability, systemic, truly, welcome, wellness, and whiteness.

Lafayette College (PA): Social Justice Institute, Learning Outcomes

As a result of their active engagement and participation in the Institute, students will (Division of Campus Life goals in parentheses):

• Explain how classism, ableism, racism, sexism, and heterosexism are developed and maintained through power and status (Multicultural Competence).

• Determine how their own and others’ identities have been constructed through social interactions and structural systems as well as develop an appreciation for this (Intra- and Interpersonal Competence).

• Develop personal and organizational action plans for creating change at Lafayette College and/or the surrounding community (Campus Involvement).

• Demonstrate an increase in their social justice self-efficacy, social justice outcome expectations, social justice interest and social justice commitment (Multicultural Competence; Reasoned and Ethical Decision Making).

The University Environment

Social justice educators want to reshape higher education into a tool for political advocacy—but they operate in institutions with tight fiscal constraints.⁸⁹ Large numbers of Americans live on a stagnant real family income, and will only pay for higher education that gives a good financial return.⁹⁰ Cost-conscious Americans are beginning to avoid college education because of the skyrocketing costs of college tuition, which have propelled student loan debt to the second highest category of consumer debt in the nation.⁹¹ American universities face the prospect of declining enrollments, and the threat that many departments will be eliminated. Social justice education must survive even as higher education faces the possibility of flat or declining income.

Americans are abandoning their attachment to higher education because social justice initiatives to achieve “equality of outcome” in higher education could only work by loosening admission standards, dismantling all rigorous academic expectations, and turning higher education into a hollow credentialing factory.⁹² Social justice advocates have pushed for government tuition subsidies to cure “inequities” in higher education, and the colleges have responded by increasing tuition to capture the government’s money. The humanities and social sciences have gone into a worse enrollment crisis than higher education as a whole because the race-class-gender catechism of social justice professors alienates so many potential students.⁹³ Americans are increasingly unwilling to spend tax dollars to fund sham higher education. The dwindling number of tenure-track jobs has even harmed social justice educators’ job prospects.⁹⁴

The Four Strategic Initiatives

These formidable constraints on the universities have not curtailed social justice educators’ ambitions. Rather, these constraints shape the means by which social justice educators extend their influence. They focus on four broad strategic initiatives:

The alteration of university mission statements. Social justice educators use mission statements to justify substantial changes within the university. Colleges that commit themselves to social justice or diversity in their mission statements issue a promissory note for social justice classes, administrative programs, and general education requirements. In the long run, social justice mission statements justify the entire deformation of universities.
The seizure of internal graduation requirements. Social justice advocates use the university’s administrative machinery to ensure that all students must take social justice classes. They alter general education requirements to include categories such as Diversity, Social Justice, and Experiential Learning. They also ensure that social justice advocates staff Composition departments, so they can insert social justice into required writing classes. Social justice advocates seize hold of departmental graduation requirements so that majors and minors must take further social justice courses. These requirements mean that students cannot avoid social justice education—and reserve a large amount of students’ tuition money for social justice educators.
The capture of disciplines or creation of pseudo-disciplines. Social justice education has formally taken over the entire discipline of Social Work,⁹⁵ effectively captured disciplines such as American Studies, and created a large number of studies dedicated to social justice, such as Women’s Studies, Peace Studies, and Sustainability Studies. More recently, social justice advocates have created pseudo-disciplines such as Social Justice Studies dedicated to social justice activism. The social justice advocates who staff these departments scarcely need to pay lip service to the ideal of disinterested intellectual inquiry.
The capture of the university administration. Social justice education has taken over the university administration even more successfully than it has taken over the professoriate. A labyrinth of bureaucracies, especially in the “co-curriculum,” propagandize students, enact social justice regulations to govern university life, and recruit students to join the social justice cadres. These bureaucracies frequently prototype new social justice programs, which subsequently transfer into the regular curriculum as minors and majors.

The first strategic initiative, alteration of mission statements, provides a wedge by which to pursue the latter three. Social justice educators pursue these other three initiatives with the practical goal to reserve as many jobs as possible for social justice advocates. They require students to take social justice courses so as to guarantee (tenured) employment for social justice professors. They take over or create entire disciplines to guarantee more jobs for social justice advocates. The capture of the university administration provides a far greater number of jobs—mostly normal white-collar employment, but including some plum salaries for the highest administrative rank. These administrative jobs give social justice advocates a career track and the expectation of lifetime employment. Social justice advocates want to reserve for themselves all of the ca. 1.5 million American jobs for postsecondary teachers and administrators.⁹⁶

Social justice advocates also focus on capturing the departments that provide credentials for white collar employment, and thereby serve as the gatekeepers for jobs including social worker, teacher, or court employee. They employ this tactic partly to gain influence in these professions, but partly because students have turned to these departments as they lose confidence in the value of humanities majors. Social justice advocates focus on professions that lead to government employment—partly because large number of students want government employment, and partly to make sure that social justice advocates staff the government bureaucracies.

Social justice educators subordinate higher education to experiential learning, vocational training for activism, social justice political activism, and the infusion of social justice throughout student life. They use all these tactics to secure jobs for social justice advocates. Everything social justice advocates do in higher education works to secure these yoked goals.

The Scope of Social Justice Education

There have been radical activists at American universities for generations. What has changed is that the radical activists have now acquired the numbers and the strength to remake the institutions in their image. Social justice education is no longer a rare option; it is becoming pervasive—and required. Indeed, it is now crowding out education that is not devoted to social justice.

This study aims to catalogue the extent of social justice education, and the way that it has seized control of the machinery of higher education. Social justice education is in the process of merging with higher education as a whole. The negative effects of social justice education are affecting the entire current generation of American college students, and the effects seem likely to get worse.

We do not claim that it is theoretically impossible for social justice education to co-exist with education dedicated to the truth. Nor do we claim that there are no educators devoted to social justice whose first priority is education rather than social justice. Our claim, rather, is that the mass of social justice educators are subordinating higher education to radical social justice, and that they are using a variety of increasingly coercive means to achieve that goal. Our report focuses on social justice education as it is, not as we wish it might be.

Evidentiary Basis

This report is not a case study of an individual college.⁹⁷ Instead, it analyzes different institutional aspects of social justice education throughout American higher education. We look at university mission statements and at majors; at Experiential Learning requirements, Learning and Living Communities, and Study Abroad programs; at journals and job advertisements. We cannot be comprehensive in our examination of the different components of the social justice complex, but we have tried to give a sense of its scope.

The report draws its data from the following 60 colleges and universities around the country:

Antioch University (CA)	Pomona College (CA)
Barnard College (NY)	Prescott College (AZ)
Belmont University (TN)	Roosevelt University (IL)
Berea College (KY)	Saint Mary’s College of California (CA)
Brandeis University (MA)	San Francisco State University (CA)
Brooklyn College–CUNY (NY)	Southern Connecticut State University (CT)
Cabrini University (PA)	Southern Oregon University (OR)
California State University Northridge (CA)	Stony Brook–SUNY (NY)
City College–CUNY (NY)	University of Alabama Birmingham (AL)
Cornell University (NY)	University of Colorado Boulder (CO)
Davidson College (NC)	University of Florida (FL)
DePaul University (IL)	University of Iowa (IA)
Eastern Kentucky University (KY)	University of Kansas (KS)
Evergreen State College (WA)	University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)
George Mason University (VA)	University of Michigan (MI)
Gonzaga University (WA)	University of Minnesota (MN)
Hamline University (MN)	University of Missouri (MO)
Indiana University Bloomington (IN)	University of Montana (MT)
Kansas State University (KS)	University of Nevada (NV)
Lafayette College (PA)	University of New Mexico (NM)
Lake Forest College (IL)	University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (NC)
Marquette University (WI)	University of Pennsylvania (PA)
Merrimack College (MA)	University of Toledo (OH)
Miami University of Ohio (OH)	University of Washington (WA)
Northwestern University (IL)	University of Wisconsin Madison (WI)
Occidental College (CA)	Ursinus College (PA)
Ohio Wesleyan University (OH)	Vanderbilt University (TN)
Pacific University (OR)	Washington State University (WA)
Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg (PA)	Whitman College (WA)
Pepperdine University (CA)

Our study includes elite institutions such as Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania; state flagship universities such as the University of Wisconsin and the University of North Carolina; non-flagships such as California State University Northridge and Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg; private colleges such as Brandeis and Occidental; and religiously affiliated schools, such as Gonzaga University and Pepperdine University. The geographic spread is nationwide, from 26 states. We provide a snapshot of the variety of American educational institutions.

Our largest sources of information are university websites. We rely on the self-presentation of universities, and we focus on the categories of information that can be captured from such data.

This report does not pretend to be exhaustive. There are more than 4,000 colleges and universities in America, each with its own unique administrative structure, and social justice education functions differently in each institution. Nor—save for its examination of the role of accrediting organizations in forwarding social justice advocacy—does this report explore the range of national organizations which fund social justice education on campus, such as the Ford Foundation and the Spencer Foundation. Social Justice Education in America should give readers a broad sense of the range of means by which the advocates of social justice activism suborn the university, and a sense of how extensive such programs have become in higher education.

Our focus has been on social justice—but this is an imprecise concept, and not every example of social justice necessarily uses the actual words. We think it appropriate to cite Sustainability programs as examples of social justice programs, given the ideological presuppositions of the Sustainability movement⁹⁸—but we do not automatically cite Environmental Science departments. A Global Studies general education requirement may proffer options that consist almost solely of social justice courses—or it may consist largely of courses such as The Italian Renaissance and Tsarist Russia. And what (for example) of African American Studies departments? Many of them are parts of the social justice education complex, but a course on Reconstruction and the New South is not necessarily a social justice course.⁹⁹ We have not confined ourselves robotically to the actual use of the phrase “social justice.” Yet we have been careful not to be too loose in what we ascribe to the social justice education complex. Readers should assume there is much more social justice education at each college and university than what we cite.

We are also aware that some social justice verbiage is pasted on by professors and administrators who want to get on with the actual business of education. Yet the fact that such harassed educators feel the need to put up such verbiage matters in itself. More to the point, such verbiage leads to actual social justice transformations in event programming, pedagogy, course selection, hiring, and the rest of higher education. Website word salad is an indirect but roughly accurate indicator of the substance of social justice education in our universities.

Social justice advocates in higher education frequently persecute or ostracize critics and opponents. They veto appointments to tenure-track positions, and use means ranging from quiet vetos of guest speakers and disinvitations to riots to prevent dissidents from speaking on campus. They also engage in reputational attacks to sully the character of dissenters. Notable recent victims of such silencing and reputational attacks, and similar persecutions, include Samuel Abrams, Peter Boghossian, Nicholas Christakis, John Derbyshire, Anthony Esolen, Rachel Fulton Brown, Bruce Gilley, Raymond Ibrahim, Laura Kipnis, Ryszard Legutko, Heather Mac Donald, Charles Murray, Michael Rectenwald, Jason Riley, Ben Shapiro, Christina Hoff Summers, Eugene Volokh, James Watson, Amy Wax, and Brett Weinstein.¹⁰⁰ The rise of social justice education matters not least because it is the prerequisite for the increasing frequency and effect of these authoritarian persecutions. That noted, this report does not attempt to survey such incidents. Instead it details the administrative structure that makes these persecutions possible.

Recommendations

Our conclusion lists a series of recommendations for how to minimize or eliminate social justice education. These recommendations all aim to restore American higher education to its proper mission—the disengaged, intellectually rigorous search for truth. While we include a strong recommendation that students engage in civil disobedience and cease to comply with social justice requirements, we focus on what state and federal governments can do. We focus on government solutions because we no longer expect that American universities are capable of reforming themselves. Social justice advocates, and those unwilling to do anything to resist their activities, now comprise the bulk of higher education’s faculty and administration. While we urge universities to purge themselves of social justice educators, the most realistic hope for reform lies with the state and federal governments.

We also focus on government solutions because they can affect university funding, which is the Achilles’ heel of social justice education. Properly crafted government actions can disrupt the subsidies that provide secure careers for social justice advocates, and upsetting the social justice education career track offers the best hope of toppling the entire edifice of social justice education. If government action prevents social justice advocates from expecting lifetime employment in higher education, many of them will seek a different line of work. If they do that, then half the battle is won. The battle against social justice education is fundamentally a battle about jobs. Reform policies must dismantle the social justice career track.

Notes

Social justice advocates frequently use words in ways that differ from their ordinary meanings, or that outright invert them. Their abuse of language invites a wholesale rejection of every word they use, and every action they undertake. We have not done so. We recognize, for example, that there is such a thing as oppression in the world—for example, on the Uighurs in China.¹⁰¹ We direct our criticisms to social justice advocates’ politicized perversions of language.

Nor do we reject the original virtues that social justice mimics. It’s a good thing to give food to the starving, even if the politicized claims of food justice will increase misery worldwide. It’s a good thing to prevent date rape at a party, even if bystander intervention really euphemizes a voluntary secret police eager to snitch on thoughtcrimes against social justice orthodoxy. Social justice advocates don’t monopolize virtue.

We believe people will choose freely to do good, even when they don’t have social justice mantras constantly drilled into their heads. We even think they’ll do it better when they’re allowed to make up their own minds.

We write about “social justice advocates” in this report as if they were all part of one unified movement. This is a simplification. Social justice advocates are not all on the same page. Nor do we think there is a unified “social justice conspiracy” seeking to establish itself in higher education. Rather, higher education is being transformed by multiple social justice campaigns and individual initiatives acting at once. Ideological fervor and the normal operations of administrative politics are enough to transform higher education entirely, even without central coordination. Social justice education is dangerous precisely because it builds on the voluntary actions of thousands of professors and administrators, unified by their shared social justice ideology.

Our criticism of social justice educators shouldn’t be taken to extend beyond their professional activities. Dig into the biographies of social justice educators, and you will find Marine veterans, church deacons, and a wide variety of people trying to do good by their fellow Americans. It is a tragedy that so much good will should have been caught up in social justice’s illiberal, authoritarian ideology. We strongly criticize actions to forward social justice—but not the personal character of social justice educators.

Nor do we deny that some good is done by social justice advocates, by actions such as feeding the hungry and picking up litter. As a rule of thumb, though, nothing good done by social justice advocates needs to be justified by social justice ideology, or should be done by a university.

While we provide direct references to sources and websites for much of the main body of the report, other parts of the text refer to the information in our Appendices—the twenty Charts located on our website. We have done this so as to make the report clearer for the casual reader. We trust our references remain sufficiently transparent for more dedicated researchers.

Mission Statements

University and department mission statements act as promissory notes for future social justice initiatives, and register the fundamental abandonment of education as a goal of these universities and departments.

A large number of colleges and universities have now incorporated social justice, or related words, into their mission statements. (See Chart 1: Mission Statements.) This social justice vocabulary doubtless sometimes serves to fob off social justice advocates. It also works as a promissory note for more detailed changes to impose social justice education. A social justice mission statement generally indicates that a higher education institute no longer really aims to educate students. It really aims at social justice activism, and it will only provide education that doesn’t conflict with social justice ideology. The ideal of social justice does not complement the ideal of education. The ideal of social justice replaces the ideal of education.

We should first look at a mission statement unaffected by social justice. In 2018, Yale College stated that its goal

is to seek exceptionally promising students of all backgrounds from across the nation and around the world and to educate them, through mental discipline and social experience, to develop their intellectual, moral, civic, and creative capacities to the fullest. The aim of this education is the cultivation of citizens with a rich awareness of our heritage to lead and serve in every sphere of human activity.¹⁰²

Some of these phrases, such as social experience and civic capacity, can be euphemisms for social justice. Still, we shouldn’t be too skeptical. Yale College’s mission statement focuses squarely on rigorous higher education.

By contrast, a great many college and university mission statements have abandoned education for social justice.

Many mission statements now cite “diversity” as an essential university mission. Arizona State University dedicates itself to maintaining “university accessibility to match Arizona’s socioeconomic diversity.”¹⁰³ Other universities that dedicate themselves to diversity include Evergreen State College,¹⁰⁴ Gonzaga University,¹⁰⁵ Kansas State University,¹⁰⁶ Occidental College,¹⁰⁷ Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg,¹⁰⁸ Southern Oregon University,¹⁰⁹ University of Colorado Boulder,¹¹⁰ University of Iowa,¹¹¹ University of Michigan,¹¹² University of Montana,¹¹³ University of Pennsylvania,¹¹⁴ University of Toledo,¹¹⁵ and Washington State University.¹¹⁶ All these institutions’ mission statements subordinate education to race and sex preferences.

Several universities require more than acquiescence to race and sex preferences, and demand enthusiasm. Eastern Kentucky University devotes itself to “the inclusion and celebration of diverse peoples and ideas”¹¹⁷ and Stony Brook SUNY to “Celebrating diversity.”¹¹⁸ George Mason University asserts that “Diversity Is Our Strength.”¹¹⁹ Miami University of Ohio states that it “strives to cultivate an environment where diversity and difference are appreciated and respected.”¹²⁰ These universities abrogate the freedoms of thought, speech, and conscience when they define criticism of race and sex preferences as antithetical to their institutional missions.

Several universities also devote themselves to “sustainability.” Prescott College supports “sustainable communities and sustainable agriculture,”¹²¹ Evergreen State College embraces “environmental stewardship,”¹²² and Southern Oregon University wishes to be a “sustainable university.”¹²³ Other universities devote themselves to “global citizenship” and creating “global citizens,” including Antioch University Los Angeles,¹²⁴ University of Alabama Birmingham,¹²⁵ University of Montana,¹²⁶ University of Washington,¹²⁷ and Washington State University.¹²⁸ San Francisco State University, using a fig leaf, “prepares its students to become productive, ethical, active citizens with a global perspective.”¹²⁹

Many universities cite miscellaneous keywords from social justice vocabulary. Eastern Kentucky University strives for “cultural competency”;¹³⁰ Gonzaga University for “intercultural competence”;¹³¹ Southern Oregon University to be “inclusive”;¹³² University of Pennsylvania for “civic engagement”;¹³³ and Prescott College for “peace studies,” “multicultural education,” and “artistic and critical response to the issues of our world.”¹³⁴ Occidental College invokes “equity”;¹³⁵ so too does Southern Oregon University.¹³⁶ The University of Minnesota educates students “for active roles in a multiracial and multicultural world.”¹³⁷

Several universities use language that gestures toward social justice, although maintaining some distance. Hamline University states that it desires to “Create a diverse and inclusive learning environment” and to “Champion justice and positive change.”¹³⁸ Merrimack College wishes to “Engage other educational institutions, industry and agencies of social change in collaborative efforts fostering a just, peaceful and sustainable world.”¹³⁹ Pacific University is a “diverse and sustainable community” that “inspires students to think, care, create, and pursue justice in our world.”¹⁴⁰ University of Alabama Birmingham strives for “social consciousness.”¹⁴¹

Other universities explicitly commit themselves to “social justice.” Antioch University Los Angeles “provides learner-centered education to empower students with the knowledge and skills to lead meaningful lives and to advance social, economic, and environmental justice. … The University maintains a historic commitment to promoting social justice and the common good.”¹⁴² Evergreen State College also dedicates itself to “social justice”;¹⁴³ so too does Prescott College.¹⁴⁴ San Francisco State University emphatically proclaims its “unwavering commitment to social justice.”¹⁴⁵ Roosevelt University’s Commitment to Social Justice dedicates it to “educating socially conscious citizens for active and dedicated lives as leaders in their professions and their communities.”¹⁴⁶

Significant numbers of Catholic institutions, such as Cabrini University¹⁴⁷ and Gonzaga University,¹⁴⁸ also dedicate themselves to social justice. Here we must recollect that the specifically Catholic conception of social justice traces back to the nineteenth century, and does not necessarily imply a commitment to the secular conception of social justice.¹⁴⁹ Nevertheless, social justice programs in Catholic universities appear largely indistinguishable from social justice programs in their secular counterparts. Gonzaga University’s Solidarity and Social Justice minor includes standard social justice courses including Introduction to Solidarity and Social Justice; Journalistic Writing; Sex, Gender, and Society; Civic Journalism; Work, Wages, and Inequality; Race and Minority Relations; Social and Economic Inequalities; Elite and White Collar Deviance; -isms: Racism, Classism, Sexism; Global Social Change; Theories of Solidarity and Social Justice; Intersectional Communication; and Solidarity and Social Justice Praxis.¹⁵⁰ These courses could and do all appear at any secular institution. Catholic institutions’ dedication to social justice largely serves the broader American social justice movement.

Many universities also publish specific commitments to ideals such as Diversity, Inclusion, Affirmative Action, Equity, and Inclusive Excellence. (See Chart 2: Special Commitments.) These commitments invoke a great many other social justice ideals.¹⁵¹ Barnard College states that “Our definition of diversity encompasses structural and social differences that form the basis of inequality in our society,” and that “our concern is with how differences in power and possibilities align with social categories and identities, and how these differences distinguish individuals and groups in ways that privilege some and constrain others.”¹⁵² Brooklyn College specifies in its Commitment to Diversity that “every student and employee has the right to use bathrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity or expression.”¹⁵³ Saint Mary’s College of California states that “We envision a community that goes beyond tolerance of differences to one guided by social justice, cultural competence and engaged citizenship.”¹⁵⁴ Prescott College boasts that

A significant component of Prescott College’s realizing its commitment to Diversity & Inclusion emerges in the inspirational scholar activism of our students. Working with our local, state, national, and international communities, our learners create and implement projects, which epitomize academic applications of partnership and justice. Whether it’s organizing youth praxis conferences, offering empowerment programming for adolescent women, facilitating educational camps for LGBTQ teens, or hosting initiatives of intercultural solidarity (to name just a few), our students lead the way with their visionary, innovative work.¹⁵⁵

These mission statements further establish that “diversity” now signifies not only race and sex preferences but also assent to the larger social justice agenda.

To date, only more radical institutions such as Antioch University Los Angeles and San Francisco State University explicitly dedicate themselves to social justice. Yet these colleges illustrate university mission statements’ drift toward social justice. The explicit dedication to social justice is likely to spread. Nor is the language of Antioch and San Francisco likely an endpoint. Americans should expect a continuing ratchet, as mission statements increase their commitment to social justice. With these radicalizing mission statements, we may expect a parallel radicalization of social justice education throughout our universities.

Even now, these mission statements displace education as the central goal of the university. Practically speaking, their language licenses activists to transform the universities piecemeal into social justice machines. But what the mission statements allow still needs to be put into practice. Programmatic changes follow more slowly.¹⁵⁶ A social justice mission statement is not by itself evidence of the detailed imposition of social justice education.

Yet universities have now dedicated themselves to social justice for a generation and more. By now, social justice education has extended itself through much of their curriculum and administration. Perhaps most importantly, many universities now require students to take courses in social justice education.

General Education Requirements

Social justice advocates have inserted requirements that students take courses in areas such as diversity, experiential learning, and social justice, and also erected a system of multiple requirements and double-counted courses that steer students to take social justice courses to fulfill other general education requirements. Social justice advocates capture immense numbers of tenure lines and tuition by requiring students to take social justice courses.

In September 2018, college students and professors at California State University Northridge protested a modification of the university’s general education requirements, which would allow non-diversity courses to fulfill a general education requirement, that (the protestors claimed) would “dilute the significance of ethnic studies.” Professor Stevie Ruiz (Chicana and Chicano Studies) stated that “One of the problems with that is that ethnic studies comes from social movements and is key in social justice.” Professor Rosa Rivera Furumoto Ruiz (Chicana and Chicano Studies) noted that “ethnic courses will still be available[,] but if they’re not required they could disappear.”¹⁵⁷

As the protest at Northridge suggests, social justice advocates’ single most important tactic within higher education is to insert one or more social justice requirements into the general education requirements. (See Chart 3: General Education Requirements.) They give these requirements different names, including Diversity, Experiential Learning, Sustainability, Global Studies, and, forthrightly, Social Justice. This tactic forces all college students to take at least one social justice course, and thereby maximizes the effect of social justice propaganda.

The common practice of double counting a social justice requirement so that it also satisfies another requirement powerfully reinforces the effect of social justice requirements. These requirements also effectively reserve a large number of teaching jobs and tenure-track lines for social justice educators. No one but a social justice advocate, after all, is really qualified to teach a course in social justice advocacy. The direct financial burden of social justice general education requirements is, by a conservative estimate, at least $10 billion a year nationwide, and rising fast.

Distribution Requirements: The Context

The resort to general education requirements presupposes the collapse of the prior educational system of core curricula, which now lingers only in institutions such as Columbia University, St. John’s College, and the University of Chicago.¹⁵⁸ Most universities have replaced core curricula with a system of distribution requirements. In this system, a student must take one or more courses in each of several defined categories, and may select freely from a list of qualifying courses for each distribution requirement.

At San Francisco State University, for example, a student can fulfill the following requirements with the following courses:¹⁵⁹

Area A1: Oral Communication	ENG 210 Oral Communication—Multilingual
Area A2: Written English Communication	ENG 209 Writing the First Year: Global Perspectives of Multilingual Speakers
Area A3: Critical Thinking	AA S 110 Critical Thinking and the Asian American Experience
Area B1: Physical Science	GEOG 101 Our Physical Environment
Area B2: Life Science	RRS 276 Race, Activism and Climate Justice
Area B3: Laboratory Science	GEOG 160 Introduction to Environmental Science
Area B4: Quantitative Reasoning	A U 117 Statistics for Social Justice
Area C1: Arts	RPT 210 Growth Through Art and Leisure
Area C2: Humanities	H ED 120 Educational Justice, Health Equity, and Academic Success
Area D1: Social Sciences	AFRS 260 Power, Racism, and Africana Liberation
Area D2: Social Sciences: U.S. History	RRS 240 All Power to the People: Comparative Freedom Movements of the “Sixties”
Area D3: Social Sciences: U.S. and California Government	WGS 160 Gender, Politics, and Citizenship
Area E: Lifelong Learning and Self-Development	HIST 103 The History of Me
Upper-Division Physical and/or Life Sciences: UD-B	RRS 304 Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color
Upper-Division Arts and/or Humanities: UD-C	SXS 380 Coloring Queer: Imagining Communities
Upper-Division Social Sciences: UD-D	SOC 410 Grassroots Organizing for Change in Communities of Color
American Ethnic and Racial Minorities	RRS 480 Youth Culture, Race and Resistance
Environmental Sustainability	AFRS 256 Hip Hop Workshop
Global Perspectives	WGS 440 Native Sexualities and Queer Discourse
Social Justice	H ED 520 Structural Oppression and Social Foundations of Health

Distribution requirements generally embrace a number of broad subject matter and content categories. As a rule, no student in a distribution-requirement university can expect to share a common body of knowledge with any fellow student.

The spread of social justice courses within the distribution requirements operates within a larger trend to increase the total number of distribution requirements. Although some colleges still imitate the Brown University model of curricular freedom, with neither required courses nor distribution requirements,¹⁶⁰ most colleges now include a large number of course requirements. San Francisco State University imposes a particularly complex series of requirements, which restricts student choice for at least 17 courses.¹⁶¹ Arizona State University illustrates the more typical distribution requirement.¹⁶² ASU requires one course in Literacy and Critical Inquiry (basic composition); one in Computer/Statistics/Quantitative Analysis; one in Mathematics; two in Humanities, Arts, and Design; two in Social-Behavioral Sciences; one in Natural Science-Quantitative; and one in Natural Science–General. ASU then imposes an overlapping requirement in “Three Awareness Areas.” Students must take at least one course apiece in Cultural Diversity in the United States, Global Awareness, and Historical Awareness.

We will return to these “Awareness Areas,” which illustrate how social justice education infiltrates general education requirements. We note here that the expansion of distribution requirements is partly to substitute for the abandoned core curricula, and partly a form of remediation for the substantial number of unprepared students admitted to college. Required writing courses would not be necessary if all entering college students knew how to write. College distribution requirements in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences reflect the unfortunate fact that high school graduates no longer routinely acquire basic knowledge in these subjects.

The spread of these requirements also serves the self-interest of the faculty as a whole. Professors must justify their departments’ existence in an age when students increasingly choose courses from utilitarian calculation. Multiplying the number of general education requirements, and ensuring that every department offers some courses to fulfill those requirements, guarantees minimum enrollment in each department—and minimum employment for each department’s professors. It also gives each department the chance to inspire some captive students to choose to major in the subject—with all the increase in funding and staffing that comes from retaining a substantial body of majors. The spread of general education requirements provides departments a means to cooperate in requiring students to take a variety of courses, as an alternative to the more cutthroat competition that would result from a system of pure student choice.

Social justice educators’ resort to general education requirements, in other words, is partly normal academic practice. At the same time, their extension of social justice requirements also works as an opportunistic diversion of this larger system toward their own ends. This diversion cannibalizes traditional education, particularly the humanities and social sciences, and channels their resources to social justice education.

Let us look again at Arizona State University’s Awareness Areas requirements. Cultural Diversity in the United States and Global Awareness both effectively function as a requirement to take a social justice course: Cultural Diversity courses include AIS 480 Actualizing Decolonization and TCL 490 Transborder Queer Performativity, while Global Awareness courses include JHR 305 Theory and Practice of Social Justice and Human Rights and SOC 445 Globalization, Development, and Resistance. Since most Awareness courses are also in the Humanities and Social Sciences, most ASU students will use two social justice Awareness courses to satisfy half of their four Humanities and Social Sciences required courses. These Awareness requirements work with ASU’s general requirements to reserve a large portion of ASU’s Humanities and Social Sciences course requirements for social justice education.

These general education requirements do not always absolutely require that students take a social justice course. Saint Mary’s College of California’s American Diversity requirement can be satisfied by American history surveys, and not necessarily by Critical Race Theory or Prejudice and Stereotyping.¹⁶³ But these requirements generally make it easy to take social justice courses, and difficult or impossible to avoid them. Social justice educators construct these requirements so that indifferent students will find it easier just to take a social justice course.

The most common way that general education requirements incorporate social justice education is by way of a Diversity Requirement.

Diversity Requirements

General education requirements normally incorporate social justice education through “Diversity” requirements. Diversity requirements steer students toward courses dedicated to identity-group activism, in subjects such as African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Queer Studies, and Women’s Studies. Indiana University Bloomington explains that “Under the rubric of diversity, the College includes race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, sexual orientation, religious practice, and multiple other categories. We wish to ensure that students are introduced to a cultural system in the United States which differs from that of mainstream America.”¹⁶⁴

But the lists of courses that satisfy Diversity requirements generally include courses from the other compartments of social justice education. Course titles frequently include phrases such as civic engagement, equity, internship, multicultural, power, privilege, and social justice. “Diversity” requirements clearly function as Social Justice requirements. The University of Washington declares that course activities for the Diversity requirement “should encourage thinking critically about topics such as power, inequality, marginality, and social movements, and support effective cross-cultural communication skills.”¹⁶⁵ The title of the University of Minnesota’s Diversity requirement is Diversity and Social Justice.

Brandeis University (MA): Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Studies in the United States

Objectives

Contemporary U.S. society is marked by demographic and cultural changes that have both advanced and challenged the nation’s commitment to the realization of individuals’ unalienable rights as human beings. Scientific, technological, legal, political, and aesthetic developments have created significant opportunities throughout the U.S., even as they have also entrenched existing injustices. As part of the Global Engagement requirement, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Studies in the United States courses prepare students to engage with the dynamics, developments, and divisions within U.S. society in the twenty-first century.

To be active and productive participants in a society undergoing significant ethno-racial, political, environmental and cultural change, students will need to understand the important role that a commitment to social justice has played in the advancement of the United States. They will also need to address the role that inequality has played in the country’s formation and continues to play in its development. Courses may draw on a variety of disciplinary approaches to address any of the following:

• The critical study of race, class, gender, sex, disability, ethnicity, sexuality, age, color, nationality and religion, with a specific emphasis on historically marginalized populations;

• The close assessment of laws, regulations, procedures, and policies that have enforced or opposed inequity and injustice;

• The analysis of theories that explain, analyze or critique inequality;

• The empirical examination of coalition and community-building, collaboration across difference, and other practices aimed at increasing inclusion.

Learning Goals

1. Articulate evidence-based understandings of difference and how they work within frameworks of social hierarchy in the United States

2. Increase one’s ability to learn from, and demonstrate respect towards, different peoples, cultures, and world-views

3. Identify historical and contemporary strategies to address issues of social justice in the United States

4. Examine US political, economic, legal, educational, environmental, social, religious, and cultural institutions, values and practices and their historical and contemporary impact in shaping power, privilege and disadvantage

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Studies in the United States, Brandeis University, https://www.brandeis.edu/das/programs/ustudies/DEIS.html.

Twenty-eight of the 60 institutions we study possess a Diversity requirement that includes the actual word “Diversity” in the requirement’s name. These institutions, and a representative sampling throughout the disciplines of the courses that satisfy their Diversity requirements, are:

Brandeis University – [Example courses not listed on website]	Southern Oregon University – ARTH 450 Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Art
Brooklyn College – SPCL 3000 LGBTQ Youth in Educational Contexts	University of Florida – WST 2322 Introduction to Health Disparities
City College – PHIL 14200 Race, Gender, and Philosophy	University of Iowa – DANC 2065 Performing Crisis: Dances of Identity, Witness, and Resistance
Davidson College – EDU 260 Oppression & Education	University of Kansas – AMS 324 Being Deviant in America
Eastern Kentucky University – HON 320W Honors Seminar in Diversity of Perspectives and Experiences	University of Massachusetts Amherst – EDUC 115 Embracing Diversity
Hamline University – [Example courses not listed on website]	University of Minnesota – YOST 1366 Stories of Resistance & Change: Youth, Race, Power & Privilege in the U.S.
Indiana University Bloomington – FOLK-E 295 Survey of Hip Hop	University of Missouri – PSYCH 4984W Promoting Social Justice, Diversity, and Inclusion Capstone
Kansas State University – MANGT 560 Management of Diversity in the Workplace	University of Montana – COMX 212X Introduction to Intercultural Communication
Marquette University – ADPR 4600 International and Multicultural Advertising and Public Relations	University of New Mexico – WMST 498 Feminism in Action
Merrimack College – SOJ 1000 Introduction to Social Justice – Theory & Practice	University of North Carolina Chapel Hill – AMST 248 Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Justice
Occidental College – POLS 270 Campaign Fieldwork Internship¹⁶⁶	University of Pennsylvania – HIST 173 URB Univ-Community Rel: Faculty-Student Collaborative Action Seminar in Urban Univ-Comm Relations
Ohio Wesleyan University – BWS 350 Black Identity	University of Washington – AES 150 In-Justice for All: Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, Class & Gender in the U.S.
Pacific University – SOC 347 Global Cap Neo-Colonial Inequalities	Ursinus College – [Example courses not listed on website]
Saint Mary’s College of California – Sociology 107 Whiteness	Washington State University – DTC 206 Digital Inclusion

Occidental College, U.S. Diversity Requirement, Select Qualifying Courses

AMST 111 Power and Identity

ARTH 254 Critical Perspectives in Museum Studies

EDUC 300 Community Engagement in Education

ENGL 159 Lavender Cowboys: Power and Gender in the American Western

LLAS 250 Dialogue on Critical Latinx/Latin American Issues

PHIL 353 Health and Social Justice

POLS 208 Movements for Social Justice

POLS 212 Mobilizing Voters: Ethnographic Field Research

POLS 265 Community Planning and Politics Practicum

POLS 270 Campaign Fieldwork Internship

SOC 105 Immigrant Youth and Youth Cultures

In addition to Arizona State University, which requires both Cultural Diversity in the United States and Global Awareness, a further three institutions impose two Diversity requirements on their students. These three institutions are Lake Forest College, which requires both Global Pluralism (e.g., PHIL 212 Multicultural Approaches Environment) and U.S. Domestic Pluralism (e.g., EDUC 310 Equity & Social Justice in Education); the University of Colorado Boulder, which requires both Diversity: Global Perspective (e.g., SCAN 3206 Nordic Colonialisms) and Diversity: United States Perspective (e.g., INVS 1523-3 Civic Engagement: Democracy as a Tool for Social Change); and the University of Toledo, which requires both Diversity of U.S. Culture (e.g., AED 3130 Multicultural Approaches for Art Appreciation) and Diversity of Non-U.S. Culture (e.g., ANTH 4730 Biocultural Ecology).

Another 10 of the 60 institutions we study possess one or more Diversity requirement with slightly varying language in their titles. Miami University of Ohio calls its Diversity requirement Intercultural Perspective; San Francisco State University calls it American Ethnic and Racial Minorities; the University of Michigan calls it Race and Ethnicity; and Whitman College calls it Cultural Pluralism. Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences has authorized a new Social Difference requirement.¹⁶⁷ These institutions, and a representative sampling throughout the disciplines of the courses that satisfy their Diversity requirements, are:

California State University Northridge	SPED 200SL Introduction to Disability Studies
Lafayette College	two courses in Global and Multiculturalism [example courses not listed on website]
Miami University of Ohio	IDS 159 Strength Through Cultural Diversity
Pomona College	FGSS192 SC Antiracist Feminist Queer Praxis
San Francisco State University	WGS 552 Transgender Identities and Communities
University of Michigan	ALA 122 Intergroup Dialogues
University of Nevada Las Vegas	PBH 200 Multicultural Health
University of Wisconsin Madison	ASIAN AM 560 Asian American Pan-Ethnicity & Community Organizing
Whitman College	Politics 318 Community-Based Research as Democratic Practice

Accounting for variations in vocabulary, 42 out of the 60 institutions we study have imposed one or more Diversity requirements.

Experiential Learning and Other Requirements

Eleven out of 60 institutions now require or highly recommend some variant of Experiential Learning. Lake Forest College, Merrimack College, Miami University of Ohio, and Roosevelt University all require Experiential Learning. Berea College requires an Active Learning Experience; Hamline College, Liberal Education as Practice; Pacific University, Civic Engagement; Roosevelt University, Experiential Learning; St. Mary’s College of California, Community Engagement; University of North Carolina, Experiential Education; and Ursinus College, an Experiential Learning Project. Stony Brook–SUNY “highly recommends” an Experiential Learning course.¹⁶⁸ Courses that satisfy Experiential Learning requirements overlap heavily with the other aspects of social justice education. Such courses include:

Lake Forest College	ASIA 318 Buddhism and Social Activism
Merrimack College	EDU 2130 Diversity, Social Justice, & Ethics
Miami University of Ohio	SJS 215 EMPOWER I: Educational and Economic Justice and Service-Learning
Pacific University	CIV 227 Action for Affordable Housing
St. Mary’s College of California	Ethnic Studies 150 Creating Community Through Advanced Interactive Theater
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill	ENEC 393 Internship in Sustainability

Two institutions possess Sustainability requirements. Pacific University requires Sustainability (e.g., ENV 141 Permaculture Science), while the University of Minnesota requires students to take a course on the Environment (e.g., HECU 3591 Environmental Sustainability: Science, Public Policy, & Community Action Environmental & Climate Justice). Another two institutions possess Global Citizenship requirements—Cornell University and Hamline University.¹⁶⁹

Social justice advocates have largely captured writing departments,¹⁷⁰ so writing requirements also channel social justice education. Berea College requires students to take GSTR 210: Writing Seminar II: Identity and Diversity in the United States, where they learn to “understand issues related to race, gender, class and Appalachia in a national context”;¹⁷¹ while Cornell University’s list of First-Year Writing Seminars includes Writing Across Cultures: The Third World and #TravelPorn?, “You Want Fries with That?” Food Work and Workers, and Vital Politics: Science, Medicine, Activism.

First-Year Course requirements also frequently function as requirements to take social justice education. Gonzaga University’s First-Year Seminars include PHYS 193 FYS: Social Justice in Science Fiction; Lafayette College’s include FYS 141 Mathematics of Social Justice; Occidental College’s first-year Cultural Studies Seminars include CSP 71 No Justice, No Peace: Resisting, Thinking, and Writing for the Sake of Justice; and Pomona College’s first-year Critical Inquiry Seminars have included The Politics of Protest and Language and Social Justice.¹⁷²

Requirements labeled as Global Studies are sometimes, but not always, exercises in social justice education. Cornell University’s Geographic Breadth Requirement, for example, requires “One course that focuses on an area or a people other than those of the United States, Canada, or Europe.”¹⁷³ While social justice education generally disdains European civilization and peoples, mere interest in the non-European world—or even requiring students to take a course in non-European subject matter—is not necessarily an exercise in social justice education. At Brooklyn College, World Cultures & Global Issues includes a relatively small number of social justice courses (e.g., ENGL 2008: The Quest for Ethnic, Cultural, & National Identities in Literature). University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Beyond the North Atlantic requirement also includes fairly few social justice courses (e.g., ARAB 338 Borders and Walls in the Arab World – Experiential).

Other Global Studies requirements have been largely converted toward social justice education. Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg stipulates that its Global Learning requirement includes study of “economic legacies and hierarchies” and “the ability to analyze power.”¹⁷⁴ Occidental College’s Global Connections requirement can be satisfied by EDUC 350 Freire, Fanon, and Freedom in Education or PHIL 330 Globalization and Justice. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill also has a second global requirement, Global Issues, more tightly focused on social justice education (e.g., GEOG 480 Liberation Geographies: The Place, Politics, and Practice of Resistance, GLBL 383 Global Whiteness, WGST 410 Comparative Queer Politics). At the University of Minnesota, a remarkably large number of social justice courses satisfy their Global Perspectives requirement, including:

AMIN 1002	Indigenous Peoples in Global Perspective
BBE 3201	Sustainability of Food Systems: A Life Cycle Perspective
CSCL 3211	Oppositional Cinemas
ESPM 3251	Natural Resources in Sustainable International Development
GLOS 3613W	Stuffed and Starved: The Politics of Eating
GWSS 4103	Transnational Feminist Theories
LEAD 4961W	Leadership for Global Citizenship
SOC 4321	Globalize This! Understanding Globalization through Sociology
SW 1501	Introduction to Peace Studies
YOST 1368W	Youth Global Perspectives: Stories from the Arab, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Worlds

Requirements in experiential learning, sustainability, global citizenship, writing, first-year courses, and global studies collectively impose social justice education on a large minority of the 60 institutions we analyze.

Loopholes

Social justice educators also subvert requirements intended to support traditional education by including social justice classes in the list of courses that satisfy these requirements. California state law requires public universities to teach a course in U.S. History and Government. California State University Northridge allows students to fulfill this requirement with AAS 347 Asian American Politics and the Law, AFRS 272 African American History Since 1865, or CHS 445 History of the Chicano; while San Francisco State University lists courses such as AIS 103 Introduction to Pacific Studies, AIS 205 American Indians and U.S. Laws, and WGS 150 Women and Gender in U.S. History and Society. Meanwhile, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s North Atlantic World requirement—the traditional core of European and American history and civilization—includes a number of social justice courses, including ENEC 480 Environmental Decision Making, GSLL 67 First-Year Seminar: Blackness in the European Imaginary, Europe in the Black Imaginary, and WGST 665 Queer Latina/o Literature, Performance, and Visual Art.

Social Justice Requirements

Several universities have gone beyond the usual proxies for social justice (diversity, sustainability, experiential learning) toward explicit social justice requirements. Others possess virtually identical requirements with minor variations of language for their names.

Two universities explicitly require Social Justice—Gonzaga University and San Francisco State University. Gonzaga University’s Social Justice requirement can be satisfied by courses including:

EDPE 205	Sport and Activity in a Diverse Society
EDTE 305/MTSL 505	Intercultural Competence
ENGL 206H	Literature and Intersectionality
ENGL 306/SOSJ 397 ST	Writing for Social Action
INST 326/POLS 363/WGST 342	Global Gender Regimes
NTAS 310	Native American Activism
PHIL 409	Social Justice
PHIL 462	Theories of Solidarity and Social Justice
PHIL 491	Marxism
PHYS 193	FYS: Social Justice in Science Fiction
SOSJ 101	Intro to Solidarity and Social Justice
THEA 193	FYS: Theatre and Social Change

San Francisco State University’s State Studies requirement in Social Justice can be satisfied by courses including:

A U 116	Algebra and Statistics for Social Justice
AA S 587	Asian Americans and Environmental Justice
AIS 420	Native Genders and Feminism
BECA 502	Environmental Communication on Electronic Media
C J 485	Latina/o Youth, Crime, and Justice
CAD 260	Children, Families, and Community: An Ecological Perspective
H ED 520	Structural Oppression and Social Foundations of Health
LS 403	Performance and Pedagogy of the Oppressed for Educators
RRS 375	Queer Arabs in the U.S.
TPW 490	Grant Writing
WGS 220	Introduction to Feminist Disability Studies

Other institutions thinly disguise their social justice requirements. One Learning Goal of Brandeis University’s Difference and Justice in the World requirement is “Understand global, transnational and interconnected issues of social justice beyond the United States.”¹⁷⁵ Starting in 2021, Davidson College’s Justice, Equality and Community requirement will “address the manifestations of justice and equality in various communities, locales, nations or regions, and focus on methods and theories used to analyze, spotlight, or remedy instances of injustice and inequality.” Courses that will satisfy this requirement include:

ANT 335	Debunking Race
COM 365	Rhetorics of Justice and Equality
DAN 282	Dance, Gender, & Sexuality
EDU 210	Dialogues on Race and Racism
ENV 170	Social Science Perspectives on Environmental Justice
ENV 273	Art, Activism, and Environment
ENG 374	Picturing Disability
GSS 394	Latinx Sexual Dissidence and Guerilla Translation
HHV 232	Introduction to Environmental Health with Community-Based Learning
POL 435	(In)Justice in America
SOC 237	Boys and Men in Society
SOC 331	Theoretical Explorations of Community Engagement
THE 362	Theatre for Social Justice

Other euphemisms for social justice requirements include Pomona College’s Analyzing Difference; Saint Mary’s College of California’s Common Good; Southern Oregon University’s Citizenship and Social Responsibility; the University of Kansas’s Social Responsibility and Ethics; the University of Minnesota’s Civic Life and Ethics; and Vanderbilt University’s Perspectives. Courses that satisfy these requirements include:

Pomona College	HIST025 CH All Power to the People! Social Movements for Justice
Saint Mary’s College of California	Communication 161 Communication and Social Justice
Southern Oregon University	ARTH 345 Activist Art
University of Kansas	UBPL 200 Sustainability and Society.
University of Minnesota	CHIC 1275 Service Learning in the Chicano/Latino Community
Vanderbilt University	PHIL 3012W Writing as Political Resistance

Some colleges impose idiosyncratic education requirements that require social justice education. Belmont University’s Convocation Program includes Global Citizenship; Leadership, Diversity & the Professions; and Community Service & Reflection. At Cabrini University,

Cabrini’s core curriculum, Justice Matters, develops a common core of knowledge and connects the theory and practice of social justice to each student’s major. … “[ECG 200] ... This experiential, writing-intensive course explores—through texts and community partnerships—how power, privilege, and difference affect solidarity, equality, and dignity; the essential elements of the Common Good.”¹⁷⁶

DePaul University’s Undergraduate Core Curriculum includes a Chicago Quarter (e.g., Environmental Justice: The Politics of Garbage; Privilege in Chicago; Women’s Leadership for Social Change), a Seminar on Multiculturalism in the U.S., and Experiential Learning. Gonzaga University’s Core Integration Seminars include Feminist Ethics, Global Climate Change, Environmental Ethics, Social Justice, and All Art is Propaganda. Pepperdine University lists, but does not require, a four-course Social Action and Justice Colloquium (SAAJ) with its General Education Program.

The courses that satisfy social justice education requirements map the terrain of social justice education in American colleges and universities.

Multiple Requirements

Some colleges impose multiple social justice requirements. Gonzaga University’s social justice requirements include Core Integration Seminar, First-Year Seminar, and Social Justice; Hamline University’s include Diversity, Global Citizenship, and LEAP: Liberal Education As Practice; Occidental College’s include Cultural Studies Seminars, Global Connections, and U.S. Diversity; and Pacific University’s include Civic Engagement, International and Diverse Perspectives, and Sustainability.

Barnard College provides a whole series of requirements that can be satisfied with social justice courses: Thinking Locally—New York City may be satisfied by EESC-UN2330 Science for Sustainable Development; Thinking About Social Difference by AMST-BC1041 Critical Ethnicity & Race; Ethics and Values by WMST-BC2150 Practicing Intersectionality; and Social Analysis by URBS-UN3450 Neighborhood & Community Development.

But it is San Francisco State University that possesses the most extensive series of social justice requirements in our 60 case study institutions.

Four of San Francisco State University’s Lower-Division General Education Requirements have been at least partly assimilated by social justice education: Arts and Humanities (e.g., AFRS 201 Kemet, Afrocentricity, and the Dawn of Science), English Language Communication and Critical Thinking (e.g., ETHS/RRS 110 Critical Thinking and the Ethnic Studies Experience), Lifelong Learning and Self-Development (e.g., RPT 205 Enlightened and Sustainable Travel), and Social Science (e.g., H ED 221 Health and Social Justice—Burning Issues, Taking Action).

Three of San Francisco State University’s SF State Studies requirements likewise support social justice education: American Ethnic and Racial Minorities (e.g., SOC 410 Grassroots Organizing for Change in Communities of Color), Environmental Sustainability (e.g., AFRS 256 Hip Hop Workshop), and Social Justice (e.g., A U 116 Algebra and Statistics for Social Justice).

Three of San Francisco State University’s Upper-Division General Education Requirements also have been at least partly assimilated by social justice education: Arts and/or Humanities (e.g., AA S 514 Asian American Community Arts Workshop), Physical and/or Life Sciences (e.g., RRS 304 Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color), and Social Sciences (e.g., AFRS 466 Black Lives Matter: Race and Social Movements).

San Francisco State University’s U.S. History and Government requirement, imposed by state law, can be satisfied by courses such as H ED 241 Health and Social Movements in the United States in the 20th Century, RRS 240 All Power to the People: Comparative Freedom Movements of the “Sixties,” and RRS 250 Race, Ethnicity and Power in America.

San Francisco State University’s network of social justice requirements is remarkably thick, and presages future developments in the rest of higher education. Readers should note that these requirements were constructed so that virtually every general education requirement could be satisfied by a social justice course—even in the physical sciences.

These requirements were constructed so that virtually every general education requirement could be satisfied by a social justice course—even in the physical sciences.

Double Counting

The common practice of double-counting a social justice requirement so that it also satisfies another requirement powerfully reinforces the requirements’ effect. At Arizona State University, as noted above, Cultural Diversity in the United States and Global Awareness are Awareness Areas, and “Courses that are listed for a core area and one or more awareness areas may satisfy requirements concurrently.”¹⁷⁷ At Davidson College, many Cultural Diversity courses “also may satisfy Ways of Knowing, major, or minor requirements.”¹⁷⁸ At Gonzaga University the Social Justice requirement is a Designation, and “Designations double-count with other core, major, minor, or elective classes.”¹⁷⁹ At Pomona College, “A course fulfilling the Analyzing Difference requirement may also be used to fulfill a Breadth of Study area requirement and/or a Writing Intensive or Speaking Intensive requirement.”¹⁸⁰

At University of Colorado Boulder, “Students may count the same course toward both the Diversity requirement and the Distribution requirement.”¹⁸¹ At the University of Michigan, “Credits used to satisfy the R&E [Race and Ethnicity] requirement also may be used to satisfy other College requirements.”¹⁸² At the University of Missouri, Diversity Intensive courses “count toward distribution requirements in Behavioral Science, Biological Science, Humanities and Fine Arts, and Social Sciences.”¹⁸³ At the University of Nevada Las Vegas, “Both the multicultural and international courses may simultaneously satisfy other General Education requirements.”¹⁸⁴ At the University of New Mexico, “courses available to fulfill this 3-credit hour [Diversity] requirement … may also be used towards other applicable graduation areas.”¹⁸⁵ At the University of Washington, Diversity course credits “will simultaneously satisfy other Area of Knowledge requirements and do not add to the total number of credits you need to graduate.”¹⁸⁶

These resorts to double-counting are partly meant to spare imposing additional burdens on students: double-counting a social justice course means that students don’t have to spend extra time and tuition, beyond the existing costs of a general education requirement. Yet the practical effect is to subtract a real course in the humanities or social sciences—as well as the natural sciences, in the case of sustainability courses—and replace it with a social justice course. Double-counting hastens the process by which social justice education replaces the liberal arts.

Yet the practical effect is to subtract a real course in the humanities or social sciences—as well as the natural sciences, in the case of sustainability courses—and replace it with a social justice course. Double-counting hastens the process by which social justice education replaces the liberal arts.

This double-counting creates the impression that social justice is the only way to understand humanity. This impression affects the large number of students who only take required humanities and social sciences courses. It also affects the smaller number of humanities and social science majors, whose first courses in their majors are usually chosen to fulfill the general education requirements. The double-counting rule is a way to marginalize, and then eliminate, courses that teach students how to understand the human condition other than through social justice.

Financial Costs

Distribution requirements as a whole impose a very heavy financial burden on students—and on the parents and taxpayers who help pay students’ tuition bills. Zachary Jack (associate professor of English, North Central College) notes,

Even a 40-credit-hour requirement, for example, amounts to one-third of many students’ total required credits, or roughly the equivalent of one to one and a half years of tuition. Given the College Board’s calculation that average tuition and fees for the 2017-18 academic year averaged $34,740 at private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, the cost to complete a general-education program could be in excess of $50,000.¹⁸⁷

Social justice general education requirements so far generally impose a lesser burden. At Arizona State University, students are effectively required to take only two social justice courses—at a cost of no more than $4,212 in tuition for in-state residents.¹⁸⁸ If we multiply that number by the 2.2 million students nationwide who immediately enroll in college following high school graduation, we come up with an annual cost of ca. $9.25 billion. Many students receive discounts—but amortized costs for room and board also ought to be included in that figure. If all social justice requirements nationwide are the same as Arizona State University’s, a cautious estimate for the minimum cost is $10 billion.

For comparison, the federal government appropriated roughly $68 billion dollars for postsecondary education support in 2019.¹⁸⁹

But this estimate almost certainly underestimates the present and future costs of social justice general education requirements. Tuition costs at private colleges, as Jack notes, are frequently much higher than in public universities. Moreover, social justice education requirements are growing more and more extensive. At San Francisco State University, social justice education has taken over the majority of the extensive general education requirements. If colleges nationwide adopted social justice requirements at the level of San Francisco State, this means students would be required to take perhaps 10 social justice courses—at a nationwide annual cost of at least $50 billion dollars.

Even this figure is necessarily a great underestimation of the costs of social justice education. Social justice advocates, after all, aim to assimilate higher education as a whole, and not just the general education requirements.

The Departments

Social justice advocates have seized or created large numbers of disciplines explicitly dedicated to social justice activism. The heaviest penetration of social justice advocacy is in Identity Group Studies; American Studies; Gender Studies; Sustainability; Global, Human Rights, and Peace Studies; Health Policy and Urban Studies; Law, Political Science, and Public Policy; Education; Social Work; Criminology; Psychology and Sociology; Civic Engagement; Leadership; and Social Justice. These disciplines select and form social justice advocates by a combination of mission statements, requirements, and electives. Social justice has penetrated so far into the departments that it has now colonized writing instruction and even mathematics. Every university we studied has its complement of notable social justice courses.

Social justice advocates have taken over or created a substantial portion of the academic departments in our universities. (See Chart 4: Social Justice Academic Programs.) The departments most likely to advertise their commitment to social justice are those most central to the social justice educators’ ideological vision, political goals, and ambition for employment. The heaviest concentrations of social justice departments are the Identity Group Studies, Gender Studies, Peace Studies, and Sustainability Studies pseudo-disciplines; the career track departments of Education, Social Work, and Criminology; and the departments dedicated to activism such as Civic Engagement, Leadership, and Social Justice.

Social justice takes over departments by incorporating social justice into their mission statements, inserting departmental requirements for social justice education, and dedicating as many elective courses as possible to social justice education. When social justice educators control departments entirely, they rapidly shift the definition of that discipline so that it requires social justice education. These changes make it practically impossible to study that discipline without embracing social justice.

A larger number of departments contain social justice advocates, but are not yet themselves institutionally incorporated into social justice education. The University of Minnesota offers social justice courses such as Introduction to Contemporary Art and Theory (“Approaches to contemporary art through lens of cultural diversity/social justice”), Social Justice Calculus, and Social Justice and Bioethics,¹⁹⁰ but we have not labeled the University of Minnesota’s departments of Art History, Mathematics, or Bioethics as “social justice education.” Yet readers should be aware that a host of social justice educators populate departments throughout the universities, even though we do not enumerate their presence.

Readers should likewise be aware of a larger system of private charity, endowing ever-increasing numbers of professorships devoted to social justice.¹⁹¹ Each social justice course, each endowed social justice professorship, each individual social justice initiative—they all degrade higher education in American universities. We do not, however, address this larger system of financial support. We confine our analysis to 239 academic programs at 60 colleges and universities that have made significant institutional commitments to social justice education—above all by explicit textual commitments to social justice in their mission statements and departmental requirements. We list programs that provide various academic credentials, including majors, minors, M.A.s, Ph.D.s, certificates, concentrations, and pathways.

Informal Social Justice Advocacy

The University of Washington’s Law, Societies and Justice Department does not explicitly advocate social justice, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

LSJ Major, University of Washington, https://lsj.washington.edu/lsj-major.

Disciplinary Patterns

Any sort of department can adopt a commitment to social justice. Although English is not a central component of the social justice education complex, the Department of English at Kansas State University states that it “affirms our core values of diversity, social justice, critical thinking, creativity, and empathy. … We stand for justice and against misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, ableism, the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and the destruction of the place in which we live.”¹⁹² But the departments most likely to advertise their commitment to social justice are those most central to the social justice educators’ ideological vision, political goals, and ambition for employment.

Ideological Pseudo-Disciplines

Social justice ideology includes a foundational commitment to race and sex preferences—to identity politics of all sorts. Therefore a large number of Identity Group Studies programs dedicate themselves to social justice (16 programs). These include African American Studies, American Ethnic Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Comparative Ethnic Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Disability Studies, and Ethnic Studies.

Large numbers of American Studies programs also commit themselves to social justice. American Studies is the legatee of a discipline whose founders championed rigorous and patriotic scholarship, but the discipline has decayed into an Identity Group Studies collaborative. American Studies now teaches an “America” that is nothing more than identity groups, oppression, and resentment (6 programs).¹⁹³

American Studies

Cornell University (American Studies)	University of Michigan (American Studies)
Lafayette College (American Studies: Social Justice in America Concentration)	University of Minnesota (American Studies)
University of Kansas (American Studies)	University of New Mexico (American Studies)

Identity Group Studies

DePaul University (Critical Ethnic Studies)	Saint Mary’s College of California (Ethnic Studies)
Eastern Kentucky University (African American Studies)	San Francisco State University (Race and Resistance Studies)
Indiana University Bloomington (African American & Diaspora Studies and History)	Southern Oregon University (Native American Studies)
Kansas State University (American Ethnic Studies)	Stony Brook–SUNY (Africana Studies: Human Rights and Social Justice Concentration)
Miami University of Ohio (Disability Studies)	University of Colorado Boulder (Ethnic Studies)
Ohio State University (American Indian Studies)	University of Kansas (Latino/a Studies)
Pomona College (Asian American Studies)	University of New Mexico (Chicana/o Studies)
Pomona College (Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies)	Washington State University (Comparative Ethnic Studies)

Social justice’s commitment to identity politics partly explains its dedication to Gender Studies—a disciplinary grouping that now includes Queer Studies, Sexuality Studies, and Women’s Studies (22 programs). Gender Studies also channels social justice advocates’ simultaneous, intellectually incoherent commitment to a performative/expressive conception of identity. As many Gender Studies programs commit themselves to social justice as do Identity Group Studies and American Studies programs combined (22 each). The commitment of equal numbers of programs to these two groupings nicely expresses social justice advocates’ equal commitment to the theories of group identity and performative identity.

Gender Studies

Antioch University Los Angeles (Liberal Studies: Queer Studies Concentration)	Kansas State University (Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies)
Brandeis University (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)	Lafayette College (Women’s and Gender Studies)
California State University Northridge (Gender and Social Justice)	Pepperdine University (Women’s Studies)
California State University Northridge (Gender & Women’s Studies)	San Francisco State University (Sexuality Studies: LGBT Studies)
California State University Northridge (Queer Studies)	San Francisco State University (Women and Gender Studies)
City College–CUNY (Anthropology, Gender Studies, and International Studies)	Southern Connecticut State University (Women’s Studies)
Cornell University (Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies)	University of Iowa (Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies)
DePaul University (Women’s and Gender Studies)	University of Minnesota (Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies)
DePaul University (Women’s and Gender Studies: Social Justice and Public Policy Concentration)	University of Montana (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
Hamline University (Women’s Studies)	Washington State University (Queer Studies)
Indiana University Bloomington (Gender Studies)	Washington State University (Women’s Studies)

Social justice ideology also includes a foundational commitment to the anti-capitalist program of Sustainability—which is parasitic upon Environmental Studies, and includes an annex of Food Studies (23 programs). Sustainability programs serve three functions. They give social justice educators a beachhead in the natural sciences; they provide a home within the social justice movement for those inclined to a mystical veneration of nature; and they provide a home within the social justice movement for straight whites, especially straight white men, whom social justice advocates forbid an Identity Group Study of their own.¹⁹⁴

Sustainability

Arizona State University (Environmental Humanities Certificate)	San Francisco State University (Environmental Studies: Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice Emphasis)
Berea College (Sustainability and Environmental Studies)	Southern Oregon University (Sustainability Leadership)
Brandeis University (Social Policy: Global Development and Sustainability Concentration)	University of Colorado Boulder (Environmental Justice)
California State University Northridge (Sustainability)	University of Florida Gainesville (Sustainability Studies)
Cornell University (Community Food Systems)	University of Iowa (Sustainability)
George Mason University (Environmental and Sustainability Studies)	University of Michigan (Environmental Justice)
George Mason University (Environmental and Sustainability Studies: Concentration in Equity and Environmental Justice)	University of Montana (Community Agriculture)
George Mason University (Mason Core: Engagement Series – Sustainability: Optional Pathway)	University of Montana (Environmental Studies: Environmental Justice)
Marquette University (Environmental Studies)	University of New Mexico (Community and Regional Planning)
Merrimack College (Environmental Studies and Sustainability)	University of New Mexico (Sustainability)
Pepperdine University (Sustainability)	University of Wisconsin Madison (Sustainability)
Roosevelt University (Sustainability Studies)

Social justice advocates express their hostility to American national interest, and their desire to subordinate it to transnational rule by an array of progressive state and nongovernmental organizations, via their Global, Human Rights, and Peace programs (20 programs). Human Rights and Peace also channel progressive advocacy in domestic policy, but these programs generally articulate the extension of social justice ideology to American foreign policy and the world beyond America’s borders.

Global, Human Rights, and Peace

Barnard College (Human Rights Studies)	San Francisco State University (Global Peace, Human Rights, and Justice Studies)
Berea College (Peace and Social Justice Studies)	University of Alabama Birmingham (Peace, Justice, and Ecology)
Brandeis University (Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies)	University of Colorado Boulder (Peace & Conflict Studies)
Brooklyn College (Political Science: International Affairs and Global Justice Concentration)	University of Kansas (Peace and Conflict Studies)
Cornell University (Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, Human Rights and Social Justice)	University of Minnesota (Global Studies)
DePaul University (Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies)	University of Missouri (Interdisciplinary with Emphasis on Peace Studies)
George Mason University (Social Justice and Human Rights)	University of New Mexico (Peace Studies)
Kansas State University (Nonviolence Studies)	University of Toledo (Peace Studies)
Marquette University (Peace Studies)	Ursinus College (Peace and Social Justice)
Miami University of Ohio (Global Human Rights and Justice Concentration)	Pacific University (Peace and Social Justice)

Social justice educators express their concern with domestic policy through a variety of disciplines. Social justice’s concern with redistributing tax money to fund their political coalition’s clients finds particular expression in Health Policy and Urban Studies (9 programs). Programs in Law, Political Science, and Public Policy channel a more generic interest in domestic policy (8 programs).

Health Policy and Urban Studies

Antioch University Los Angeles (Liberal Studies: Urban Studies Concentration)	University of Missouri (Public Health)
San Francisco State University (Health Education)	University of Pennsylvania (Urban Studies)
Southern Connecticut State University (Urban Studies)	University of Washington (Global Health)
University of Iowa (Gender, Health, and Healthcare Equity)	Vanderbilt University (Medicine, Health and Society: Inequality, Intersectionality, and Health Justice)
University of Michigan (Poverty Solutions, Action & Engagement)

Law, Political Science, and Public Policy

Arizona State University (Justice Studies)	University of Minnesota (Development Practice)
Brandeis University (Public Policy)	University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Public Policy)
Merrimack College (Law, Ethics, and Society)	University of Toledo (Law and Social Thought)
University of Michigan (Law, Justice, and Social Change)	Vanderbilt University (Law School: George Barrett Social Justice Program)

A scattering of Liberal Arts programs also now commit themselves to social justice, in departments including Anthropology, Dance Studies, English, Geography, Religious Studies, and Rhetoric (11 programs). These programs are harbingers of the general capture of the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences by social justice educators.

Liberal Arts

Cornell University (Anthropology: Activism & Social Justice)	Saint Mary’s College of California (Dance Studies)
DePaul University (Geography: Environment and Society Concentration)	Southern Oregon University (Social Sciences, Policy and Culture)
George Mason University (Arts and Social Change)	University of Kansas (Religious Studies)
Indiana University Bloomington (Geography)	Washington State University (Digital Humanities and Culture)
Kansas State University (English)	Whitman College (Rhetoric Studies)
Marquette University (Latin American Studies)

Government Studies

What unites social justice education’s pseudo-disciplines is their focus on discrete components of government power, and their propaganda to increase the powers of select portions of the administrative state. The Identity Group Studies pseudo-disciplines focus upon categories of Americans who are currently or prospectively clients for group preference by the federal government’s administrative machinery. Gender Studies has a broader focus on using government power to underwrite group preferences, abrogate due process, and violate religious freedom. Sustainability focuses upon the bureaucracies dedicated to regulating the economy in the name of environmental protection. Global Studies focuses on America’s foreign policy bureaucracies. Health Policy and Urban Studies focus on discrete aspects of the welfare state. The more general interest in Law and Public Policy stands for a general interest in taxing American citizens and extending the reach of the administrative state.

These social justice pseudo-disciplines provide training for propaganda; lawfare; pressure-group politics; and the arbitrary exercise of administrative and judicial power. These disciplines’ definitions, raisons d’etre, and intellectual coherence consist of extending governmental power to serve social justice advocacy.

The effect is as if Economics were to change its name, and its real focus, to Securities and Exchange Commission Studies; Chemistry to Environmental Protection Agency Studies; Agronomy to Department of Agriculture Studies; Law to Justice Department Studies; and Physics to Department of Energy Studies.

Vocational Training

These first categories express social justice education largely in term of ideological interest—but an equally large number of disciplinary categories articulate the career ambitions of social justice advocates. These are divided by career track rather than intellectual interest.

The largest single commitment to social justice is in Education departments (30 programs). The actual commitment to social justice should be taken as even more intense, since we have not counted the overlapping social justice commitments of Schools of Education. Social justice advocates have almost entirely taken over the professional formation of a large number of careers, including K–12 teaching, school counseling, school administration (principals), and higher education administration.¹⁹⁵

Education

Antioch University Los Angeles (Education, Leadership & Social Justice)	University of Colorado Boulder (Public Achievement)
Barnard College (Education)	University of Florida (Counselor Education)
DePaul University (Leadership, Language, and Curriculum)	University of Massachusetts Amherst (Education)
Gonzaga University (School Counselor Pro-Certification)	University of Massachusetts Amherst (Education: Social Justice Education Concentration)
Gonzaga University (School of Education: Teacher Certification and Endorsements)	University of Michigan (Higher Education: Diversity and Social Justice in Higher Education)
Indiana University Bloomington (Counseling)	University of Minnesota (Culture and Teaching)
Lake Forest College (Educational Policy and Leadership Certificate Programs)	University of Minnesota (Curriculum and Instruction)
Miami University of Ohio (Educational Leadership)	University of Minnesota (Racial Justice in Urban Schooling)
Miami University of Ohio (Fostering Just Communities Certificate)	University of New Mexico (Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies)
Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg (Teacher Education)	University of Toledo (Educational Theory & Social Foundations)
San Francisco State University (Education: Concentration in Equity and Social Justice in Education)	University of Wisconsin Madison (Education Studies)
San Francisco State University (Education Leadership)	University of Wisconsin Madison (Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis)
University of Alabama Birmingham (Educational Leadership, Policy, and Technology Studies)	University of Wisconsin Madison (Elementary Education)
University of Colorado Boulder (Education)	Ursinus College (Educational Studies)
University of Colorado Boulder (Elementary Education)

The individual departments of Social Work possess fewer explicit commitments to social justice (10 programs). This smaller number is deceptive. Schools of Social Work, which contain the individual departments, possess numerous commitments to social justice, and so does the entire National Association of Social Workers.¹⁹⁶ Social justice advocates have taken over the schools of Social Work as part of their larger conquest of the entire social work profession.

Social Work

Cabrini University (Social Work)	University of Alabama Birmingham (Social Work)
Kansas State University (Social Work)	University of Michigan (Political Social Work)
Pacific University (Social Work)	University of Michigan (Social Work: Community Organization Concentration)
Southern Connecticut State University (Social Work	University of Michigan (Social Work: Social Policy & Evaluation Concentration)
Stony Brook–SUNY (Social Welfare)	University of Toledo (Social Work)

Departments of Criminology, and other departments associated with staffing the police, prisons, probation offices, and the courts, also endorse social justice fairly frequently (10 programs). This commitment to social justice seems partly to be extension by keyword creep—the word justice in social justice providing the rationale for this extension. The extension also gives positions to social justice educators training job entrants for this large employment sector. It also raises the unsettling possibility that an increasing number of government employees who should be dedicated to upholding law, order, and justice will instead be dedicated to pursuing social justice advocacy.

Criminology

City College–CUNY (Crime, Prisons, Education, and Justice)	Gonzaga University (Criminology)
DePaul University (Criminology: Community Justice Concentration)	Indiana University Bloomington (Criminal Justice)
DePaul University (Criminology: Criminal Justice Concentration)	Roosevelt University (Criminal Justice)
DePaul University (Criminology: Race, Class, Gender, and Justice Concentration)	University of Iowa (Criminology, Law, and Justice)
DePaul University (Sociology: Law, Crime, and Criminology Concentration)	University of Missouri (Criminology/Criminal and Juvenile Justice)

Other Pre-Professional departments provide a scattering of commitments to social justice, in fields such as Family Studies, Financial Literacy, Journalism, Library School, and Recreation, Park, and Tourism Studies (6 programs). These departments register the general ambitions of social justice educators to extend social justice into all careers.

Pre-Professional

Gonzaga University (Journalism)	Northwestern University (Medill School of Journalism: Social Justice and Investigative Reporting Specialization)
Indiana University Bloomington (Recreation, Park, and Tourism Studies)	University of Alabama Birmingham (School of Library and Information Studies: Social Justice and Inclusivity)
Marquette University (Family Studies)	University of Missouri (Financial Literacy for Helping Professionals)

Psychology and Sociology departments register a relatively heavy commitment to social justice (8 programs). This commitment partly registers these discipline’s intellectual commitments to social justice—particularly sociology’s, which has long been split between a sub-discipline devoted to traditional intellectual study and a sub-discipline theoretically and practically committed to progressive activism.¹⁹⁷ The latter sub-discipline has been rising in importance during the last generation, and sociology departments nationwide frequently sponsor minors and concentrations in social justice.¹⁹⁸ But these departments’ commitments to social justice is also pre-professional, since preparation in psychology and sociology feeds in to a great many career tracks, including counseling, education, and social work.

Psychology and Sociology

Antioch University Los Angeles (Liberal Studies: Psychology Concentration)	George Mason University (Sociology: Inequality and Social Change)
California State University Northridge (Sociology: Social Welfare & Social Justice Concentration)	Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg (Community Psychology and Social Change)
DePaul University (Psychology: Community Concentration)	Pepperdine University (Social Justice Collaborative: Forum, Graduate School of Education & Psychology)
DePaul University (Sociology: Cities, Action, Power, and Practice (CAPP) Concentration)	University of Montana (Sociology: Inequality and Social Justice)

Social Justice Activism

A final group of disciplines register the transformation of social justice activism into pseudo-disciplines. These disciplines also lead to social justice careers, above all in higher education administration, education, and nonprofit organizations. They are distinct from the other disciplines, however, in that their very definition is sharply divorced from intellectual inquiry. Instead they are dedicated to social justice activism. The substance of these disciplines is largely interchangeable, although their names are useful for indicating which ideals social justice educators have chosen to subvert.

A great deal of social justice activism channels itself through Civic Engagement, or virtually identical programs such as Community Engagement and Community Studies (10 programs). These disciplines pretend to be traditional civics education, but instead provide vocational training and free labor for social justice activism.¹⁹⁹

Civic Engagement

California State University Northridge (Civic and Community Engagement)	Northwestern University (Civic Engagement)
City College–CUNY (Community Change Studies)	University of Colorado Boulder (Community Leadership Program)
DePaul University (Community Service Studies)	University of Michigan (Community Action and Research)
Evergreen College (Community Studies)	University of Michigan (Community Action and Social Change)
Merrimack College (Community Engagement)	Whitman College (Political Science: Community-Based Learning Concentration)

Other social justice activism expresses itself via Leadership (8 programs). As Civic Engagement programs are parasitic upon traditional civics, Leadership programs are parasitic upon traditional enthusiasms for character training, business leadership, and military leadership (ROTC) programs—some of which are folded into these new Leadership programs. These programs instead provide further training for social justice activism.

Leadership

Cornell University (Engaged Leadership)	Saint Mary’s College of California (Leadership: Social Justice Concentration)
George Mason University (Leadership)	University of Colorado Boulder (Leadership & Community Engagement)
Miami University of Ohio (Community-Based Leadership)	University of Minnesota (Leadership)
Saint Mary’s College of California (Justice, Community, and Leadership)	University of Nevada Las Vegas (Leadership and Civic Engagement)

A few further programs dedicate themselves to Social Justice Pre-Professional training (8 programs). These include business training (Social Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation), nonprofit management (Nonprofit Studies), and higher education administration (Diversity and Equity Studies, Intercultural Competency, Intergroup Relations Education).

Social Justice Pre-Professional

Arizona State University (Diversity and Equity Studies)	Hamline University (Nonprofit Management)
Belmont University (Social Entrepreneurship)	Lafayette College (Intercultural Competency)
George Mason University (Nonprofit Studies)	Roosevelt University (Social Entrepreneurship)
George Mason University (Social Innovation)	University of Michigan (Intergroup Relations Education)

Finally, a large number of programs devote themselves without euphemism to Social Justice (34 programs). These devote themselves generically to social justice activism. The range of courses they incorporate serves as a useful catalogue of the range of concerns embraced by social justice education.

Social Justice

Arizona State University (Social Justice and Human Rights)	Occidental College (Critical Theory and Social Justice)
Arizona State University (Socio-Economic Justice Graduate Certificate)	Ohio Wesleyan University (Social Justice)
Belmont University (Faith and Social Justice)	Prescott College (Social Justice and Community Organizing)
Belmont University (Social Justice)	Roosevelt University (Social Justice Studies)
Brandeis University (Social Justice and Social Policy)	San Francisco State University (Critical Social Thought Program)
Cabrini University (Social Justice)	Southern Oregon University (Social Justice)
California State University Northridge (Social Justice: General Education Path)	Stony Brook–SUNY (Social Justice League)
Cornell University (Inequality Studies)	University of Iowa (Social Justice)
Eastern Kentucky University (Social Justice Studies)	University of Kansas (Social Justice in the U.S.)
George Mason University (Social Justice)	University of Massachusetts Amherst, University Without Walls²⁰⁰ (Advocacy and Social Justice Studies)
Gonzaga University (Solidarity and Social Justice)	University of Michigan (Social Theory and Practice)
Hamline University (Social Justice)	University of Minnesota (Social Justice)
Kansas State University (Social Justice Education)	University of Minnesota (Social Justice Leadership)
Lake Forest College (Social Justice)	University of Missouri (Social Justice)
Marquette University (Social Welfare and Justice)	University of Nevada Las Vegas (Social Justice Studies)
Merrimack College (Social Justice)	University of New Mexico (Race and Social Justice)
Miami University of Ohio (Social Justice Studies)	University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Social and Economic Justice)

Social Justice Writing

Social justice education has taken over much of basic writing instruction in colleges and universities.²⁰¹ The overlapping disciplines of Composition, Rhetoric, and Writing, sometimes housed in English departments, include heavy amounts of social justice advocacy. Social justice education affects both the basic writing courses for all students and the courses that train writing teachers. So Occidental College offers WRD 201 The Art of Essay Writing with sections that include Writing, Gender, and Sexuality and Protest Writing and Rhetoric,²⁰² while City College–CUNY offers sections of English 110 Freshman Composition that include Rhetoric and Social Justice and Writing Resistance: Understanding Rhetoric and Creating for Change.

University writing, communications, and rhetoric courses dedicated to social justice include:

Berea College GSTR 210 Writing Seminar II: Identity and Diversity in the United States²⁰³

City College–CUNY English 110 Freshman Composition: Rhetoric and Social Justice²⁰⁴

City College–CUNY English 110 Freshman Composition: Writing Resistance: Understanding Rhetoric and Creating for Change²⁰⁵

Cornell University WRIT 4130 Service Learning for Democratic Citizenship: Literature of American Social Action Movements²⁰⁶

Cornell University WRIT 1370 SEM 101 Elements of Academic Writing: Environmental Problems and Solutions²⁰⁷

Cornell University WRIT 1370 SEM 105 Writing and Research: Language, Identity, and Power ²⁰⁸

Merrimack College WRT 2020 Writing for Social Change²⁰⁹

DePaul University WRD 377 Writing and Social Engagement: Language, Identity, Collaboration²¹⁰

Occidental College WRD 201 The Art of Essay Writing: Writing, Gender, and Sexuality

Occidental College WRD 201 The Art of Essay Writing: Protest Writing and Rhetoric²¹¹

San Francisco State COMM 403 Transgender Communication Studies²¹²

University of Iowa RHET 2135 Rhetorics of Diversity and Inclusion²¹³

University of Iowa WRIT 2100 Writing and Community Outreach²¹⁴

University of Montana ENT 440.01 Teaching Writing and Justice²¹⁵

University of North Carolina COMM 53 First-Year Seminar: Collective Leadership Models for Community Change²¹⁶

San Francisco State University’s Communication department includes the courses COMM 120 Language, Culture, and Power, COMM 304GW Writing About Communication and Masculinities, COMM 348GW Writing About Environmental Rhetoric, COMM 403 Transgender Communication Studies, COMM 503 Gender and Communication, COMM 525 Sexualities and Communication, COMM 542 Dialogues Across Differences, COMM 552 Performance and Feminism, COMM 553 Performance and Identity, and COMM 557 Performance and Pedagogy of the Oppressed for Educators.²¹⁷

The University of Iowa’s Rhetoric department includes the courses RHET 1000:0004 First-Year Seminar: Humans and Environment: The Invisibility of the Impact of Our Lifestyles, RHET 1000:0016 First-Year Seminar: The Plural “I”: Self-Discovery and Cultural Identity, RHET 1000:0017 First-Year Seminar: From Kanye West to Jackson Katz: Understanding the Rhetoric of Mass Incarceration, RHET 1000:0019 First-Year Seminar: Gaming the System: Video Games as Art, Advocacy, and Inquiry, RHET 2031 Desire, Consent, and Sex in U.S. Culture(s): Replacing Coercion and Violence with Respect, RHET 2055 Persuasion and Advocacy, RHET 2135 Rhetorics of Diversity and Inclusion, RHET 3130 Rhetorics of Animal Advocacy, RHET 3138 Writing to Change the World, RHET 3140 Nature and Society: Controversies and Images, RHET 3150 Narratives of Gender and Masculinity, and RHET 3700 Advocacy and Sustainability: Crafting Stories of People, Place, and Resilience.²¹⁸

The University of North Carolina’s Communication Studies department includes the courses COMM 51 First-Year Seminar: Organizing and Communicating for Social Entrepreneurs, COMM 53 First-Year Seminar: Collective Leadership Models for Community Change, COMM 61 First-Year Seminar: The Politics of Performance, COMM 82 First-Year Seminar: Food Politics from an Organizational Communication Perspective, COMM 86 First-Year Seminar: Surveillance and Society, COMM 224 Introduction to Gender and Communication, COMM 260 Introduction to Performance and Social Change, COMM 318 Cultural Diversity, COMM 372 The Rhetoric of Social Movements, COMM 375 Environmental Advocacy, and COMM 454 Media and Activism.²¹⁹

Beyond these core writing department courses, a great many other aspects of writing instruction have also been distorted by social justice advocacy.

Conferences: Arizona State University’s Department of English hosted the Arizona Writing and Social Justice Conference in February 2018:

This trans-disciplinary conference will discuss how writing engages and/or supports justice movements for disempowered and marginalized communities. … Presentation topics will include: border studies and writing, immigration issues, bi- and multi-lingual writing, refugee language-learning and writing, human rights literature and its histories, indigenous communities, prison writing, writing for and about sexual communities, community health and writing, writing for social movements, environmental justice literature, community-centered creative writing, homeless writers, working-class and labor writing, and more.²²⁰

First-Year Writing: Many colleges around the country have First-Year courses. They are intended to introduce students to college-level expectations—including college-level writing. These courses are frequently exercises in social justice education. So Cornell University’s list of First-Year Writing Seminars for Fall 2018 includes CRP 1109 SEM 101 Environmental Politics; FGSS 1113 SEM 101 “Social Justice Warriors” and Cosmo: Online Feminist Discourse; and PMA 1145 SEM 101 Socks, Pads, and Other Stuff(ing): Drag Performance.²²¹ Occidental College’s Cultural Studies Program courses, which help “students develop their analytical and writing skills,” include CSP 1 Expulsions: Un/documented Migrants, Refugees, and the Stateless, CSP 3 Transnational Feminist Film, CSP 7 Psychosocial Determinants of Health Disparities, and CSP 9 Ecomusicology.²²²

Institutional Support: The Minnesota Writing Project, housed at the University of Minnesota, offers a summer course of K–12 teacher training on Writing and Social Justice.²²³ The University of Montana’s Montana Writing Project dedicates itself to “Increasing the effectiveness of teaching and learning of writing to democratize education for social justice at all levels of education in Montana.”²²⁴ Barnard College’s Writing Fellows sponsor the Collective Advocacy Project. ²²⁵

Barnard College (NY): The Collective Advocacy Project, Writing Fellows

The Collective Advocacy Project (CAP) is dedicated to extending the work of the Writing and Speaking Fellows programs by uncovering the radical potential of communication. CAP seeks to make Barnard students’ written and spoken voices visible beyond the classroom and in all aspects of life, expanding its parent Programs’ mission of validating students’ voices within the classroom. We believe that every person’s voice is significant, that this very notion is in and of itself radical, and that the making visible of marginalized, oppressed, or otherwise unheard voices is activism. Writing and speaking pedagogies do not belong only in the classroom. We believe that understanding our own potential for activism is vital to the education of Liberal Arts college students, and fundamental in the creation of a more just society. CAP, as a project of the Barnard Writing and Speaking Programs, seeks to support student activism on the Barnard/Columbia campus and the world at large. …

The Collective Advocacy Project shares an acronym with communication activism pedagogy for a reason: Our project finds its social justice roots, its theoretical foundations and many of its methodological strategies in communication activism pedagogy. …

We believe that all communication pedagogy has political underpinnings. As students dedicated to creating equality and countering oppression in the world as part of our education, it is our responsibility to spread awareness about advocacy as part of our work within the Barnard College Writing and Speaking Programs. Thus, at times, CAP members may also act as communication consultants to fellow students pursuing activist causes. CAP members can and will workshop the writing and speaking of student activists. These consultations could be on projects such as, but not limited to, the following: fellowing [sic] an op-ed for the Spectator or a letter to a fellow activist group, workshopping a speech for a rally or a meeting with an administrator. …

In the Fall of 2016, CAP created spaces for students to react to the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. CAP created an interactive exhibit, inspired by the Subway Therapy piece in the Union Square station, in which students were asked to respond on post-it notes to questions about how they are doing, what they need, and where they can go from here.

Collective Advocacy Project, Writing Fellows, Barnard College, https://writing.barnard.edu/collective-advocacy-project.

Job Advertisements: St. Mary’s College of California advertised for “a tenure-track position in Rhetoric and Composition at the Assistant Professor level with expertise in Professional and/or Technical Writing,” with possible specialties including “writing for social justice.”²²⁶

Journalism Programs: Journalism programs teach students how to write for a professional career in journalism. These too subordinate their instruction to social justice education. Gonzaga University offers JOUR 210 Civic Journalism,²²⁷ DePaul University offers JOUR 374 Community Journalism,²²⁸ while Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism offers a Specialization in Social Justice and Investigative Reporting: “The Social Justice and Investigative Reporting specialization focuses on journalism that makes the world a better place. Social justice issues you may explore include criminal justice, drug policy, mental health services, housing segregation, homelessness, poverty and immigration, just to name a few.” ²²⁹

Boise State University (ID): Resources for Social Justice in the Writing Center These sources have been compiled to answer and raise questions as we think about writing centers as places for social justice. Books Writing Centers and the New Racism -- Laura Greenfield

Chapter ?: The Standard English Fairy Tale (Greenfield, 33)

Taking into consideration the fact that languages are living and thus cannot be standardized. Considering the global reach English has, there is debates on how variants of English should be treated in academic institutions. Greenfield pushes reader to answer a question based on the global ownership of English: Is it racist to correct a student’s dialect in their writing?

Chapter ?: Writing Centers and the New Racism Should Writers Use They Own English? (Young, 61)

Articles

Queering the Writing Center (Denny)

Centering Difference: Student Agency and the Limits of ‘Comfortable’ Collaboration (Sloan)

Meeting the Needs of LGBTQ Writers in the Writing Center (Simpkins)

Language of Difference: Writing About Gender and Sexuality (Hamilton Writing Center)

The Gender Neutral ‘They’ (The Writing Center @ MSU)

Rewriting Race in the WC (Davila, 1)

Power and Cultural Capital (Quaynor); Conflict Between Professionalism and Activism (Canino)

These articles are part of a larger piece on confronting racism, focusing on power dynamics within the consultation.

Race in the Writing Center

Focuses on how and when to “push” discussions of racism with students.

Constructing a Pedagogy of Whiteness for Angry White Students (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 178)

Resources for Social Justice in the Writing Center, Boise State University, https://sites.google.com/a/u.boisestate.edu/social-justice-training/for-consultants/social-justice-in-the-writing-center.

Boise State University (ID): Our Training’s Mission, Writing Center

In brief, we identified our mission as increasing critical awareness of privilege among consultants and helping equip them to participate in conversations about social justice within the Writing Center and the university context. Our goals for this training can be broken out in detail as follows: [excerpted]

Consultants should understand privilege—both their own and that of students they work with.

Consultants should be mindful of “how one’s own experiences have shaped these [cultural] expectations, and how to recognize and respond to such biases”, as described in §6.1 of Boise State’s university-wide learning outcomes for students.

Consultants should have to wrestle with the issue of when to speak up about oppressive ideologies or actions. Do students with problematic papers deserve a safe space in the Writing Center? What does it mean for us to respect their views? Do we have a responsibility to intervene, or is there room for a consultant to choose to let it slide?

Our Writing Center should make diversity of consultants a priority. Our Writing Center’s staff is—and has historically been—almost exclusively white and female. Although the final decision is up to the directors, veteran consultants are highly involved in the hiring process, screening and recommending candidates and conducting official interviews; thus, it’s important that diversity be on our minds.

Consultants should question the dominant ideologies of their culture and of academia. One small part of this is the standard language ideology so prevalent in the university. Because we work with a variety of students on their writing, we often see the tension between instructors, who believe in a standard academic American English, and students who do not meet this standard. Consultants should be informed in linguistic theory to empower them to respond empathetically, respectfully, and helpfully.

Consultants should use their position of relative power in the university to challenge and change oppressive cultural norms.

Our Training’s Mission, Writing Center, Boise State University, https://sites.google.com/a/u.boisestate.edu/social-justice-training/about-us/our-mission.

Writing Centers: University writing centers, which provide assistance to all students in need of writing instruction, have succumbed heavily to social justice advocacy.

Loyola University Maryland: “This essay shares the results of an assessment of a writing center community partnership that suggests the efficacy of service-learning tutor education for social justice.”²³⁰
University of New Mexico: “The structures of the Writing Across Communities initiative, the WAC Alliance, and ABQ Community Writing Center assure that the graduate students directing these project [sic] are not called upon but rather call upon themselves to engage this work and, in turn, rely on their faculty mentors to support them in their vision. At the center of this structure are notions of citizenship, social justice, and community activism.”²³¹
University of Washington, Tacoma: “What all the articles in this special issue avoid, however, is an explicit account of how whiteness and whitely ways of being determine much of what happens in writing centers, but this is a crucial part of social justice work in our world today. Detailing whiteness and dismantling white privilege, which includes white language privilege, is a part of what I see trying to happen in these stories and counterstories. … It’s an accounting of the white supremacist system that causes all these problems, whether they are located in gendered, disability, racialized, national, or linguistic differences. Why? Because white supremacy determines the entire system—is the system—and structures the limits and pressures of all writing center work, whether it is with or by graduates or undergraduates, faculty or staff.”²³²
University of Wisconsin, Madison: “We coordinated our first event, ‘Writing as Activism,’ in collaboration with our partners at the campus Multicultural Student Center (MSC). Amy Salinas Westmoreland and Tiffany Lee, who coordinate the MSC’s social justice programming, collaborated with us to brainstorm approaches, reach out to speakers, and host the event in April of 2018. The event featured four writer-activists, each of whom shared an excerpt from their work and prompted us all to reconsider the intersections between our individual lives as writers and our engagement in broader communities.”²³³

Social Justice Mathematics

Mathematics is proverbially the purest intellectual discipline. 2 + 2 = 4 is true throughout the universe. A line is the shortest distance between two points regardless of the color of Euclid’s skin. Mathematics ought to be immune to social justice education.²³⁴

Yet even mathematics is being taken over by social justice educators. A large number of organizations now dedicate themselves to using mathematics education, both in the K–12 and the university level, to promote social justice. Such organizations include the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics,²³⁵ Radical Math,²³⁶ Teachers Empowered to Advance Change in Mathematics (TEACH MATH),²³⁷ and National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCMS) and TODOS: Mathematics for ALL.²³⁸ NCMS/TODOS provide a typical example of the goals of social justice mathematics:

Mathematics teachers and leaders must acknowledge that the current mathematics education system is unjust and grounded in a legacy of institutional discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, and gender. … [and] must self-reflect on privileges and obstacles in their own mathematics histories, build and exchange ideas, and expand the pool of knowledge resources by partnering with families and communities to make change.²³⁹

Much of social justice mathematics focuses on K–12 education,²⁴⁰ but it has also begun to transform college-level mathematics education. University mathematics and mathematics education courses dedicated to social justice include:

Evergreen State College Tutoring Math and Science for Social Justice²⁴¹

Lafayette College FYS 141 Mathematics of Social Justice²⁴²

Pomona College Math 58 Intro to Statistics with Lab: Stats for Social Justice²⁴³

San Francisco State University A U 116 Algebra and Statistics for Social Justice²⁴⁴

San Francisco State University A U 117 Statistics for Social Justice²⁴⁵

University of Michigan EDUC 210 Mathematics and Social Justice²⁴⁶

University of Michigan SW 673 Statistics in Policy Analysis and Evaluation (“The course content will integrate the core themes related to multiculturalism and diversity; social justice and social change.”)²⁴⁷

University of Minnesota CI 1826 Social Change, Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Calculus²⁴⁸

San Francisco State University’s A U 117 Statistics for Social Justice uses “topics such as education equity, income inequality, racism, and white supremacy and gender inequality to examine data using statistics.”²⁴⁹ In Pomona College’s Stats for Social Justice, “Topics include global poverty, global climate change, environmental rights, death penalty, labor laws, civil rights, access to education, healthcare, water rights, elections, and debt.”²⁵⁰

Many different aspects of social justice education appear in social justice mathematics:

Government subsidies: For example, “The National Science Foundation is spending over $1 million to train two-dozen ‘social justice’ math teachers in Philadelphia. The Drexel University project will promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) high school curriculums that are ‘steeped in the context of social justice.’”²⁵¹
Job advertisements: The University of Massachusetts’ advertisement for “College of Education – Science Education – Mathematics, Science, and Learning Technologies Concentration – Assistant/Associate Professor” stipulates that “the person hired will conduct research, engage in service, and have a philosophy of teaching and advising that reflects a commitment to social justice, improving learning and instruction, and challenging inequities in science education.”²⁵²
Professional standards: The Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics declares that “Many teacher preparation programs include specific courses designed to address social contexts of teaching and learning (e.g.[,] multicultural education), wherein candidates grapple with various equity issues, including examining the roles that power, privilege, and oppression play in schooling (e.g., tracking) as well as effective antiracist and social-justice pedagogies that disrupt institutional bias with teaching innovation, critical reflection, and social action. … the current mathematics education system is unjust and grounded in a legacy of segregation, systems of power and privilege, and deficit thinking based on race, ethnicity, class, language, and gender. … Throughout this document, attention to equity, diversity, and social justice issues has been a central focus, both specifically addressed as standards and embedded within all the standards. … Those involved in preparing teachers of mathematics cannot hope to make substantial improvement toward the vision of this document without placing issues of equity, diversity, and social justice front and center.”²⁵³
Pseudo-scholarship: For example,
“Critical Values and Transforming Data: Teaching Statistics with Social Justice,” in Jurnal of Statistics Education;²⁵⁴
“Healing-Informed Social Justice Mathematics: Promoting Students’ Sociopolitical Consciousness and Well-Being in Mathematics Class,” in Urban Education;²⁵⁵
“Mass Incarceration and Eviction Applications in Calculus: A First-Timer Approach,” in Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies;²⁵⁶ and
“The Struggle Is Pedagogical: Learning to Teach Critical Mathematics,” in The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today.²⁵⁷

Study Abroad: Belmont University offers a study-abroad “Math of Social Justice” course, Belmont in Australia: Poisons and Social Justice Down Under.²⁵⁸

Social justice education has begun to distort all aspects of the discipline of mathematics. If even mathematics can be corrupted by social justice education, no discipline is immune.

Social Justice Education Components

Mission Statements

The large majority of the 239 programs we study have affirmed their commitment to social justice in their mission statements. Below we reproduce extracts from 15 mission statements:

Mission Statements

Antioch University Los Angeles: Liberal Studies: Queer Studies Concentration: “The BA Program offers a Minor Area of Concentration in Queer Studies emphasizing an activist orientation and advancing the understanding of queerness as challenge and resistance to dominant paradigms in history, culture, and society.”

Eastern Kentucky University: Social Justice Studies: Major: “The program focuses on experiential learning and offers students opportunities to engage in field work designed to connect classroom learning with real world social activism.”

George Mason University: Integrative Studies: Social Justice and Human Rights: Major, Concentration: “Students in the Social Justice and Human Rights programs examine a wide variety of oppressions such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, anti-immigrant oppression, ableism, economic injustice, animal exploitation, environmental injustice, as well as related denials of human rights, such as human trafficking, settler colonialism, mass incarceration, use of sweatshop and child labor, unequal access to education, and voter disenfranchisement.”

Indiana University Bloomington: Counseling: Minor: “This program provides instruction to help you become more attentive to multicultural and social justice issues that impact the lives of others.”

Marquette University: Social Welfare and Justice: Major, Minor: “Social justice research investigates whether some groups have privileged access to resources while others are systematically excluded and social justice advocacy explores ways to remove social inequalities.”

Northwestern University: Medill School of Journalism: Social Justice and Investigative Reporting: Specialization: “The Social Justice and Investigative Reporting specialization focuses on journalism that makes the world a better place. Social justice issues you may explore include criminal justice, drug policy, mental health services, housing segregation, homelessness, poverty and immigration, just to name a few.”

Saint Mary’s College of California: Ethnic Studies: Major, Minor: “The Ethnic Studies Program at Saint Mary’s College of California takes a critical multidisciplinary approach to addressing issues of power, privilege, and resistance through critical thinking, applied theory, activism, and social justice praxis.”

Southern Oregon University: Sustainability Leadership: Certificate: “The program is designed to give students a strong foundational understanding in the three E’s of sustainability: economy, environment, and equity (also known as the Triple Bottom Line).”

University of Florida: Counselor Education: M.Ed., Ed.S., Ph.D.: “Social justice counseling seeks to promote human development and common good through addressing systems of oppression and external/environmental barriers to wellness. Social justice counseling involves empowering the individual as well as actively confronting injustice and inequality in society through dialogue, reflection, and direct action.”

University of Iowa: Criminology, Law and Justice: Major: “Students will be able to ... recognize and explain social inequities in crime and criminal justice processes by race, social class, gender, region, and age.”

University of Kansas: American Studies: B.A., B.G.S., M.A., Ph.D., Graduate Certificate: “American Studies at the University of Kansas is an interdisciplinary department whose faculty and students think critically about community, identity, and social justice in American culture, politics, and society.”

University of Michigan: Intergroup Relations Education: Minor: “The Minor in Intergroup Relations Education offers students the opportunity to explore social identities in the context of understanding social inequality. Students will gain leadership skills in social justice contexts across the myriad intersections of social identity. Students will be able to demonstrate enhanced critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills, as well as learn to navigate situations in their authentic self.”

University of Minnesota: Culture and Teaching: Ph.D.: “This is a politically committed program dedicated to critical issues related to equity, democracy, and social justice in education.”

University of Missouri: Public Health: B.H.S.: “The courses introduce students to key concepts, theories, problems, and solutions in public health, and also focus on the links between public health and social justice and human rights.”

Whitman College: Rhetoric Studies: Major, Minor: “Courses focus on political, legal, environmental, social, activist, and identity politics.”

Some mission statements mention social justice as a brief aside; some invoke it seriously and at length. Most mission statements mention social justice explicitly; some invoke closely related concepts such as sustainability, activism, and experiential learning. Others cite policy issues associated with social justice advocacy, such as health care or prison reform. In all cases, these mission statements intertwine the program’s academic goals with social justice advocacy.

These mission statements are partly hollow verbiage. Academic departments, like every other modern institution, are prone to advertise themselves with vague, feel-good verbiage. Yet we should not entirely discount these mission statements’ social justice commitments. They advertise the department’s intellectual presuppositions both to prospective students and to prospective faculty—and deter students and faculty who disagree with those presuppositions. They justify more detailed commitments, in areas such as major requirements, course selection, and faculty hiring. Social justice mission statements are a good proxy for detailed programmatic commitments to social justice advocacy.

Requirements

A great many programs include social justice requirements, to ensure that students take social justice courses (and other activities) before acquiring the appropriate credential. These requirements also illustrate the interrelations of different aspects of social justice education. Below we reproduce extracts from 15 requirements:

Requirements

Arizona State University

Social Justice and Human Rights: M.A.

JHR 501 Proseminar in Social Justice and Human Rights

JHR 506 Grant Writing and Development for Social Justice and Human Rights

JHR 510 Problem-Based Seminar in Social Justice and Human Rights

JHR 525 Action Research in Social Justice and Human Rights

JHR 584 Internship

City College–CUNY

Community Change Studies: Minor

PSC 31147 Community Organizing

PSC 31051 Community-Based Research
SSC 31200 Internship

DePaul University

Geography: Environment and Society Major, Concentration

GEO 200 Sustainable Urban Development

GEO 205 Urban Environmental Justice

GEO 215 International Development and Regional Inequality

GEO 351 Geography, Food and Justice

Eastern Kentucky University

Social Justice Studies: Major (B.S.)

SJS 101 Understanding Social Justice and Human Struggle

SJS 250S Service Learning in Justice, Conflict and Social Change

SJS 301 Theories of Social Justice

SJS 313 Mobilizing for Social Justice

SJS 396 Researching and Writing for Change

SJS 450S Learning through Civic Engagement

George Mason University

Environmental and Sustainability Studies: Concentration in Equity and Environmental Justice: Major, Concentration

INTS 334 Environmental Justice

INTS 210 Sustainable World

EVPP 480 Sustainability in Action

EVPP 362 Intermediate Environmental Policy

EVPP 436 The Human Dimensions of Global Climate Change

INTS 336 Poverty, Wealth and Inequality in the US

INTS 337 Social Justice Consciousness and Personal Transformation

Kansas State University

American Ethnic Studies: Major, Minor

AMETH 353 Latina/o Perspectives – Art & Activism

AMETH 461 Transformative Thought

AMETH 650 Practicing Social Change

Miami University of Ohio

Educational Leadership: Major, M.A., M.S., Ed.D., Licensure

EDL 203 Introduction to Critical Youth Studies

EDL 382 Community-Based Research & Learning in Education

EDL 667 Diversity, Equity, and Dialogue in Student Affairs

EDL 782 Social Justice and Transformation

Ohio Wesleyan University

Social Justice: Major

SJ 100 1 Introduction to Social Justice

EDUC 115 Teaching for Social Justice

SOAN 359 Social Inequality

SOAN 358 Society, Politics, and Social Movements

SJ 495 or SJ 490 Internship or Independent Study (with a member of Social Justice-affiliated faculty

Roosevelt University

Social Entrepreneurship: Major

SOC 346 Community Organizing

SOC 367 Social Movements

Saint Mary’s College of California

Justice, Community and Leadership: Major, Minor

JCL 10 Introduction to Justice, Community and Leadership

JCL 120 Theory and Inquiry in Justice, Community and Leadership

JCL 130 Environmental Justice

JCL 140 The Global Community

JCL 150 Advanced Leadership Theory

San Francisco State University

Education: Concentration in Equity and Social Justice in Education: M.A. Concentration

ISED 715 Equal Opportunity in Education

ISED 716 Literacy and Cross-cultural Issues in Education

ISED 717 Social Foundation for Multicultural Education

ISED 736 Leadership and Policy for Community and Non-Formal Education

ISED 738 Critical and Postmodern Pedagogies

ISED 739 Education and Community Development: Equity and Diversity

ISED 740 Education & Globalization: Issues in Comparative and International Education

ISED 747 Culture, Language, and Society in Education

ISED 748 Culture, Cognition, and Power Issues in Education

University of Iowa

Gender, Health, and Healthcare Equity: Minor

GWSS:1001 Introduction to Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies

GWSS:1002 Diversity and Power in the U.S.

SJUS:1001/GWSS:1003 Introduction to Social Justice

University of Nevada Las Vegas

Social Justice Studies: Graduate Certificate

CME 700 Social Justice Education

SOC 741 Graduate Seminar in Social Stratification

SOC 755 Social Movements and Social Change

SOC 770 Race and Ethnic Relations in America

SOC 776 Seminar in Political Sociology

WMST 673 Chicana Feminism and Experience

WMST 676 Feminism and Activism

WMST 677 Critical Race Feminism

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Social and Economic Justice: Minor

SOCI 273 Social and Economic Justice, Experiential Education

SOCI 274 Social and Economic Justice

HBEH 610 Alternative Spring Break

Washington State University

Comparative Ethnic Studies: Major

CES 201 Foundations of Comparative Ethnic Studies

W ST 201 Critical Frameworks in Gender Studies

CES/W ST/SOC 300 Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality

CES/W ST 489 Everyday Struggles for Justice and Equality

These requirements illustrate the overlapping, advocacy-oriented nature of social justice education. The required courses for Arizona State University’s Social Justice and Human Rights M.A. include Grant Writing and Action Research. Saint Mary’s College of California’s Justice, Community, and Leadership major includes Environmental Justice. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Social and Economic Justice minor lists the social justice organization Alternative Spring Break as a requirement.

Throughout, the requirements include “experiential learning”—requirements in service-learning, internships, activism, organizing, social change. Social justice education keeps practical advocacy at the center of the programs they capture.

Electives

By no means is every course within these programs devoted to social justice education. Yet extraordinary numbers are. Below we reproduce a cross-section of social justice electives in 15 programs:

Electives

Barnard College

Human Rights Studies: Major

HRTS BC3855 Religion, Social Justice, Human Rights

ANTH BC3913 Inequalities: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in U.S. Law and Society

SOCI BC3931 Social Justice & Human Rights Seminar

ANTH BC3932 Climate Change, Global Migration, and Human Rights in the Anthropocene

HRTS G4400 Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Human Rights

Brandeis University

Social Justice and Social Policy: Minor

LGLS 161b Advocacy for Policy Change

SJSP 89a Social Justice, Social Policy Internship

AMST 102aj Environment, Social Justice, and Empowerment

HS 528f Law and Social Justice: Constructions of Race and Ethnicity and Their Consequences

SOC 138a Sociology of Race, Gender, and Class

SOC 147a Sustainable and Resilient Cities

AMST 191b Greening the Ivory Tower: Improving Environmental Sustainability of Brandeis and Community

HS 143a Social Justice and Philanthropy

California State University Northridge

Sustainability: Minor

AFRS 488 Sustainability and Environmental Justice in African and African Diaspora Communities

ANTH 432 Environmental Justice and Health

CAS 355 Environment, Development and Social Exclusion in Central America

MGT 466 Strategic Leadership of Sustainability: Organizational Challenges and Opportunities

Cornell University

Inequality Studies: Minor

ASRC 3604 U.S. Education, Oppression, Resistance

ANTHR 3462 Democratizing Research: Participation, Action, and Research

ARKEO 7227 Embodiment of Inequality: A Bioarchaeological Perspective

CRP 3310 Social Justice and the City: Preparation for Urban Fieldwork

CRP 3854 Social Justice and Urban Issues: The Case of Washington and Its Environments

DSOC 4820 Agents of Change: Community Organizing for the Public Good

AMST 3635 Human Rights and Global Justice

LSP 3000 Latina Activism Feminist Theory

WRIT 4310 Service Learning for Democratic Citizenship: Literature of American Social Action Movements

DePaul University

Community Service Studies: Minor

ART 292 Community Video Production

CTH 341 Liberation Theology: Theory and Practice

JOUR 374 Community Journalism

CSS 310 Restorative Justice: Engagement with the Prison

CSS 320 Community Food Systems

PHL 250 Philosophy and Social Change

PSC 282 Political Action and Social Justice

PSY 310 Connecting with Youth through Research, Advocacy, and Service

PPS 331 Environmental Justice

SPN 124 Intermediate Spanish I: Service Learning

WRD 377 Writing and Social Engagement

Evergreen State College

Community Studies: Major

A People’s Geography of American Empire

Cities and Suburbs: Advocacy and Writing for Social and Ecological Justice

Critical Indigenous Studies I

Doing the Business of Nonprofits: Ideas to Realities through Grantwriting and Fundraising

Gateways for Incarcerated Youth: Critical Literacy and Critical Numeracy

Multicultural Counseling

Repair: The Art of Sustainability and Social Practice

Student-Originated Studies: Community-Based Learning and Action

George Mason University

Arts and Social Change: Minor

AVT 309 Art as Social Action

AVT 385 EcoArt

AMGT 410 Arts Advocacy and Community

AMGT 471 Introduction to Grant Writing

FRLN 385 Multilingualism, Identity, and Power

INTS 337 Social Justice Consciousness and Personal Transformation

SOCI 320 Globalization and Social Change

SOCI 355 Social Inequality

Gonzaga University

Solidarity and Social Justice: Minor

SOSJ 410 Theories of Solidarity and Social Justice

SOSJ 411 Social Justice

SOSJ 328 -isms: Racism, Classism, Sexism

SOSJ 240 Social Problems, Solutions and Social Change

SOSJ 345 Global Social Change

ENGL 309 Writing for Social Action

COMM 450 Justice and Arts of Civic Life

COMM 430 Intersectional Communication

Kansas State University

Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies: Major

GWSS 105 Introduction to Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies

GWSS 325 Queer Study/Concepts/History/and Politics

GWSS 380 Women and Global Social Change

GWSS 480 Gender, Environment and Justice

GWSS 500 Food and Food Justice

GWSS 605 Social Change: Field Experience

GWSS 784 Internship in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies

DAS 590 Applied Nonviolence

Merrimack College

Social Justice: Major, Minor

WGS 3110 Global Women’s Issues: Gender, Activism and Social Justice

PHL 3030 Global Justice

WGS 3000 Thinking Green: Environmental Justice, Gender and Animal Rights

CRM 3380W Race, Class and Crime

EDU 2130 Diversity, Social Justice and Ethics

ENG 1200 Inequality and Justice in Life/Literature

CRM 2300 Hate Crimes

FAA 2505 The Politics of Performance: Theatre, Government and Social Change

ECO 3309 Marxian Economics

WGS 2200 Gender and Social Movements

WRT 2020W Writing for Social Change

Miami University of Ohio

Disability Studies: Minor

DST 278 Women and (Dis)Ability

DST 169 (Dis)Ability Identity

SJS 165 Introduction to Social Justice Studies

DST 378 Media Illusions of Disability: Creations of “The Disabled Identity”

WGS 435 Queer Theory

DST 470 Social/Political Activism

Occidental College

Critical Theory and Social Justice: Major, Minor

CTSJ 107 Introduction to Postcolonial Studies

CTSJ 195 Topics in Critical Theory and Social Justice

CTSJ 222 Body Politics

CTSJ 230 Fundamentals of Queer Theory

CTSJ 250 Resistance Movements and the Law

CTSJ 257 Critical Praxis: Lyrics on Lockdown

CTSJ 271 Theatre for Social Justice

CTSJ 286 Whiteness

CTSJ 310 Qualitative Interview Methods

CTSJ 335 Queer of Color Critique

CTSJ 352 Spatial Justice

CTSJ 370 Marx, Freud, and the Frankfurt School

University of Colorado Boulder

Ethnic Studies: Major, Minor, Ph.D., Graduate Certificate

ETHN 2001 Foundations of Comparative Ethnic Studies: Race, Gender and Culture(s)

ETHN 2304 Introduction to Social Justice

ETHN 3024 Introduction to Critical Sports Studies

ETHN 3026 Women of Color: Chicanas in U.S. Society

ETHN 3671 People of Color and Social Movements

ETHN 4213 Indigenous Futurisms: Speculative Genres and Native Tomorrows

ETHN 4632 Frantz Fanon Seminar

ETHN 4714 Sport for Social Justice

ETHN 6011 Race and Sexuality Studies

ETHN 6301 Decolonial/Postcolonial Theory

ETHN 6501 Critical Race Theory

University of Massachusetts Amherst, University Without Walls

Advocacy and Social Justice Studies: Concentration

ANTHRO 205 Inequality and Oppression

EDUC 115 Embracing Diversity

EDUC 377 Introduction to Multicultural Education

LEGAL 291C Current Litigation of Contentious Social Issues

LEGAL 392LA Legal Activism and Same Sex Marriage

MANAGMNT 366 Foundations of Sustainable Enterprise

HPP 632 Social Justice & Public Health

STOCKSCH 397FJ Social Permaculture for Food Justice

UWW 397S Perspectives on Social Justice and Advocacy

UWW 396 Social Justice Residency (optional on-campus weekend residency)

University of Minnesota

Leadership: Minor

CHIC 4275 Theory in Action: Community Engagement in a Social Justice Framework

PHIL 3307 Social Justice and Community Service

SPAN 3401 Latino Immigration and Community Engagement

WRIT 3244W Critical Literacies: How Words Change the World

OLPD 4301 Global Youth Leadership and Community Engagement

EPSY 3133 Practicum: Service Learning, Psychology of Multiculturalism in Education

SW 3501 Theories and Practices of Social Change Organizing

YOST 1366 Stories of Resistance & Change: Youth, Race, Power & Privilege in the U.S.

PA 1401 Public Affairs: Community Organizing Skills for Public Action

Here, as with the requirements, the different policy commitments of social justice overlap. A Disability Studies minor will include a course on Queer Theory, a Leadership minor will include a course of Community Organizing, a Community Service Studies minor will include a course on Environmental Justice. The sheer repetitiveness of the course names and subject matters confirms that social justice education is a standardized national movement.

And, everywhere, students are offered courses in experiential learning—in vocational social activism, whether denominated as activism, advocacy, applied, community-based action, community engagement, community journalism, community service, field experience, fieldwork, grant writing, organizing, participation, public action, qualitative interview methods, service-learning, social action, social change, or social engagement.

A generic 12-course major in a social justice program would include the following courses:

Introduction to Social Justice Studies

Community Action Research

Community Organizing

Critical Race Theory

Economic Justice

Environmental Justice

Gender Studies

Grant Writing

Grassroots Social Movements

Health Justice

Nonprofit Management

Social Justice Internship

George Mason University

INTS 337 Social Justice Consciousness and Personal Transformation: Syllabus Extracts

Learning Activity 3: Identity, Socialization, and Positionality (ISD) Essay …

Drawing on course materials and discussions, you will compose an essay (around 1,500 words) about how you came to understand one dimension of your identity (i.e., race, gender, sexual orientation, class) around which you experience some level of privilege. You will examine the way in which inhabiting that identity informs the lenses through which you see and understand a related oppression (i.e., racism, sexism, heterosexism, economic exploitation). For example, if I were to write this essay using my male identity, I might consider these questions:

1. How were you socialized to understand what it meant to be a boy or a man? What were the social cues that informed your identity?

2. What were the repercussions, if any, if you decided not to inhabit male identity in the way that people expected?

3. How has your positionality as a male informed your understanding of sexism and movements for gender justice? In what ways, if any, might it have constrained your ability to see gender injustice?

4. What, if anything, do you see as your role, as somebody inhabiting a privileged identity, in struggling for justice around oppressions related to that identity?

5. How has, or how can, attention to consciousness and inward transformation prepare you to be a better ally to people who are more oppressed than you based on a parallel identity (such as woman-ness or transgender-ness)?

You do not need to answer all of these questions. Pick two or three that you find compelling and focus on them. Be sure to include an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement that lays out your intention for the essay. But do be sure to address the fifth question!

These essays will be assessed based on the extent to which you:

1. Identify and focus on a dimension of your identity around which you experience some level of privilege;

2. Provide a detailed, reflective, and mindful discussion of your identity development related to that identity;

3. Draw on concepts, readings, and exercises from class as analytical tools for examining your identity and experience; and

4. Compose a well-written, reflective, essay.

Learning Activity 4: Macro-Aggressions and My Unintentional Exploitation Footprint ...

The purpose of this assignment is to help us think about our own patterns of consumption and behavior and how they contribute to the exploitation of people, the environment, animals, or some combination of these. This is not about explicit bias and privilege, like Learning Activity 3, but about the more implicit, unintentional, ways we participate in systems of oppression through day-to-day behaviors and decision-making.

First, choose a type of exploitation on which you would like to focus your analysis. It might be a type of oppression, like racism or heterosexism, or it might be environmental or animal exploitation, or it might be an intersection of these various exploitations. Then write a reflective essay, 5-6 double-spaced pages, in which you explore how your patterns of consumption, daily decision-making, and other ways of being contribute to that form of exploitation. Remember, we’re focusing in this assignment on macro-aggressions, so you’ll need to do the work to make connections. Do you abhor violence against animals, but use a home product that is tested on animals? Do you hate racism, but purchase clothes made in sweatshops by children in southeast Asia? Are you an advocate for sustainability but eat meat raised on factory farms?

At the very least, your essay should include the following:

a. descriptions of specific decisions, behaviors, and so on, that make up your exploitation footprint;

b. your analysis of the implications of your footprint—who or what are they exploiting and how, specifically?;

c. your reflections on the toll your footprint is taking on your own well-being and spirit, as you learn more about it; and

d. your thoughts on how you might lighten your footprint related to the specific form of exploitation about which you’ve decided to write.

Remember that your journal can be a good resource for this assignment. You might decide, from the beginning of the semester, to place particular emphasis on a specific kind of exploitation in your journal, providing some content for this project.

Also remember that this is your opportunity to challenge yourself to align your day to day decisions and behaviors with your values or ethics. Push yourself. Dig deeply. Hold yourself accountable for your footprint, not as punishment, but because the process of being honest with ourselves is triumphant and good for our souls.

Your footprint analysis will be graded based on the extent to which you:

1. identify specific macro-aggressions in which you participate, even if unintentionally;

2. thoughtfully, using course concepts and ideas, describe the implications of your footprint, beyond the obvious;

3. reflect thoughtfully on the toll your macro-aggressions are taking, or might be taking, on your own well-being and soul, and

4. describe specific steps you can take to lighten your footprint.

INTS 337 Social Justice Consciousness and Personal Transformation, George Mason University, https://bit.ly/2RF8sqO.

Notable Social Justice Courses

Virtually every college and university we studied contained social justice courses whose titles were particularly expressive of the content of social justice education. We include here a list of such courses from all the 60 colleges and universities we examined. We generally listed no more than three courses. The exception is San Francisco State University, which contains so many social justice courses that we could not do justice to the university without listing a full twenty.

Antioch University (CA)

LGBT Sexual Identity Development: Diversity and the Multi-Layered Self

Sex-Positivity & Social Justice

Transgender Identities: A Multicultural View of Gender Variance

Arizona State University (AZ)

AIS 480 Actualizing Decolonization

SOS 370 Ethics of Eating

TCL 490 Transborder Queer Performativity

Barnard College (NY)

AMST-BC1040 Incarcerating the Crisis

ANTH BC3932 Climate Change, Global Migration, and Human Rights in the Anthropocene

WMST-BC2150 Practicing Intersectionality

Belmont University (TN)

REL 3540 Eco-Justice and Faith

SOC 3210 Men, Masculinity, and the Movies

SWK 2300 Exploring Human Diversity

Berea College (KY)

PSJ 205 Movements & Community Organizing

PSJ 210 Diversity and Social Justice

SENS 225 Environmental Justice

Brandeis University (MA)

CAST 150b Introduction to Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation

HS 528f Law and Social Justice: Constructions of Race and Ethnicity and Their Consequences

PHIL 128A Gender, Multiculturalism, and the Law in Philosophy

Brooklyn College–CUNY (NY)

POLS 7080 Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Human Rights

POLS 7680 The Politics of Climate Change

PRLS 1001 Introduction to Puerto Rican & Latinx Studies

Cabrini University (PA)

SOC 215 Introduction to Sociology: Race, Class, Gender

SOJ 150 Social Justice in Theory and Action

SOJ 250 Social Justice in the Field

California State University Northridge (CA)

AFRS 320 African American Personality Development

GWS 220 Men, Masculinity and Patriarchy

SOC 357 Anti-Oppressive Social Work Practice

City College–CUNY (NY)

FIQWS 10015 U.S. Experience in its Diversity

PHIL 14200 Race, Gender, and Philosophy

PSC 32400 The Politics of Protest

Cornell University (NY)

ASRC 3512 Black Panther Party Autobiography—Writing the Activist Self

GOVT 3142 Incarceration, Policy Response, and Self-Reflection

LSP 3000 Latina Activism Feminist Theory

Davidson College (NC)

ARB 251 Queer Middle East Culture Studies

DAN 282 Dance, Gender, & Sexuality

GSS 394 Latinx Sexual Dissidence and Guerilla Translation

DePaul University (IL)

LGQ 319 Queer Pioneers: Culture, Gender, and Political Activism

SOC 248 White Racism

WGS 314 Antiracist Feminisms

Eastern Kentucky University (KY)

CDF 424 Diversity Awareness for Professional Practice

SJS 313 Mobilizing for Social Justice

SJS 470 Critical Carceral Studies

Evergreen State College (WA)

A People’s Geography of American Empire

Cities and Suburbs: Advocacy and Writing for Social and Ecological Justice

Gateways for Incarcerated Youth: Critical Literacy and Critical Numeracy

George Mason University (VA)

AMGT 410 Arts Advocacy and Community

INTS 337 Social Justice Consciousness and Personal Transformation

INTS 402 Plants and People - Sustenance, Ceremony, and Sustainability

Gonzaga University (WA)

POLS 432/INST CIS: All Art is Propaganda

SOSJ 328 -isms: Racism, Classism, Sexism

WGST 193 FYS: Cinder, Cyborgs, & Social Justice

Hamline University (MN)

CFST 3300 The Role of Conflict in Social Change

COMM 3460 Intercultural Communication

SOCJ 1150 Living on the Edge: The Asian American Experience

Indiana University Bloomington (IN)

FOLK-E 295 Survey of Hip Hop

MSCH-C 212 Screening Race and Ethnicity

SOC-S 321 Sexual Diversity

Kansas State University (KS)

AMETH 353 Latina/o Perspectives – Art & Activism

ENGL384 Multicultural Children’s Literature

PSYCH556 Multicultural Psychology

Lafayette College (PA)

FYS 039 Music and Gender

FYS 138 Theater and Social Justice

WGS 261 Masculinities

Lake Forest College (IL)

ARTH 326 Gender Identity in Modern Art

ASIA 318 Buddhism and Social Activism

PHIL 212 Multicultural Approaches to the Environment

Marquette University (WI)

EDPL 6140 Diversity, Identity and the Student Affairs Professional

LEOR 3150 The Culturally Diverse Organization

PHTH 4512 Culture and Disability

Merrimack College (MA)

CRM 3050/3050W Female Deviance, Crime and Social Control

FAA 2505 The Politics of Performance: Theatre, Government and Social Change

WGS 3000 Thinking Green: Environmental Justice, Gender and Animal Rights

Miami University of Ohio (OH)

DST/EDP/SOC/WGS 375 (Dis)Ability Allies: To Be or Not to Be? Developing Identity and Pride from Practice

EDL 667 Diversity, Equity, and Dialogue in Student Affairs

IDS 159 Strength Through Cultural Diversity

Northwestern University (IL)

SESP 202 Introduction to Community Development

SESP 195-1 Community Engagement

SESP 295 Theory and Practice of Community Consulting

Occidental College (CA)

CSP 71 No Justice, No Peace: Resisting, Thinking, and Writing for the Sake of Justice

CSP 73 “Get Out” of “La La Land”: Race, Space, and Power in Los Angeles

ENGL 159 Lavender Cowboys: Power and Gender in the American Western

Ohio Wesleyan University (OH)

BWS 350 Black Identity

DUC 115 Teaching for Equity and Social Justice

WGS 226 Gender and Identity

Pacific University (OR)

CIV 240 Food for Thought and Action

ENV 233 Interpersonal Sustainability Leadership

PSY 358 Psychology of Ethnic Diversity in the U.S.

Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg (PA)

CMPSY 500 Theories and Issues in Community Psychology

EDUC 400 Diversity and Cultural Awareness Practices in the K–12 Classroom

EDUC 436 Inclusion Practices in Education

Pepperdine University (CA)

SAAJ 121 Social Action and Justice Colloquium I

SAAJ 122 Social Action and Justice Colloquium II

WMST 301 Women’s Studies — Service Learning

Pomona College (CA)

CHLT066 CH Fandango as a De-Colonial Tool

CIS 10 Living with Pets and Among Wildlife

FGSS192 SC Antiracist Feminist Queer Praxis

Prescott College (AZ)

MASJC5111 Advocacy Research

MASJC5002 Landscapes of Neoliberalism

MASJC5000 Radical Pedagogy as Praxis

Roosevelt University (IL)

EDUC 101 Becoming a Social Justice Educator

OLED 365 Social Justice & Diversity

SOCJ 306 Action, Advocacy & Resistance

Saint Mary’s College of California (CA)

ES 157 Praxis in Creating Community: Interactive Theater or Intergroup Dialogue in Action

JCL 123 Praxis: Anti-Racist Pedagogy

Perfa 382 Dance and Social Justice

San Francisco State University (CA)

AFRS 201 Kemet, Afrocentricity, and the Dawn of Science

AFRS 256 Hip Hop Workshop

AFRS 466 Black Lives Matter: Race and Social Movements

AIS 440 Native Sexualities and Queer Discourse

COUN 110 Critically Thinking About Career Choice: Self, Community, Society, and the World

CWL 440 “Typical American”: Narratives of Multiculturalism in the Americas from 1492 to the Present

E ED 639 Bilingual Education in the U.S.: A History of Struggle, Resistance, and Achievement

H ED 303 Health Disparities and Sexual and Gender Minority Communities: LGBTQI Health

H ED 520 Structural Oppression and Social Foundations of Health

KIN 502 Sport and Social Issues

LS 403 Performance and Pedagogy of the Oppressed for Educators

RPT 205 Enlightened and Sustainable Travel

RRS 201 SFSU’s Palestinian Cultural Mural and the Art of Resistance

RRS 252 Beyond Bars and Borders: Race and the Carceral State

RRS 304 Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color

RRS 375 Queer Arabs in the U.S.

RRS 380 Coloring Queer: Imagining Communities

SOC 410 Grassroots Organizing for Change in Communities of Color

WGS 220 Introduction to Feminist Disability Studies

WGS 552 Transgender Identities and Communities

Southern Connecticut State University (CT)

SWK 551 Diversity, Oppression, and Social Functioning

WMS 525 Feminist Pedagogy

WMS 529 Race, Class, and Gender

Southern Oregon University (OR)

ARTH 345 Activist Art

ARTH 450 Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Art

SOAN 440 Social Activism: History, Method, Practice

Stony Brook–SUNY (NY)

AFH 379/PHI 379 Philosophy of Race

HWC 312 Social Welfare Policy and Institutional Oppression

HWC 509 Foundations of Social Justice: Challenging Oppression

University of Alabama Birmingham (AL)

AHE 591 Seminar in Higher Education: Multicultural & Diversity Issues in Higher Education

CIS 621 Intercultural Perspectives in Youth Literature

SW 351 Oppression & Social Injustice

University of Colorado Boulder (CO)

EDUC 2050 Step Up to Social Justice Teaching

ETHN 4213 Indigenous Futurisms: Speculative Genres and Native Tomorrows

WGST 2400-3 Women of Color and Activism

University of Florida (FL)

REL 2071 Sustainability and Religion

SYO 4530 Social Inequality

WST 3349 Ecofeminism

University of Iowa (IA)

ARTS 2100 Printmaking and Politics of Protest

CINE 1195 Video Games and Identity

DANC 2065 Performing Crisis: Dances of Identity, Witness, and Resistance

University of Kansas (KS)

AMS 324 Being Deviant in America

PUAD 602 Diversity Public Administration

SW 556 Diversity, Oppression, & Social Justice

University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)

COMM 209H LGBT Politics and the Media

SRVCLRNG 192 Self-Awareness, Social Justice & Service

THEATER 130 Contemporary Playwrights Of Color

University of Michigan (MI)

AAS 322 Introduction to Environment Politics: Race, Class, and Gender

ALA 122 Intergroup Dialogues

AMCULT 333 / NATIVEAM 333 Green Indigeneity

University of Minnesota (MN)

CSCL 3211 Oppositional Cinemas

GCC 3025 Living the Good Life at the End of the World: Sustainability in the Anthropocene

YOST 1366 Stories of Resistance & Change: Youth, Race, Power & Privilege in the U.S.

University of Missouri (MO)

GEOG 2293 Globalization, Identity and Citizenship

PEA_ST 1052 Global Warming, Climate Change, Catastrophic Climate Destabilization

PSYCH 4984W Promoting Social Justice, Diversity, and Inclusion Capstone

University of Montana (MT)

AAST 141H Black: From Africa to Hip-Hop

CAS 140X Addictions and Diversity

COMX 212X Introduction to Intercultural Communication

University of Nevada, Las Vegas (NV)

AAS 434 Constructions of Race and Racial Ambiguity

PBH 200 Multicultural Health

THTR 124 Introduction to Gay Plays

University of New Mexico (NM)

ARTE 477 Sexual Identity and Social Justice in Art Education

LLSS 588 Feminist Epistemologies & Pedagogies

MUSE 293 Multicultural Awareness Through Music Skills

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (NC)

ARAB 338 Borders and Walls in the Arab World – Experiential

GLBL 383 Global Whiteness

WGST 665 Queer Latina/o Literature, Performance, and Visual Art

University of Pennsylvania (PA)

ENGL096 Theories Gender/Sexuality: Queer Politics/Queer Com

FNAR222 Big Pictures: Mural Arts

NURS318 Race, Gender, Class and the History of American Health Care

University of Toledo (OH)

AED 3130 Multicultural Approaches for Art Appreciation

ANTH 4730 Biocultural Ecology

ARTH 3820/WGST 3020 Visual Construction of Gender

University of Washington (WA)

AES 150 In-Justice for All: Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, Class, & Gender in the U.S.

ARCTIC 200 Indigenous Diplomacies & International Relations in the Arctic

GERMAN 298 A Fairy Tales and the Environmental Imagination

University of Wisconsin Madison (WI)

AFROAMER 271 Topics in African American Culture > Multiculturalism & Social Justice

ASIAN AM 560 Asian American Pan-Ethnicity & Community Organizing

THEATRE 357 Introduction to Theatre for Cultural and Social Awareness

Ursinus College (PA)

EDUC 280 Education and Inequality

EDUC 320 Diversity of Learners

EDUC 375 The Inclusive Classroom

Vanderbilt University (TN)

CMST 3720 Communicating Gender

MUSL 2150 Music, Identity, and Diversity

PHIL 3012W Writing as Political Resistance

Washington State University (WA)

AMDT 417 Social and Psychological Aspects of Dress

DTC 206 Digital Inclusion

WOMEN ST 300 Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality

Whitman College (WA)

Art History 354 Race, Ethnicity, and the Urban Imaginary

Environmental Studies 339 Writing Environmental Disasters

Rhetoric Studies 240 Rhetorical Explorations: Race, Class, and Gender

Experiential Learning

Social justice educators use experiential learning to provide vocational training in progressive activism. The presence of experiential learning courses signals that social justice educators have taken over a department. A representative catalogue of experiential learning courses registers the disciplinary range and the ambitions of social justice education.

We have noted above that social justice departments denominate their vocational training in activism as experiential learning—or related terms such as civic engagement, community engagement, fieldwork, internships, practica, and service-learning. (See Chart 5: Experiential Learning Courses.) Experiential learning is both a camouflaging euphemism and a marker of social justice education. Experiential learning, as service-learning, was founded in the 1960s by radical activists who wanted to commit participants to progressive activism by “consciousness raising” propaganda, and to divert university resources to support progressive nonprofit organizations. Experiential learning’s models include agricultural extension schools; internships; education theorist John Dewey’s emphasis on learning by doing; “civil rights schools” formed in the Civil Rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s; the revolutionary pedagogy of Paolo Freire; and Maoist China’s Open Door Schooling.

Service-learning usually refers to relatively unpoliticized experiential learning, which habituates students to the basic forms and techniques of activism, while civic engagement usually refers to more avowedly political social justice activism. The term experiential learning disguises what is essentially vocational training in progressive activism by pretending that it is no different from an internship with an engineering firm.²⁵⁹ Many supposedly academic social justice courses also focus upon readying students for experiential learning courses—and for a further career in social justice activism.

Experiential learning courses are what particularly distinguishes social justice education from its progressive forebears. Experiential learning courses, dedicated outright to progressive activism, drop all pretenses that teachers and students are engaged in the search for knowledge.

Cornell University (NY): Inequality Studies: Minor

WRIT 4310 Service Learning for Democratic Citizenship: Literature of American Social Action Movements

To what extent is civic engagement fundamental to democratic citizenship? This course seeks to answer that question by exploring the components of service learning as a discipline and to strengthen the intellectual foundation of students who wish to incorporate civic engagement into their curriculum. Students will become familiar with the history of service learning, explore competing theories of social justice and social inequality, and develop a framework for social action that exists at the juncture of theory and practice. Readings will include texts by Dewey, Freire, bell hooks, Franklin, Jefferson, Thoreau, Addams, Baldwin, King, Dorothy Day, and Fanon. Weekly seminar papers as well as a term paper through which students develop their own philosophy of civic engagement.

WRIT 4310 Service Learning for Democratic Citizenship: Literature of American Social Action Movements, Cornell University, https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP19/class/WRIT/4130.

Saint Mary’s College of California (CA): Ethnic Studies: Major, Minor

ES 159 Capstone in Creating Community: Original Work in Intergroup Dialogue or Interactive Theater

This course requires students to move from a theoretical understanding of these concepts and issues, to the integration of that theory of social justice education and change with the practice of dialogue or interactive theater. The focus here will be on the application of these facilitation skills in a much deeper way in one chosen setting—either on and off-campus. The on-campus facilitations may be residence-hall-based activities, or FYAC and other classroom-based dialogues. Students will be responsible for creating, facilitating, and evaluating their facilitation experiences and this process will demonstrate their higher-level learning, analytical and practical skills in this area. Their final project will also analyze the role of such experiential interventions in addressing issues and problems in a given group, but also on a larger societal level. The nature of this course requires students to have mastered some lower-division level course that addressed issues of difference and diversity of identity and experiences in U.S. culture, and to have a preliminary understanding of privilege, power, and oppression dynamics across various social identities (e.g., gender, religion, class, ability, etc.) and to understand the role of dialogue as the means to building inclusive communities that support the common good and a just society. Students must have also completed one or more of the upper division courses in Interactive Theater or Intergroup Dialogue, in order to have the theoretical and experiential bases on which to appropriately design, implement and evaluate a senior level project in their chosen area.

ES 159 Capstone in Creating Community: Original Work in Intergroup Dialogue or Interactive Theater, Saint Mary’s College of California, https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/ethnic-studies/course-descriptions.

University of Iowa (IA): Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies: Major

GWSS:3400/SJUS:3400 Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Advocacy and Engagement Colloquium

How to capitalize on volunteer experience; how experience can lead to careers in health care, law, advocacy, social work, social justice, education; issues related to domestic violence, community education, sexual assault; health care for women, youth, and LGBTQ populations; health care inequities, social justice; field journal. Recommendations: active volunteer work at feminist-centered organizations in Iowa, completion of 40-hour training, plan to serve organization for up to ten or more hours each month, and attendance at regularly scheduled volunteer meetings.

GWSS:3400/SJUS:3400 Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Advocacy and Engagement Colloquium, University of Iowa, http://catalog.registrar.uiowa.edu/courses/gwss/.

Myriad departments now host experiential learning courses. Of the 239 programs we study, at least 103 include an experiential learning course or other requirement—and frequently a required “capstone” course incorporates experiential learning. This tally does not include courses that are not themselves experiential learning, but which teach students experiential learning techniques—courses in subjects such as community organizing, intergroup dialogue facilitation, and participatory action research. Much of social justice education focuses upon readying students for experiential learning courses—and for a further career in social justice activism.

Below we reproduce a cross section of 50 experiential learning courses:

Experiential Learning Courses

AMCULT 306 Community Research

AMETH 650 Practicing Social Change

AMS 496 Perspectives and Experiences in Social Justice

ART 292 Community Video Production

ARTH 345 Activist Artists and Work in the Community

ASAM 102 PZ Fieldwork in Asian American Communities

CCE 490 Capstone in Civic and Community Engagement

CCS486 Writers in the Community

CHIC 4275 Theory in Action: Community Engagement in a Social Justice Framework

COMM 624 Hate Speech

CSS 201 Critical Community Engagement

DAS 590 Applied Nonviolence

EDUC 2050 Step Up to Social Justice Teaching

ENVS 530 Environmental Leadership and Organizing

EPSY 3133 Practicum: Service Learning, Psychology of Multiculturalism in Education

ES 157 Praxis in Creating Community: Interactive Theater or Intergroup Dialogue in Action

GWS 305CS Gender and Women’s Studies Community Service

GWSS 3501 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Social Movements in the United States

HBEH 610 Alternative Spring Break

INTS 295 Field-Based Work: Leadership for Sustainability

INTS 422 An Experiential Approach to American Foreign Policy

INVS 1513 Civic Engagement: Using the Electoral Process as a Tool for Social Change

JCL 123 Praxis: Anti-Racist Pedagogy

JHR 506 Grant Writing and Development for Social Justice and Human Rights

JOUR 374 Community Journalism

LS 681 Community Service Learning in the Schools

PH 556 Community Based Participatory Research for Health

PHIL 3307 Social Justice and Community Service

PJS 3000 Peace Lab: 21st Century Issues and Practices in Peace & Justice

PSC 31147 Community Organizing

PSJ 305 Advanced Civic Engagement

PSY 359 Field Work in Community Research and Action

RAM 288 Theatre for Social Change

SJS 215 EMPOWER I: Educational and Economic Justice

SOAN 440 Social Activism: History, Method, Practice

SJUS:4080 Advocacy and Engagement Capstone

SOC 489 Organizing: People, Power, and Social Change

SOJ 250 Social Justice in the Field

SOSJ 499 Solidarity and Social Justice Praxis

SOWJ 3400 Advocacy and Social Change Theory and Practice

SUST 334 Sustainability Practicum to Benefit the Campus or Community

SUST 401 Applied Sustainability

SW 652 Organizing for Social and Political Action

SW 657 Multicultural, Multilingual Organizing

UC/SOC 321 Practicum in Facilitating Intergroup Dialogues

URBS 300 Fieldwork Seminar

WGS 380, 381 Internship in Women’s and Gender Studies

WGS 798 Feminist Internship: Gender and the Nonprofit Industrial Complex

WRD 377 Writing and Social Engagement

WRIT 4310 Service Learning for Democratic Citizenship: Literature of American Social Action Movements

Administrative units such as Offices of Community Engagement and Study Abroad Offices also sponsor experiential learning. (See below). At present, however, the heart of experiential learning lies in the social justice departments.

Experiential learning courses are what particularly distinguishes social justice education from its progressive forebears. Courses on the history of activist movements or Marxist political theory are at least formally exercises in classroom learning that are dedicated to the search for knowledge, even if they are obviously intended to support social justice education. Experiential learning courses, dedicated outright to progressive activism, drop all pretenses. These courses are the essence of social justice education.

University Administration

Social justice advocates have taken over much of university administration, particularly those offices devoted to the “co-curriculum.” They have also taken over the education of higher education administrators, and their professional organizations, and redefined their professional goals as the advancement of social justice.

Social justice education’s dizziest success has been its rapid takeover of the university administration, above all the labyrinth of “co-curricular” bureaucracies. Higher education administration is now even more liberal than the professoriate: As Samuel Abrams (Political Science, Sarah Lawrence College) summarizes,

I recently surveyed a nationally representative sample of roughly 900 “student-facing” administrators—those whose work concerns the quality and character of a student’s experience on campus. I found that liberal staff members outnumber their conservative counterparts by the astonishing ratio of 12-to-one. Only 6 percent of campus administrators identified as conservative to some degree, while 71 percent classified themselves as liberal or very liberal. It’s no wonder so much of the nonacademic programming on college campuses is politically one-sided.

The 12-to-one ratio of liberal to conservative college administrators makes them the most left-leaning group on campus. In previous research, I found that academic faculty report a six-to-one ratio of liberal to conservative professors. Incoming first-year students, by contrast, reported less than a two-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives, according to a 2016 finding by the Higher Education Research Institute. It appears that a fairly liberal student body is being taught by a very liberal professoriate—and socialized by an incredibly liberal group of administrators.²⁶⁰

These administrators now insert themselves into all aspects of student life, both outside and (increasingly) inside the classroom. Overwhelmingly, they exercise their power to promote social justice. Social justice administrators catechize students in social justice propaganda; select social justice advocates as outside speakers; funnel students to off-campus social justice organizations that benefit from free student labor; and provide jobs and money for social justice cadres among the student body.

The formation of social justice bureaucracies also serves as an administrative stepping stone to the creation of social justice departments. An Office of Sustainability or Civic Engagement can sponsor programs and courses, on the way to establishing a study as a minor and then a major.

Perhaps most importantly, university administration provides a career for students specializing in social justice advocacy. If nothing else turns up, a social justice advocate can always get work in the Office of Student Life.

The training of higher education administrators increasingly makes a commitment to social justice an explicit or an implicit requirement—or at the very least a convenient educational track. The University of La Verne offers a Master of Arts in Social Justice Higher Education Administration, which “develops culturally-competent student affairs professionals who serve as catalysts for institutional change … social justice and cultural competence are at the core of the curriculum and all theories and practices are examined through an intersectional lens.”²⁶¹ Bellarmine University likewise offers a Master of Education in Higher Education Leadership and Social Justice: “The degree prepares students to engage and direct student learning through professional positions in student life, academic affairs, athletics and a multitude of administrative positions across the campus in a variety of higher education settings.”²⁶² The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Social Justice Education program trains its students for “a variety of education-related fields,” including “in higher education, as faculty and researchers, and in positions in student affairs, residential life, disability services, LGBT resource centers, diversity and multicultural affairs offices, and women’s centers.”²⁶³

The University of Redlands’ Master of Arts in Higher Education proclaims that

The social justice perspective in this program manifests implicitly and explicitly throughout your courses. Our aim is that students graduate from the program with the foundation to be:

1) Aware of inequities in higher education;

2) Critical of the role of power and privilege in higher education;

3) Advocates and allies for those who experience oppression in higher education; and,

4) Agents for change to address inequities in higher education.²⁶⁴

George Washington University’s Master’s in Higher Education Administration program more informally assures prospective students that “You will become immersed in innovative work to ensure that colleges are using inclusive and multicultural student affairs practices focused on promoting social justice, civic engagement, and equity.”²⁶⁵ Morgan State University’s M.A. in Higher Education & Student Affairs Administration “emphasizes social justice and service to diverse student populations at va[r]ious types of institutions.”²⁶⁶ So, too, with slightly varied wording, do Bowling Green State University’s Higher Education Administration Ph.D. Program, Oakland University’s Master of Education in Higher Education Leadership, the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Education Leadership and Policy, and the University of Vermont’s Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration (HESA) M.Ed. program.²⁶⁷

The education of higher education administrators has now become almost entirely assimilated to social justice ideology. It is no surprise that their practice has as well.

Social Justice Bureaucracies

Bureaucracies taken over by social justice advocates include Offices of Student Affairs, Offices of First-Year Experience, Offices of Community Engagement, Offices of Social Justice, Offices of Sustainability, Offices of Equity and Inclusion, Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, Miscellaneous Institutes and Centers, and Title IX Offices. For each of these bureaucracies, we list the number of institutions that possess that office, their varieties of sponsored social justice commitments, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

While social justice educators among the faculty have adapted their tactics to a looming financial crisis, social justice educators among the administration have flourished in a world of plenty. University administrations have swollen extraordinarily in the last fifty years.²⁶⁸ Just between 1987 and 2011–2012,

The number of non-academic administrative and professional employees at U.S. colleges and universities has more than doubled. … [U]niversities and colleges collectively added 517,636 administrators and professional employees. … The ratio of nonacademic employees to faculty has also doubled. There are now two nonacademic employees at public and two and a half at private universities and colleges for every one full-time, tenure-track member of the faculty.²⁶⁹

Higher education’s administrative bloat has facilitated the growth of social justice bureaucracies—among them, Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs; Title IX coordinators; Offices of First-Year Experience and Community Engagement; Offices of Student Life and Residential Life; Offices of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement; Offices of Equity and Inclusion; Offices of Sustainability and Social Justice; and miscellaneous Institutes and Centers. These bureaucracies focus on what is called co-curricular activities or, yet more ambitiously, the co-curriculum.

The most generic definition of co-curricular is “activities, programs, and learning experiences that complement, in some way, what students are learning in school.”²⁷⁰ Large portions of these activities, however, consist of social justice advocacy. Marquette University’s Division of Student Affairs reveals this overlap plainly enough by listing Intercultural Development and Social Justice as two of the five Co-Curricular Learning Outcomes. Intercultural Development includes the ability to “Articulate insights into [one’s] own cultural and social identity and biases” and “Describe the advantages and challenges of a diverse society.” Social Justice includes the ability to “Demonstrate knowledge of root causes of social justice issues” and “Implement sustainable solutions to address social justice problems in the community.”²⁷¹

These co-curricular bureaucracies are highly ambitious, as the term co-curriculum itself reveals. Where the traditional term extracurricular acknowledged that it referred to activities that were secondary to academics, the use of terms such as co-curricular and co-curriculum articulates academic bureaucrats’ ambition to claim equal status for the activities they sponsor. The emergence of the co-curricular transcript gives administrative form to the co-curricular bureaucracies’ claims to equal status with the professoriate in higher education.²⁷²

More broadly, the co-curriculum also expresses the campaign by administrative social justice advocates to transform the university from a place dedicated to the search for truth to a place dedicated to achieving social justice—from a place where students dedicate themselves to learning about philosophy and physics to a place where students dedicate themselves to Intersectionality Workshops and Social Justice Weekend Retreats. Social justice administrators aim ultimately to subordinate the curriculum to the co-curriculum, as the practical way to subordinate the pursuit of truth to social justice advocacy.

We will examine separately below the different components of these social justice bureaucracies—but the extraordinarily intensive nature of social justice advocacy in higher education administration is a product of the cumulative pressure exerted by all the overlapping social justice bureaucracies.

The list of social justice bureaucracies at the University of California Davis includes “the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual Resource Center; the Center for African Diaspora Student Success; the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Student Success; the Native American Academic Student Success Center; the Middle Eastern/South Asian Student Affairs Office; the Women’s Resources and Research Center; the Undocumented Student Center; Retention Initiatives; the Office of Educational Opportunity and Enrichment Services; and the Center for First-Generation Student Scholars.”²⁷³

The Division of Diversity and Community Engagement alone at the University of Texas at Austin includes Campus Climate Response Team; Diversity Education Initiatives; Gender and Sexuality Center; Multicultural Engagement Center; Office for Inclusion and Equity; Community Engagement Center; Hogg Foundation for Mental Health; Longhorn Center for Community Engagement; Social Justice Institute; Project MALES; Students Partnering for Undergraduate Rhetoric Success; African American Male Research Initiative; Fearless Leadership Institute; Gateway Scholars; Intellectual Entrepreneurship; Longhorn Center for Academic Excellence; Longhorn Campaign for Students of Color; Longhorn Link Program; McNair Scholars Program; and Monarch Student Program (for illegal aliens).²⁷⁴

At the University of Kansas, the list of faculty and staff who completed the 2017 Social Justice Fellows Program²⁷⁵ gives some sense of the spread of the social justice advocacy among both the faculty and the bureaucracy:

Cecile Accilien, Department of African & African American Studies

Callie Branstiter, KU Libraries

Anne Dotter, University Honors Program

Brandy Ernzen, Department of Indigenous Studies

Merrill Evans, Watkins Health Services

Rosana Godinez, Undergraduate Advising Center

Mary Ann Graham, KU Card Center

Carrah Haley, KU Athletics

Michelle Heffner Hayes, Department of Dance

Christie Holland, Institute for Policy & Social Research

Darius Jones, Student Involvement & Leadership Center

Laura Kingston, Achievement & Assessment Institute

Mary Klayder, Department of English

Sharon Leatherman, KU Unions

Juliette Loring, Academic Achievement & Access Center

Angie Loving, Human Resource Management

Jessica Mattes, Office of First-Year Experience

Dan McCarthy, School of Journalism & Mass Communications

Kierstin McMichael, Office of Diversity & Equity

Casey Mesick Braun, Spencer Museum of Art

Terri Morris, School of Music

Eddie Munoz, Office of Student Affairs

José Muñoz, KU Athletics

Mulubrhan Negash, School of Education

Lindsay Orion, Office of Student Affairs

Katherine Pryor, Department of Theatre

Aaron Quisenberry, Student Involvement & Leadership Center

Vicky Reyes, School of Journalism & Mass Communications

Kathryn Rhine, Department of Anthropology

Katherine Rose-Mockry, Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity

Christina Rudolph, Office of Admissions

Gail Sherron, Financial Aid & Scholarships

Michael Wade Smith, Office of the Provost

Katie Treadwell, Office of First-Year Experience

Anne Wallen, Office of Fellowships

Aramis Watson, KU Student Housing

Michelle Wilson, Achievement & Assessment Institute

Social justice advocacy permeates every component of higher education administration, and every type of activity the administration sponsors. Just as social justice educators subject students to social justice advocacy within the classroom, social justice administrators subject them to more such advocacy outside the classroom. To the best of their abilities, they allow students neither respite nor refuge.

Social justice vocabulary also repeats endlessly in these different bureaucracies. As we go through the different bureaucracies, we will end each subsection with a list of social justice keywords used by each set of administrators. Partly these lists illustrate the common social justice ideology that inspires these different bureaucracies. Partly these lists should inform readers what words are characteristic of social justice education.

Perhaps most importantly, these lists illustrate the mind-numbing repetitiveness of social justice ideology. It is a common accusation that social justice ideology seems totalitarian—that to live on campus resembles living in the Soviet Union in 1933 or China in 1966. The reader cannot understand the force of the comparison without getting a taste of the sheer repetitiveness of the social justice jargon, repeated endlessly on each campus, and identically on campuses around the nation. The force of the comparison also derives from learning how putatively neutral words such as ethics, community, and leadership have acquired the unspoken adjective progressive. Social justice bureaucrats exclude or suppress all dissenting points of view by silently adding progressive to every ideal they proclaim and every activity they sponsor.

We will first examine the Office of Student Affairs.

Offices of Student Affairs

Offices of Student Affairs (Student Life) are the co-curriculum’s core bureaucracy. They are generally staffed by social justice advocates, and they sponsor a large number of social justice programs and events. Student Affairs also frequently hosts more specialized social justice administrative units. Residential Life and First-Year Experience, for example, are frequently located within Student Affairs. Student Affairs offices also recruit large numbers of students, in roles such as Diversity Peer Educator. Student Affairs is a standard gateway for social justice advocacy—both in the activities it sponsors and in the job opportunities it offers. (For substantiating details, see Chart 6: Offices of Student Affairs.)

Student Affairs’ administrators’ advocacy is no longer voluntary, but a professional requirement. The American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) now include Social Justice and Inclusion as a professional competency. This professional competency requires student affairs educators to pursue the following Foundational Outcomes:

Identify systems of socialization that influence one’s multiple identities and sociopolitical perspectives and how they impact one’s lived experiences.
Understand how one is affected by and participates in maintaining systems of oppression, privilege, and power.
Engage in critical reflection in order to identify one’s own prejudices and biases.
Participate in activities that assess and complicate one’s understanding of inclusion, oppression, privilege, and power.
Integrate knowledge of social justice, inclusion, oppression, privilege, and power into one’s practice.
Connect and build meaningful relationships with others while recognizing the multiple, intersecting identities, perspectives, and developmental differences people hold.
Articulate a foundational understanding of social justice and inclusion within the context of higher education.
Advocate on issues of social justice, oppression, privilege, and power that impact people based on local, national, and global interconnections.²⁷⁶

All the bureaucrats who administer the co-curricular labyrinth should be taken to have adopted Social Justice and Inclusion as a professional competency.

This professional context is the essential background for each incident in which student affairs administrators state their personal commitment to social justice, or divert their programmatic activities toward social justice.

When Appalachian State University offers a course on Social Justice and Inclusion in Student Affairs, they are preparing students to follow the discipline’s professional norms.²⁷⁷

When the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Florida publishes a Diversity and Social Justice Statement that commits the Division to create “a rich educational environment that is dedicated to social justice,” its personnel are following their professional norms.²⁷⁸

When Kata Traxler, Resident Director in the Department of Residence Life at Loyola University Chicago, declares (seriously enough, despite a flippant tone) her dedication to “trying to dismantle the heteronormative, Christonormative, cisgender, ableist, white supremacist patriarchy,” she too is adhering to her professional norms.²⁷⁹

Doing Student Affairs Work with a Social Justice Lense [sic]

Throughout my budding career in the Student Affairs profession, I have often heard the phrase: “do your work through a social justice lens”. But, what does that REALLY mean? As a new professional, this is a concept I have been challenged by in my second job post-grad school. I went from Multicultural Affairs to the Residence Life functional area. In my position as the Assistant Director of Multicultural Student Programs & Services, it was literally my job to think about social justice, diversity education, & equity issues all day every day. … After reflecting on year one of being a Resident Director, I think I utilize my social justice lens in conduct hearings, facilities walks, student staff selection processes, and in a lot of daily tasks. It finally sunk in that diversity education & equity initiatives don’t just make up a functional area—they are some of the pillars that currently drive the Student Affairs profession. While I always “knew” this subconsciously, I really get now that multicultural affairs, equity initiatives, diversity education, & social justice will always be a part of my life, whether that be personally or professionally.

Kata Traxler is a Resident Director in the Department of Residence Life at Loyola University Chicago. The passion she has for social justice & equity initiatives motivates her to continue learning and growing via research, personal experiences, and professional development opportunities. She received her M.Ed. in College Student Personnel Administration from Marquette University and her B.A. in Psychology & Communication Studies from DePaul University. When Kata isn’t trying to dismantle the heteronormative, Christonormative, cisgender, ableist, white supremacist patriarchy, one can find her watching home improvement shows on HGTV, critiquing decisions made by both the Chicago Bears & Chicago White Sox organizations, or adding more leopard print to her wardrobe.

Kata Traxler, “Doing Student Affairs Work with a Social Justice Lense [sic],” NASPA, June 21, 2016, https://www.naspa.org/constituent-groups/posts/doing-student-affairs-work-with-a-social-justice-lense.

When Northwestern University’s Division of Student Affairs creates a dedicated webpage of resources for Social Justice Education, which “creates co-curricular educational opportunities in partnership with our student community that foster self-exploration, facilitate conversations across difference and support actions that create social change on campus,”²⁸⁰ the Division is also adhering to professional norms.

Northwestern University: Social Justice Education

Programs

• Justice & Allyship Retreat: “The retreat will engage 40-50 undergraduate students who are interested in gaining skills and tools to develop a better understanding of allyship and social justice, that they can bring back to campus. By attending the Justice and Allyship Retreat students can expect to gain the following: knowledge of social justice language and key concepts specific to allyship awareness of self and how to use their agency for social change skills around advocacy connection with a community of social change agents committed to allyship.”

• Sustained Dialogue: “a student-facilitated program that encourages conversation across lines of difference with other Northwestern students.”

• Peer Inclusion Educators: “a program started by students, for students, dedicated to fostering an inclusive learning environment by addressing issues surrounding personal awareness of social identities, power, privilege, oppression, and social justice with peers at Northwestern. PIE facilitators lead specific and intentional programming for groups all over campus, including Greek houses, residential communities, and other student organizations.”

• Step Up Bystander Intervention Training: “aims to create a more engaged Northwestern community by providing students, faculty, and staff with the basic tools to safely and effectively intervene in situations where someone might be in danger.”

• Deconstructing Whiteness: “an opportunity for students who self-identify as white to explore what it means to be white, how to talk about whiteness and race with other white people, as well as begin to understand their own role in doing anti-racist work.”

• NÜ Men: “a 6-week dialogue experience with the intention to challenge its participants to critically examine and deconstruct their own masculinity, to examine the systemic connections between traditional masculinity and gender-based violence.”

Workshops

Cycle of Socialization; Exploring Social Identity; Social Justice—Key Concepts; Intersectionality Workshop; Step-Up Bystander Intervention Training; Demystifying Class; Unboxing Masculinities; The Impact of Microaggressions on Building Inclusive Environments.

Allied Student Groups

• Inspire Media: “a student-run organization that produces and funds socially conscious media, engaging topics on local, national, and international levels.”

• Chicago Student Action: “the opportunity to get involved with professional community organizing in the Chicago and Evanston areas.”

• Asian Pacific American Coalition (APAC): “APAC is a student group that strives to represent and serve students of Asian descent on campus by raising awareness of social and cultural issues and engaging the community members in educational dialogue and advocacy.”

• For Members Only (FMO): “FMO serves to encourage political, social, cultural and intellectual unity and growth first and foremost within Northwestern University’s Black community, but also within the broader Northwestern community as well.”

• Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán (MEChA): “MEChA de Northwestern is a student organization that promotes higher education, cultura, and historia.”

• Northwestern University Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance (NAISA): “Northwestern University NAISA is dedicated to promoting and inspiring the interests of the community of Native American students and those who appreciate Native American cultures at Northwestern University.”

• Peace Project: “The purpose of this organization is to promote awareness and activism at Northwestern University that focuses on peace and justice issues locally, nationally, and internationally. We organize informational programming with the goal of raising awareness and, in turn, mobilize the Northwestern community to take a more proactive stance in combating issues of social injustice and human rights violations.”

• Immigrant Justice Project: “This student group promotes on-campus awareness of contemporary immigrant rights issues, specifically relating to newly arrived immigrants and undocumented migrants, by providing educational and political advocacy opportunities through various community organizations in Chicago.”

• Students for Sensible Drug Policy: “Students for Sensible Drug Policy is an international grassroots network of students who are concerned about the impact drug abuse has on our communities, but who also know that the War on Drugs is failing our generation and our society.”

Staff

• Robert Brown, Director: “Prior to starting his professional career at Washington University in St. Louis, Robert attended DePaul University in his hometown of Chicago, IL, where he earned his BS in Finance and Community Service Studies. Rob then received his MA in Student Affairs Administration at Michigan State University. Robert has presented regionally and nationally on topics related to social justice education, supporting students of color, assessment & evaluation, college men and masculinities, and civic engagement. Rob is an alumnus of the Social Justice Training Institute (SJTI), a past faculty and intern with SJTI, Lead facilitator with LeaderShape, and has held leadership roles in NASPA and ACPA.”

• Michele (Enos) Lakemeyer, Assistant Director: “In her role at Northwestern, Michele oversees Sustained Dialogue, a program in which undergraduate students facilitate on-going dialogues across lines of difference. Michele works closely with New Student and Family Programs to provide ongoing training to Peer Advisors and the Pre-Orientation Programs and also serves as a liaison to the Athletics department to help oversee the Engage program, which provides ongoing workshops that discuss identity, power, privilege, oppression and navigating NU as an athletic. In 2016, Michele created Deconstructing Whiteness; a 6-week 2-hour a week caucus for white students to work through what it means to have white privilege and how to engage in antiracist work. Michele has also helped to bring Restorative Practices to Northwestern and has presented at national conferences on ally development, deconstructing whiteness, and what it means to be an identity conscious and multipartial facilitator. Michele holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Santa Clara University and a Masters of Higher Education Administration from Loyola University Chicago.”

• Soteria Reid, Peer Inclusion Educator Intern: “She’s a second year in the School of Education and Social Policy majoring in Social Policy with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She’s also really enjoyed being a part of FMO, Northwestern’s Black student union on campus! She’s been a PIE facilitator since fall quarter 2017, and joined PIE because she ‘is passionate for social justice and making campus a place where everyone who steps on it feels like they belong.’”

• Rashaad Barnett, Graduate Assistant: “Rashaad is a second year graduate student in the Higher Education Master’s program at Loyola University. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, Rashaad now considers Chicago to be his home. Rashaad is a graduate assistant with Social Justice Education and will work primarily with the Sustained Dialogue program. He is also the advisor for the Refresh Dance Crew. Rashaad is a proud member of the LGBT community and of the Mu Tau Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated. … He enjoys learning about social justice issues and engaging in dialogue pertaining to hot button social issues.”

Large numbers of student affairs professionals nationwide are dedicated not only to maintaining the profession’s current dedication to social justice but also to intensifying it.²⁸¹

Of the 60 institutions this report examines, 38 possessed Offices of Student Affairs with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by Offices of Student Affairs include activism programs (Arizona State University, University of Pennsylvania), awards (Northwestern University, San Francisco State University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill), centers (Merrimack College, University of New Mexico), conferences (Marquette University, University of Washington), faculty training (University of Florida), internships (Occidental College, Southern Connecticut State University), job advertisements (Brooklyn College CUNY, University of Alabama Birmingham), leadership development (Indiana University Bloomington, University of Montana), mission statements (DePaul University, Lake Forest College, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Michigan, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Wisconsin Madison), professional development (Vanderbilt University), retreats (City College CUNY), staffing (Southern Oregon University), staff biographies (Cornell University, Hamline University, Washington State University), strategic plans (University of Kansas), student learning goals (Lafayette College, Pomona College, Whitman College), student training (Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Florida), and workshops (Barnard College, City College CUNY).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 6: Offices of Student Affairs.)

Offices of Student Affairs: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Cornell University (NY): Student and Campus Life

Vijay Pendakur, Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students

“[Pendakur is] a scholar of diversity and inclusion work. For a sample of his scholarly publications, explore the book he recently edited, Closing the Opportunity Gap: Identity-Conscious Strategies for Retention and Student Success.”

Lake Forest College (IL): Office of Student Affairs

Forester Five: Foundations for Student Development: Embrace Diversity

“The College’s mission statement affirms that we encourage our students to embrace cultural diversity and learn to become effective members of the global community.”

Marquette University (WI): Division of Student Affairs

Social Justice in Action Conference

“The conference will provide both entry-level discussions around allyship, privilege, volunteerism and social justice issues as well as more advanced skill-building for students who already identify as advocates and activists.”

Stony Brook–SUNY (NY): Division of Student Affairs

Diversity Peer Education

“The Diversity Peer Education program will train students on how to effectively engage others, analyze situations, and bring about change in the campus context through the lens of diversity and social justice.”

University of Alabama Birmingham (AL): Student Affairs

Student Affairs Specialist II

“[D]uties include, spearheading the annual SMDP Student Leadership and Social Justice Retreat, advising the office’s peer-educator groups (Safe Zone & Diversity Peer Educators), [and] supervising the Intern Coordinator of Social Justice Education.”

University of Colorado Boulder (CO): Division of Student Affairs

Student Affairs Statement on Student Protest and Activism

“Through activism, students learn to advocate for their values and beliefs, values that are sometimes newly discovered through their studies and co-curricular endeavors at the university.”

University of Florida (FL): Division of Student Affairs

Just Be…To Be Just

“In preparation for the day, you are being asked to read this article, Aspiring Social Justice Ally Identity Development.”

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (NC): Student Affairs

Student Affairs Diversity Award

“The recipient should be someone who has advocated for the inclusion of underrepresented groups, promotes social justice, and cultivates a respectful environment for students, staff, and faculty. ... 2014-15 Recipient: Tunnel of Oppression, Housing and Residential Education.”

University of Pennsylvania (PA): Office of Student Affairs

PennCORP

“PennCORP introduces students to the Philadelphia community through volunteer projects, interactive social justice workshops, and thoughtful dialogue and reflection about the social issues affecting the Philadelphia community.”

Vanderbilt University (TN): Office of Student Affairs

Talk About It Thursdays Series

“This is a lunch time professional development for colleagues looking to explore diversity, inclusion, social justice, and cultural competence and more.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes action, activism, activist, advocate, ally, allyship, change, co-curricular, community, cultural competence, dialogue, diversity, effective, engage, global community, identity, inclusion, leadership, oppression, peer education, privilege, respectful, safe zone, social issues, social justice, thoughtful, underrepresented, and volunteerism.

Offices of First-Year Experience

Offices of First-Year Experience, which expand upon the social justice aspects of admissions and orientation, expose incoming students to an entire year of social justice advocacy. (See Chart 7: Offices of First-Year Experience.) Offices of First-Year Experience also double as means of retention and remediation,²⁸² but their success at social justice advocacy is much greater.²⁸³ By such means as summer common readings, they ensure that social justice education begins even before students arrive at campus—and they ensure that the only common reading in many schools is social justice propaganda.²⁸⁴ The social justice advocacy continues throughout the year, in such activities as Break Programs, first-year courses, and Learning Communities.

Offices of First-Year Experience have begun to expand into Offices of Second-Year Experience, at institutions such as Duke University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Pennsylvania.²⁸⁵ We may expect Offices of Third- and Fourth-Year Experience soon enough.

Offices of First-Year Experience have begun to expand into Offices of Second-Year Experience, at institutions such as Duke University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Pennsylvania. We may expect Offices of Third- and Fourth-Year Experience soon enough.

Twenty-eight of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Offices of First-Year Experience with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by Offices of First-Year Experience include activism programs (University of Massachusetts Amherst), common readings (Brooklyn College–CUNY, California State University Northridge, Kansas State University, Miami University of Ohio, Pacific University, Washington State University), courses (Arizona State University, Barnard College, Lake Forest College, University of Florida, University of New Mexico), events (Lafayette College, Merrimack College), job advertisements (Cornell University), mission statements (Gonzaga University, University of Washington), orientation (Indiana University Bloomington, Occidental College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Whitman College), pre-orientations (Brandeis University, Northwestern University), programs (Hamline University, University of Kansas), student learning goals (San Francisco State University), student testimony (Ursinus College), and workshops (University of Wisconsin Madison).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 7: Offices of First-Year Experience.)

Offices of First-Year Experience: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Brandeis University (MA): Brandeis First-Year Experience

Social Justice Preorientation

“Through different activities led by Orientation Leaders, you will learn about yourself and your identity; evaluate your perspective on social issues through a dialogue with your peers, Brandeis staff and professors; and learn how to make effective change.”

California State University Northridge (CA): Academic First-Year Experiences

Common Reading, Becoming Nicole, Book Discussion Group Notes

“Matt led the group through the ‘Privilege for Sale’ activity (there is also a ‘Privilege for Sale 2.0’), in which participants acknowledge and investigate heterosexual and cis gender privilege. ‘If it’s something you don’t have to worry about, it’s a privilege.’”

Indiana University Bloomington (IN): Office of First-Year Experience Programs

Welcome Week

“The purpose of The Tunnel of Oppression is to acknowledge the Cycle of Socialization of Oppression in such a way that is poignant, thought-provoking, compelling, and solicits action-oriented behavior for the future.”

Lake Forest College (IL): First-Year Studies Program

Course Descriptions

“Art and Activism in Chicago … This course will explore the efforts made by contemporary artists in the Chicago Area to parlay their creative practices while addressing working conditions, human rights, social justice, and equality.”

Miami University of Ohio (OH): Orientation & Transition Programs

Summer Reading Program, Reading Guide Materials

“White Privilege II … A Herstory of the BLM Movement.”

Northwestern University (IL): First-Year Experience

Pre-Orientation Programs

“Alternative Student Breaks (ASB-POP) Explore social justice through service-learning experience across the midwest.”

Pacific University (OR): First-Year Experience

Summer Reading

“Fall 2018 Reading This year’s book, Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, was chosen as a starting point for dialogues on race and social injustices in America.”

University of New Mexico (NM): First-Year Experience

First Year Learning Communities

“608 - Social Justice Lawyering - ARSC 198 & POLS 110 … This course will provide students with the necessary tools to pursue social justice legal advocacy work as they are beginning their college and professional careers.”

Ursinus College (PA): First-Year Experience

Common Intellectual Experience, Testimony

“I had always understood that racism was a pervasive issue in contemporary society, but reading … The New Jim Crow really helped change my perspective and understand the gravity of the issue as well as measures I can take to prevent racism in my daily life.”

Whitman College (WA): New Student Orientation

Orientation, Fall 2018

“Intercultural Center (IC) and Residence Life [staff] will talk about creating a community culture at Whitman that embraces and respects the intersections of multiple identities and developing a common language to talk about issues related to race, privilege, and difference.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes acknowledge, action, activism, advocacy, Black Lives Matter, change, community, dialogue, difference, equality, effective, gender, human rights, identity, injustice, intersection, investigate, oppression, perspective, privilege, racism, respects, service-learning, social justice, and tools.

Offices of Community Engagement

Offices of Community Engagement—Service-Learning, Civic Engagement, Leadership, Community Dialogue, and so on—provide administrative support for programs focused upon different aspects of experiential learning. (See Chart 8: Offices of Community Engagement.) These offices’ efforts overlap largely with progressive activism, and have done so ever since the foundation of service-learning in the 1960s.²⁸⁶

At Northwestern University, Leadership Development & Community Engagement devotes itself to social justice: “We pursue justice & equity through students’ leadership development and engagement in the community. We develop sustained partnerships on campus and in the community that advance student learning, transformation, and commitment for a just, equitable, and sustainable world.”²⁸⁷ The CU Engage program at University of Colorado Boulder likewise invokes social justice vocabulary at great length. Its Values of Equity and Inclusion, Reciprocity, Public Impact, and Democracy catalogue the euphemisms of social justice activism.²⁸⁸

CU Engage: Values

Equity & Inclusion:

Our programs emphasize inclusive practices that foster the intellectual and collaborative engagement of every person, regardless of national origin, age, race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, socioeconomic status, veteran status, or political affiliation. We adopt a “cultural wealth” perspective that recognizes and showcases the collective knowledge and resources of underserved communities.

Reciprocity:

We seek to build relationships with community partners that are mutually beneficial and collaborative (“doing with”), rather than exploitative (“doing to”) or paternalistic (“doing for”). Reciprocal relationships like this begin when both partners can articulate their self-interests and, over time, work together towards common goals. This working together acknowledges and respects different forms of culture, knowledge, expertise, and capacity.

Public impact:

We seek to contribute to projects that define the public in a broad, and inclusive way and strive to build, strengthen, or reclaim “public goods,” such as access to quality education, health and well-being, or clean environments. Our focus on public impact is consistent with CU-Boulder’s mission “to serve Colorado, the nation, and the world.”

Democracy:

For the purposes of CU Engage, denotes a broad set of practices in which people collectively engage the public world to bring about change. Democracy refers to a quality of participation that involves working with others, across differences, with full inclusion, towards common solutions.

About Us, CU Engage, University of Colorado Boulder, https://www.colorado.edu/cuengage/about-us.

While most such programs maintain a barely plausible front that they are non-partisan, they sometimes spill outright into support for politically partisan activity. In November 2016, Pomona’s Draper Center for Community Partnerships advertised an anti-Trump rally in Los Angeles on Facebook and reimbursed transportation costs for students to attend.²⁸⁹ In October 2018, a course on “Engaged Citizenship” at the University of Southern Maine offered academic credit for going to Washington, D.C., “to join activists, political action groups and social justice organizations to meet with Sen. Collins,” and “rally up around the FBI investigation of the Supreme Court nominee [Brett] Kavanaugh.”²⁹⁰ These avowedly political activities remove the fig leaf from these programs’ general aim to train progressive activists.

Forty-four of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Offices of Community Engagement with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by Offices of Community Engagement include activism programs (Davidson College, DePaul University, Pomona College, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Minnesota), awards (Barnard College, Brandeis University, University of Florida), break programs (George Mason University, University of Kansas), centers (Berea College, Cabrini University, Lafayette College, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania), co-curricular transcripts (Brooklyn College–CUNY), community-based research definitions (University of Wisconsin Madison), courses (Merrimack College, University of Missouri), events (Indiana University Bloomington, Kansas State University, Ohio Wesleyan University, Pacific University), grants (Cornell University, Kansas State University), internships (California State University Northridge), leadership development (Washington State University), mission statements (Evergreen State College, Gonzaga University, Occidental College, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Vanderbilt University), programs (Southern Oregon University, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Iowa, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Whitman College), service-learning definitions (Arizona State University, San Francisco State University), staffing (University of Washington), student learning goals (Marquette University), student testimony (Evergreen State College), student training (Barnard College, Cornell University, Miami University of Ohio, Northwestern University, Ursinus College), and workshops (Indiana University Bloomington).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 8: Offices of Community Engagement.)

Offices of Community Engagement: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Barnard College (NY): New York City Civic Engagement Program

Action Academy

“This training series is the perfect opportunity to put your thoughts into action and acquire the essential skills for making an impact in the communities that need it most. You will walk away from the Action Academy with a ‘social justice toolkit.’”

Cornell University (NY): Engaged Cornell

Engaged Opportunity Grants

“Developing self-reflective skills and a global view to advance multiculturalism and social justice within the Cornell community. … Community Intersectionality Advocates … are role models and leaders.”

George Mason University (VA): Service Learning or Community Based Learning (CBL)

Alternative Break

“We offer over six programs focused on social justice issues as diverse as ecosystem restoration to indigenous rights, homelessness and housing insecurity, public health, education, and more. Alternative Breaks are yearlong commitments.”

Miami University of Ohio (OH): Office of Community Engagement and Service

EMPOWER

“This experience is based on the principles of Service-Learning, and as such, uses a critical pedagogy approach. Critical pedagogy is an approach to teaching and learning that aims to raise learners’ critical consciousness regarding oppressive social conditions.”

Northwestern University (IL): Leadership Development & Community Engagement

Social Justice Advocacy Training

“By the end of the training, participants will be able to … Articulate the dynamics of political power, how to change those dynamics, and determine how and where to engage in policy change for social justice.”

Ohio Wesleyan University (OH): Community Service Learning

Social Justice Calendar

“If you are a member of the community, student, faculty member, or just an eager activist with an event that helps to build community, address social justice issues, or promote service and activism, then email us at [email protected].”

Pacific University (OR): Center for Civic Engagement

Civic Action Opportunity

“Activists are planning a 7-day pilgrimage from Sheridan to NORCOR in protest to end current detention and deportation policies. People will be walking and caravan-ing and holding action/events along the way.”

University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA): Civic Engagement & Service-Learning

Community Scholars Program

“Demonstrate the ability to translate thought into action through meaningful social change projects that engage policy, legislation, political mobilization, grassroots organizing, action research, and/or advocacy.”

University of Washington (WA): Center for Communication and Civic Engagement

UW Sustainability Action Network

“‘[T]he rich diversity of UW activism around issues of sustainability, environmentalism, democracy, and the economy’ means that there is a multitude of opportunities to interact with the student population at large on a deeper, more interconnected level.”

University of Wisconsin Madison (WI): Morgridge Center for Public Service

Community Based Research

“At its core, community-based research is that which is conducted in collaboration with community members to address a community-identified question, with the goal of producing knowledge and social action, change, and/or justice.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes action, action research, activist, advocacy, advocates, change, civic, collaboration, communities, community based research, critical consciousness, critical pedagogy, democracy, diversity, global, grassroots, impact, interconnected, intersectionality, leaders, meaningful, mobilization, multiculturalism, oppressive, organizing, self-reflective, service, service-learning, social action, social conditions, social justice, and sustainability.

Offices of Social Justice

Offices of Social Justice, like Departments of Social Justice Studies, are dedicated to forthright support of social justice. (See Chart 9: Offices of Social Justice.)

Explicitly denominated Offices of Social Justice seem to have popped up on college campuses in significant numbers since 2010.²⁹¹ Their self-descriptions provide illuminating accounts of their purposes and internal structures. At Barnard College, for example,

The Social Justice Institute, initiated in 2016, marks the next chapter of BCRW’s commitment to scholar-feminist praxis and accountable exchange with activists and organizations in New York City and beyond. The Social Justice Institute provides multi-year fellowships with financial, research, and other material support to visionary feminist activists and leaders to develop and disseminate their work.²⁹²

At Vanderbilt University, the Office of Social Justice and Identity

was created through a reorganization of existing Dean of Students departments. It comprises the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center, Inclusion Initiatives and Cultural Competence, the LGBTQI Center, the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center, the Office of the University Chaplain and Religious Life, Transition Programs, which serves first generation and transfer students, and International Student and Scholar Services.²⁹³

Offices of Social Justice usually provide training and/or financial support for progressive activism. Their internal administrative structure often reflects the pre-existing administrative structure of identity-group activism in higher education—as well as social justice’s ideological commitment to identity group politics.

As of June 2017, more than 100 American colleges and universities offered academic social justice programs²⁹⁴—where the programs were frequently sponsored by, or outgrowths of, Offices of Social Justice. The rapid spread of these Offices and academic programs explicitly dedicated to social justice are probably the best measuring rod for the general spread of social justice education on campus.

The range of activities these Offices sponsor provides a useful register of the actual content of social justice. The Schedule of the Social Justice Month at Southern Connecticut State University is particularly useful. Events in 2018 included:

Social Justice through Literature: Stories of Disruption, Resistance, and New Possibilities … ‘Passages’ Refugee Simulation … Racial Justice Film Festival … My Label Does Not Define Me … Diversity Cupcakes … All in the Family: Family-Focused Interventions Supporting Transgender and Nonbinary Youth ... Jen Sarja: Why Teachers Must Be Activists ... Nonprofit Networking Event ... Games of Social (In)Justice ... Social Entrepreneurship: An Answer for Social Justice ... Health Equity & New Haven ... Expressions of Social Justice Talent Show ... Workshop on Culture and Identities ... Social Justice Retreat ... Transgender Day of Remembrance Poster Program ... From Bad Bunny to Cakes Da Killa: Deconstructing Masculinity in a Global Society ... Learn About Immigrant Rights Organizations in CT ... Environmental Social Justice ... Fridays with SAGE: Cisgender Privilege ... Diversity Painting ... Creating Inclusive Environments ... Diversity Dialogues ... ‘Ya Think I’m Loca?’: Mental Health and People of Color ... David Hogg: Parkland Survivor, Co-founder of March for Our Lives ... Social Justice Zinemaking Workshop.²⁹⁵

The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by Offices of Social Justice include activism programs (Arizona State University, Roosevelt University, University of Nevada Las Vegas), break programs (Hamline University), centers (Cabrini University, University of New Mexico), events (Brandeis University, Hamline University, Southern Connecticut State University, Vanderbilt University), grants (Roosevelt University), internships (Brandeis University), programs (Southern Oregon University), retreats (Barnard College), staff biographies (Barnard College), student training (Lafayette College, Roosevelt University, Southern Oregon University, Vanderbilt University), and workshops (Roosevelt University).

Twelve of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Offices of Social Justice. Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those offices’ commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 9: Offices of Social Justice.)

Offices of Social Justice: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Arizona State University (AZ): Changemaker Central

“Passionate about social justice? Interested in making a difference through service? Have an innovative solution for a global challenge? Changemaker Central @ ASU is a community of like-minded students that are leading social change in our local and global community.”

Barnard College (NY): Social Justice Institute

CeCe McDonald, Activist in Residence

“[C]ommitted to dismantling the prison industrial complex (PIC) and winning the liberation of all oppressed people … a Black trans woman, and a survivor of white supremacist and transphobic violence and the PIC, these issues are core to CeCe’s personal and political life.”

Brandeis University (MA): DEIS Impact

“[P]rogramming opportunities connected to important social justice themes. Our theme for 2019 is: What is Social Justice?: Consciously Exploring Oppression, Power, and Privilege in our Communities.”

Cabrini University (PA): Wolfington Center

“Resources provided by the Wolfington Center enable faculty to network more effectively with community partners and expand their grasp of Catholic social teaching and service-learning pedagogy.”

Hamline University (MN): Wesley Center for Spirituality, Service and Social Justice

“Each year, one or more of the Catalyst Alternative Spring Break trips has a religious or spiritual focus. Catalyst uses direct service to investigate questions of social justice and community.”

Roosevelt University (IL): Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation

Hopmayer Scholar Activist Training Workshop

“This workshop is designed to teach RU faculty and students how to engage in a form of activism that is steeped in scholarly research. MISJT has collaborated with The Grassroots Collaborative (GC) to design the fall 2012 Scholar Activist Workshop.”

Southern Connecticut State University (CT): Social Justice Month

Schedule

“Racial Justice Film Festival … My Label Does Not Define Me … Diversity Cupcakes … Learn About Immigrant Rights Organizations in CT ... Environmental Social Justice ... Fridays with SAGE: Cisgender Privilege.”

Southern Oregon University (OR): Social Justice & Service

“[A]n array of student and campus community focused programs and activities that encourage engagement and enhance the understanding and appreciation of our environment, gender identities and expressions, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, re-entry, and veteran statuses.”

University of Nevada, Las Vegas (NV): Center for Social Justice

“The CSJ promotes the empowerment and collaboration of all individuals through creating an awareness, community space, and providing support in order to take action and transform lives in the realm of diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice.”

University of New Mexico (NM): Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice

Trans-Disciplinary Guidelines for Researching “Race”

“As scholars committed to teaching, research and service that promote social justice, we ground our work in the fundamental assumption that social hierarchies based on race impact U.S. society at all levels and in multi-faceted ways.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes action, activism, activist, appreciation, awareness, cisgender, collaborate, committed, community, consciously, direct service, diversity, effectively, empowerment, encourage, engagement, enhance, environmental, ethnicity, gender expressions, gender identities, global, immigrant rights, investigate, label, liberation, multiculturalism, multi-faceted, oppressed, oppression, power, prison industrial complex, privilege, race, racial justice, re-entry [ex-convicts], service, service-learning, sexual orientation, social change, social hierarchies, social justice, support, survivor, trans, trans-disciplinary, transphobic, understanding, violence, and white supremacist.

Offices of Sustainability

Offices of Sustainability impose a variety of social justice activities in the name of environmentalism and thrift. (See Chart 10: Offices of Sustainability.) We have noted above that sustainability frequently refers to the “triple bottom line”—the need to pursue economy, environment, and equity (or social goals).²⁹⁶ Equity/social goals euphemize social justice—and its entire political agenda.

Sustainability proponents don’t hide this equation. The American College Personnel Association’s 2008 monograph on the subject states it in its title: Toward a Sustainable Future: The Role of Student Affairs in Creating Healthy Environments, Social Justice, and Strong Economies.²⁹⁷ Sustainability advocates write a stream of articles with titles such as “We Can’t Have Social Justice without Sustainability,” “Ecological Justice Is Social Justice Too,” and “How Social Justice and Environmental Justice Are Intrinsically Interconnected.”²⁹⁸ Colleges have embraced the equation institutionally: Bryn Mawr College states that “As part of Bryn Mawr’s holistic, thoughtful approach to becoming sustainable, we think it is important to emphasize the connections between sustainability and social justice.”²⁹⁹

Offices of Sustainability naturally reiterate the connection between sustainability and social justice. Some Offices of Sustainability simply refer to their commitment to the triple bottom line—examples include Pepperdine University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.³⁰⁰ At Auburn University, the sustainability director wrote more explicitly that “One of the biggest misconceptions of sustainability is it is mostly about nature, about restoring and protecting the natural world. It is about that. At the same time, sustainability is just as much about social justice.”³⁰¹ At Northwestern University, the sustainability director likewise wrote that “Social Justice and Sustainability Go Hand in Hand at Northwestern”—which meant that she endorsed social equity, inclusion, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, and the Women’s Center, because they all supported sustainability’s “social justice pillar.”³⁰² At the University of Southern Mississippi, a recent news headline was that the “Office of Sustainability Hosts Social Justice Fair.”³⁰³

Cornell University’s Campus Sustainability Office explained in its 2017 Cornell Guide to Living Sustainably that “Sustainability means creating a just, healthy world for everyone. How can you listen, act, and learn in solidarity and practice to show that people of all nations, class, race, religion, abilities, and sexual orientation matter during your time at Cornell?”³⁰⁴ The University of Kansas’s Center for Sustainability declares that the imperatives of sustainability mean that they must “stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Peoples, the LGBTQIA+ community at all of their intersecting identities, as well as all other marginalized and oppressed people, to support a just and sustainable present and future for our campus, our community, and our planet.”³⁰⁵

Thirty-three of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Offices of Sustainability with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by Offices of Sustainability include activism programs (Belmont University, Eastern Kentucky University, Evergreen State College, Pomona College, Southern Oregon University, University of Colorado Boulder), break programs (Hamline University), courses (California State University Northridge, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Iowa), divestment (Barnard College), events (Gonzaga University), internships (Southern Connecticut State University), mission statements (Arizona State University, Berea College, Cornell University, Davidson College, DePaul University, Indiana University Bloomington, Marquette University, Northwestern University, Pacific University, Pepperdine University, Roosevelt University, University of Florida, University of Kansas), political endorsements (Brandeis University, University of Montana, University of New Mexico, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Pennsylvania), silencing climate change skepticism (Barnard College), staffing (University of Massachusetts Amherst), strategic plans (University of Alabama Birmingham), and student learning goals (Brooklyn College–CUNY, California State University Northridge).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 10: Offices of Sustainability.)

Offices of Sustainability: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Barnard College (NY): Sustainability

Divestment

“In March 2017, the Task Force recommended, and the Board agreed, that the College divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies that ‘deny climate science or who otherwise seek to thwart efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change.’”

Belmont University (TN): Conservation & Sustainability

Sustainability Week 2018

“March for Science & Climate … Government agencies like the EPA and National Parks are being muzzled to prevent them speaking out about Climate Change. These issues affect us all. Thank you for being part of this movement.”

Brandeis University (MA): Sustainable Brandeis

We Are Still In [part of a national movement to counter President Trump’s decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement]

“We are committed to mitigating our impact on climate change according to the We Are Still In declaration, and to elevating the sustainability of our campus and our community. ... We … declare that we will continue to support climate action to meet the Paris Agreement.”

Cornell University (NY): Campus Sustainability Office

Student Guide to Sustainability at Cornell University

“Sustainability means creating a just, healthy world for everyone. How can you listen, act, and learn in solidarity and practice to show that people of all nations, class, race, religion, abilities, and sexual orientation matter during your time at Cornell?”

Hamline University (MN): Sustainability at Hamline

Catalyst Trips

“Catalyst service trips are an alternative spring break program that uses service to investigate issues of justice and community. With the support of the Office of Sustainability, in 2015 a new trip to Chicago was focused on sustainability for immigrant and refugee populations.”

Northwestern University (IL): SustainNU

Social Justice and Sustainability Go Hand in Hand at Northwestern

“In recent years, the sustainability movement has shifted toward ensuring that adequate emphasis is given to social justice concerns, and to ensuring that we do not protect profits, or even the planet, at the expense of people or social equity.”

Southern Oregon University (OR): Sustainability at SOU

Student Engagement, OSPIRG

“OSPIRG’s mission is to deliver persistent, result-oriented public interest activism that protects consumers, encourages a fair, sustainable economy, and fosters responsive, democratic government.”

University of Iowa (IA): Sustainability

Sustainability Certificate Course Approval Guidelines for Faculty Members

“[Include] at least two of the three intersecting concerns of sustainability in … course goals and evidence that these concerns are addressed in class discussions, readings, or exercises. … [I]ntersecting concerns are environmental integrity, economic viability, and social justice.”

University of Kansas (KS): Center for Sustainability

Sustainability for All

“[W]e stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Peoples, the LGBTQIA+ community at all of their intersecting identities, as well as all other marginalized and oppressed people, to support a just and sustainable present and future.”

University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA): Sustainability

UMass Dining Sustainability Is Hiring!

“We are excited to announce that the UMass Amherst Permaculture Initiative is seeking a highly passionate, thoughtful and skilled individual who embodies holistic sustainability and shows a demonstrated commitment to social justice!”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes abilities, act, activism, Black Lives Matter, class, commitment, community, concerns, democratic, deny, divest, economic viability, engagement, environmental integrity, fair, holistic, immigrant, Indigenous Peoples, intersecting, just, justice, LGBTQIA+, listen, marginalized, mitigate, muzzled, oppressed, passionate, permaculture, planet, practice, profits, public interest, race, refugee, religion, responsive, result-oriented, service, sexual orientation, social equity, social justice, solidarity, speaking out, sustainability, and thoughtful.

Offices of Equity and Inclusion

It is not easy to tell from their title what precisely Offices of Equity and Inclusion actually do, since equity and inclusion are among the least defined concepts in the cloud of social justice euphemisms. San Francisco State University’s Office of Diversity & Student Equity listed as one Goal for Academic Year 2018–2019 the need to “Research exemplars for and develop a statement of principles document defining equity, inclusion, diversity, and success.”³⁰⁶ It is telling that the social justice administrators set up a bureaucracy that would then have the responsibility for defining what its actual job was.

Equity and inclusion are partly simple synonyms for Offices of Diversity and Multiculturalism. So Monmouth University, the University of Idaho, and the University of Tennessee Knoxville have Offices of Equity and Diversity; Pacific University, Purdue University Northwest, and Georgia Southern University have Offices of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion; Saint Joseph’s University, Auburn University, and the University of Memphis have Offices of Inclusion and Diversity; Cleveland State University has an Office of Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement; and Indiana University Northwest has an Office of Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs. Social justice administrators use any of these terms to denominate largely identical offices. (See Chart 11: Offices of Equity and Inclusion.)

That noted, “equity” and “inclusion” are slightly harder-edged in their connotations than “diversity” and “multiculturalism.” Diversity and multiculturalism promote the formation of identity groups that forward the social justice political agenda. Equity implies that any limited resource—admissions spots, jobs, tax dollars—ought to be redistributed to those identity groups. Inclusion means that every class, student association, or component of society must include a minimum number of representatives of these identity groups. Equity and inclusion imply a greater degree of coercion—that every component of the university, and of society at large, must be made diverse and multicultural. Any opposition to the coercions of equity and inclusion is taken to be essentially immoral.

Equity implies that any limited resource—admissions spots, jobs, tax dollars—ought to be redistributed to those identity groups.

So Arizona State University’s Office of Equity and Inclusion is in charge of imposing “gender-neutral restrooms” on the ASU campus.³⁰⁷ Southern Connecticut State University’s Office of Diversity and Equity Programs reveals the original, coercive core of much of the social justice apparatus—race preferences—when it declares the imperative “to advance social justice and equity by exercising affirmative action and upward mobility.”³⁰⁸

These Offices also overlap with Title IX offices. The University at Albany’s Office of Equity and Compliance concerns itself with discrimination, harassment, and sexual violence. So too does Northwestern University’s Office of Equity.³⁰⁹ We will return to this point when we discuss Title IX offices, but social justice administrators here adroitly conflate actual criminal misconduct with hazily defined “discrimination,” so as to smuggle the coercive measures appropriate for dealing with criminal behavior into every social interaction. Occidental College’s Office of Equity & Inclusion, for example, “aims to promote cultural competency, gender equity, and an inclusive campus climate that is free of violence and bias.”³¹⁰

The growth of Offices officially dedicated to pursuing Equity and Inclusion registers the increasingly authoritarian ambitions of social justice education.

The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by Offices of Equity and Inclusion include activism programs (Ohio Wesleyan University, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, Roosevelt University), courses (Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg), facilities (Arizona State University), faculty training (Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, University of Missouri), grants (Evergreen State College), mission statements (DePaul University, George Mason University, Gonzaga University, Occidental College, Pacific University, Saint Mary’s College of California, University of Washington), professional development (University of Missouri), programs (Cabrini University, Evergreen State College, Ohio Wesleyan University, San Francisco State University, Southern Connecticut State University, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Kansas, University of Minnesota), and student training (Cabrini University, Northwestern University, Ohio Wesleyan University, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, University of Missouri).

Twenty of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Offices of Equity and Inclusion with explicit social justice commitments. Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 11: Offices of Equity and Inclusion.)

Offices of Equity and Inclusion: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Cabrini University (PA): Inclusivity Council

“The Inclusivity Council has four active sub-committees: Committee on Ableism/Disability; Committee on LGBTQIA+; Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity; and Committee on Women Advancement.”

DePaul University (IL): Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity

Vision

“Our work, programs and initiatives will reflect this commitment to promoting change, equal opportunity, social justice, celebrating and fostering diversity, [and] the recruitment and retention of diverse constituencies.”

Evergreen State College (WA): Equity and Inclusion

President’s Equity Fund

“The President’s Equity Fund provides funding to grassroots equity and inclusion programming. Grants are available to current students, staff, and faculty for activities that support Evergreen’s commitment to equity across campus.”

Gonzaga University (WA): Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Mission Statement

“[W]e utilize the principles of critical dialogue, reciprocity, and solidarity to facilitate learning that cultivates cultural engagement, enriches mindfulness, fosters a sense of belonging, and challenges systems of privilege and oppression.”

Northwestern University (IL): Office of Equity

Training

“We offer trainings on the following topics: Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Reporting, Responsible Employee/Mandatory Reporter Training, Preventing Harassment and Discrimination, LGBTQ Ally Trainings, Creating Gender-Inclusive Spaces.”

Ohio Wesleyan University (OH): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Office of Multicultural Student Affairs

“By participating in OMSA programs and services, students will (or will be able to): ... Develop the capacity to address oppressive systems and behaviors in themselves and their communities.”

Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg (PA): Diversity and Educational Equity Committee

Penn State Statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Excellence

“We will educate our faculty, staff, and students to be social justice advocates, creatively providing curricula, programs, and environments that reflect the diversity of our communities, and elevate cultural awareness.”

Roosevelt University (IL): OASIS Committee

Home Page

“[The] OASIS committee (Outreach, Advocacy, Social Justice, Information and Safety) is tasked with providing information and resources related to immigrant and refugee rights, and reaffirming … [the] University’s mission of inclusion, social justice and equity.”

Southern Connecticut State University (CT): Office of Diversity and Equity Programs

Policy Statement

“It is the intellectual and moral responsibility, but more importantly, the POLICY of the leadership of the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities (CSCU), to advance social justice and equity by exercising affirmative action and upward mobility.”

University of Washington (WA): Race and Equity Initiative

Diversity and Equity for All

“[W]e must recognize that biases do reside in us all, but that we can change our attitudes and our interactions for the better. We are all teachers and learners when it comes to advancing a more equitable and just discourse that leads to change.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes ableism, advancement, advocacy, advocates, affirmative action, ally, behaviors, belonging, bias, capacity, capacity building, celebrating, change, communities, constituencies, creatively, critical dialogue, cultivate, cultural awareness, cultural engagement, discrimination, diversity, elevate, engagement, equity, facilitate, fostering, gender-inclusive, grassroots, harassment, immigrant rights, inclusion, inclusivity, just, LGBTQIA+, mindfulness, multicultural, oppression, oppressive, privilege, reciprocity, recruitment, refugee rights, retention, safety, social justice, solidarity, spaces, systems, and upward mobility.

Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs

Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs support the identity politics aspects of social justice advocacy. (See Chart 12: Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.) The prominence of “diversity” in modern America, and above all in higher education, traces back to the 1978 Supreme Court decision in University of California v. Bakke decision that identified “diversity” as a way to justify race preferences.³¹¹ Diversity, as so much else of social justice ideology, is fundamentally a disingenuous rationale to extract benefits from the administrative-judicial state. Offices of Diversity are in their origins, and their cores, Offices of Affirmative Action.³¹²

Yet the concept of diversity, once invented and institutionalized, has expanded dynamically. America’s racial preference regime basically began as a way to provide redress to African Americans for the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. It has grown into an increasingly large number of race discriminations, for groups such as Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. From there, it has expanded to discrimination in favor of identity groups such as women, homosexuals, Muslims, the disabled, transgender, immigrants, refugees, and illegal aliens. Social justice uses the concepts of diversity and multiculturalism to articulate the identity group politics that justifies these discriminations. Social justice education gives these concepts administrative form via Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.

These offices usually contain the most devoted practitioners of social justice advocacy in higher education administration. At the University of Kansas, the Office of Multicultural Affairs supports a Social Justice Fellows Program.³¹³ At Davidson College, Diversity and Inclusion encompasses not only race and gender identity groups but also Retention Initiatives, Undocumented & DACA Resources, and Bias or Hate Incident Response.³¹⁴ The University of Missouri’s Multicultural Center sponsors student Diversity Peer Educators, who are “dedicated to promoting greater cultural awareness, competency, and understanding on the Mizzou campus … using experiential, interactive, and immersive activities that assist in facilitating sometimes difficult dialogues.”³¹⁵

Washington State University’s Office of Equity and Diversity provides a Social Justice Peer Educator Project: “Examples of past educational programs created and facilitated by the Social Justice Peer Educators includes [sic] ‘Microaggressions 101,’ ‘Power and Privilege,’ ‘Understanding Intersectionality as a Residence Assistant,’ ‘We’re A Culture, Not a Costume: Halloween Costume Social Justice Teach-in,’ as well as ‘I Got Your Back: Redefining Masculinity.’”³¹⁶ Washington State University’s Office of Equity and Diversity also offers Workshops including Privilege 101: Exploring Our Identities; Identifying and Challenging Microaggressions; Power and Privilege 201: Systemic Inequality; and Beyond “PC”: Building Inclusive Language.³¹⁷

The catalogue of activities offered by Offices of Diversity and Multiculturalism provide a good register of these offices’ commitments to social justice.

At Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, the Affirmative Action Office’s Diversity Education Service offers workshops and training sessions including All-In: A Commitment to Inclusive Excellence; Subtle Slights: Understanding the Impact of Unconscious Bias and Microaggressions; StarPower: The Intersections of Power, Privilege, and Leadership; Beyond Binaries: Expanding our Understanding of Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation; Developing Intercultural Competency; Dimensions of Diversity; Doing Difficult Dialogues; Equity vs. Equality: Why the Difference Matters; Hiring for Diversity and Inclusion; Leading Diversity Strategic Change for your Organization; The Power of Allyship; Sexual Harassment: Awareness and Prevention; SpeakUP: Advocating for Self and Others; Wisdom of the Ages: Applying Generational Concepts at Work; and Workplace Civility: Promoting a Climate and Culture of Respect and Inclusion.³¹⁸
At St. Mary’s College of California, the Intercultural Center provides a Diversity Toolkit that includes:³¹⁹

Recommended Readings

“24 LGBTQ Books With a POC Protagonist, Because It’s Time to Diversify Your Reading List”

“The Impossible Demands of Dating Under the Pressures of Rape Culture”

“Unraveling the Double Bind: Women of Color in STEM” (The Harvard Educational Review)

“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”

“10 Questions About Why Ableist Language Matters, Answered”

Native Appropriations

“50 Experiences of Racially Mixed People”

“My Hijab Has Nothing To Do With Oppression: It’s a Feminist Statement”

“10 Examples of Straight Privilege”

“The Four Ds of Bystander Intervention: How to Make the World a Better Place”

Recommended Videos

“The Weird History of Asian Sex Stereotypes”

“6 Phrases with Surprisingly Racist Origins” (Chescaleigh)

“Why Pronouns Matter for Transgender People” (Buzzfeed)

“Is Racism Over Yet?” (Laci Green)

“On Intersectionality in Feminism and Pizza” (Akilah Hughes)

“Empathy” (Brene Brown)

“Are You a Blamer?” (Brene Brown)

TED Talks

“The Danger of Silence “(Clint Smith)

“The Power of a Single Story” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

“The Power of Vulnerability” (Brene Brown)

“How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them” (Verna Myers)

Featured Video – “5 Tips For Being an Ally” – Chescaleigh

Featured Video – “6 Letters: The LGBTQAlphabet” – Equinox

The University of Kansas’s Office of Multicultural Affairs offers programs including Ferguson Forum (“dedicated to discussing concepts of race and racism in higher education”), Spotlight (“designed to highlight folks around campus who are creating spaces to have conversations around social justice and liberation”), Womxn of Color Retreat (“to create space for womxn of color to gather and explore a variety of topic [sic], meet fellow WOC, and have fun”), Tunnel of Oppression (“an immersive experience that explores issues around identities, oppression, diversity and social justice”), Colors of KU (“a three-day diversity retreat designed to build leadership, organizational, and other skills, with a large focus on diversity and multiculturalism”), and Multicultural Graduation (“the Office of Multicultural Affairs honors graduating students of color at the University of Kansas during our commencement event”).³²⁰
Vanderbilt University’s Inclusion Initiatives and Cultural Competence offers “Let Your Anchor Down,” a “faculty dialogue program designed to provide space for critical dialogue and self-exploration. This monthly program facilitates the building of network and community among Vanderbilt faculty, staff, and students through culturally relevant and responsive topics that allow for multiple social identities to interact and intersect with one another.” Dialogues include “This is America, A Conversation on Hate Crime, Gun Control and The Criminal Justice System,” “The Elephant in the Room: Substance Abuse in the LGBTQI Community with KCPC,” and “InclusAbility 101.”³²¹

“Education for diversity” generally teaches “cultural competence”—assent to the propaganda for diversity—rather than actual education. Most importantly, “education for diversity” teaches euphemism, taboo, and silence: it teaches students to master a double-speak in which they never acknowledge straightforwardly that higher education is built on a system of identity group preferences. “Education for diversity” is opposed to free speech and academic freedom. Far from seeking the bedrock of truth, it is a castle built on the sands of silence and doublespeak.

Thirty-nine of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by Offices of Diversity and Multiculturalism include activism programs (Evergreen State College, Roosevelt University), centers (Hamline University, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Iowa), events (Marquette University, Miami University of Ohio, Saint Mary’s College of California, University of Missouri), faculty training (University of Colorado Boulder, University of Kansas), leadership development (Marquette University), mission statements (Antioch University, Barnard College, Brandeis University, Cabrini University, Gonzaga University, Indiana University Bloomington, Lafayette College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Pacific University, University of Florida, University of Washington), programs (Antioch University, Arizona State University, DePaul University, Lake Forest College, University of Iowa, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Michigan), retreats (Southern Connecticut State University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Wisconsin Madison), student learning goals (Pepperdine University), student testimony (Saint Mary’s College of California), student training (George Mason University, Lake Forest College, Marquette University, Northwestern University, Occidental College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, San Francisco State University, Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Kansas, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Vanderbilt University), and workshops (Washington State University).

Because these offices are the nexus of social justice education in higher education administration, we have doubled the number of offices we specifically quote. Below we reproduce extracts from 20 of those commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 12: Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.)

Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Antioch University (CA): Diversity Committee

Mission

“To counter the social ills that interfere with justice and distort our reality, we hope to work together locally and globally, toward an end to racism, classism, transphobia, ageism, heterosexism, religious intolerance, sexism, ableism and xenophobia.”

Barnard College (NY): Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Diversity & Inclusion: Mission Statement

“[O]ur concern is with how differences in power and possibilities align with social categories and identities, and how these differences distinguish individuals and groups in ways that privilege some and constrain others.”

DePaul University (IL): Office of Multicultural Student Success

Empowerment Programming

“The Office of Multicultural Student Success (OMSS)’s approach to advancing the cause of marginalized group members at DePaul University is rooted in DePaul’s belief that systems of privilege and oppression directly impact the lives of people in this community.”

George Mason University (VA): Compliance, Diversity, and Ethics

Diversity and Inclusion FAQs

“You can support others to increase their awareness and acceptance of cultural differences, and establish a common understanding of cultural variances, through diversity training provided by the Office of Compliance, Diversity[,] and Ethics.”

Gonzaga University (WA): Office of Diversity, Inclusion, Community & Equity

“[W]e utilize the principles of critical dialogue, reciprocity, and solidarity to facilitate learning that cultivates cultural engagement, enriches mindfulness, fosters a sense of belonging, and challenges systems of privilege and oppression.”

Marquette University (WI): Diversity and Inclusion

Privilege: Let’s Go There

“Senior leaders from the university encouraged attendees to recognize their own privilege, and Sheena Carey, internship coordinator and lecturer in the Diederich College of Communication, provided basic definitions of racism, white supremacy, privilege, [and] ‘colorblindness.’”

Miami University of Ohio (OH): Office of Diversity and Multicultural Services

Racial Legacies and Learning Town Halls

“‘HERstory HERsong’ is an interactive program that explores how black women musicians have used music as a means of documenting and promoting the struggle for equality and social justice in America.”

Ohio Wesleyan University (OH): Multicultural Student Affairs

About Us

“By participating in OMSA programs and services, students will (or will be able to): ... develop the capacity to address oppressive systems and behaviors in themselves and their communities.”

Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg (PA): Affirmative Action Office: Diversity Education Services

Subtle Slights: Understanding the Impact of Unconscious Bias and Microaggressions

“Microaggressions speak to the attitudes, dispositions, and comments that many times lead to the devaluing of members of a community. This session will focus on recognizing, validating, and ultimately managing the display and impact of microaggressions.”

Saint Mary’s College of California (CA): Intercultural Center

IC Canvas

“This piece is meaningful to me because it reflects my ever evolving relationship to my own identities, and how I grow more aware of ways in which I may productively assess and utilize my privilege and work towards being a better ally and social justice advocate.”

Southern Connecticut State University (CT): Multicultural Center

Social Justice Weekend Retreat

“[S]tudents [have] the opportunity to address some of the critical topics of diversity and social justice impacting our community. Students will be able to engage in transformative discussions, build connections and alliance, and increase their self-awareness and identity.”

University of Alabama Birmingham (AL): Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Initiatives

“#TalkMatters aims to facilitate open, and honest discussion about social justice and fairness and introduce knowledge and skills that strengthen the capacity of our campus community to drive structural inclusion for all groups.”

University of Colorado Boulder (CO): Office of Equity, Diversity and Community Engagement

Diversity Plan

“The goal of these sessions is to help our community gain a greater appreciation of the challenges that undocumented students face and to provide resources for ways to show support for these students as allies.”

University of Florida (FL): Multicultural and Diversity Affairs

Values

“Social Justice, Racial Justice, Intersectionality.”

University of Iowa (IA): Multicultural & International Programs

UI Cultural & LGBTQ Resource Centers, Mission and Vision

“The four UI Cultural and LGBTQ Resource Centers provide a ’Home Away From Home’ atmosphere. … The Centers also provide intra- and cross-cultural education, leadership and organizational development opportunities, social justice education, and change.”

University of Michigan (MI): Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives

Undocumented Student Support

“The Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives (OAMI) serves as a space for undocumented and DACAmented students of all ethnicities and nationalities to find a safe environment and supportive community at the University of Michigan.”

University of Missouri (MO): Multicultural Center

Signature Events<

“Justice Family Brunch This event first began as an event part of the Multicultural Center and now happens in collaboration with all of the Social Justice Centers. This event occurs during Family Weekend and allows students to participate in the Family Weekend festivities.”

University of Wisconsin Madison (WI): Multicultural Student Center

Social Justice Leadership Retreat

“By participating in the Social Justice Leadership Retreat, students will: Identify their own multiple intersecting identities, experiences and biases, and how they map on to concepts of privilege, dominance, and oppression.”

Vanderbilt University (TN): Inclusion Initiatives and Cultural Competence

Signature Trainings

“Trainings take participants on a journey of self-exploration, reflection, and dialogue focused on diversity and inclusion. Participants cultivate a deeper understanding of challenges such as the complex nature of identity, intercultural communication, and social justice advocacy.”

Washington State University (WA): Office of Equity and Diversity

Schedule a Workshop with the Social Justice Peer Educators

“Privilege 101: Exploring Our Identities … Identifying and Challenging Microaggressions … Power and Privilege 201: Systemic Inequality … Beyond ‘PC’: Building Inclusive Language.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes ableism, acceptance, address, advancing, advocacy, advocate, affirmative action, ageism, alliance, ally, appreciation, assess, attitudes, awareness, behaviors, belonging, bias, building, capacity, campus community, challenges, change, classism, collaboration, colorblindness, common understanding, community, community engagement, competence, complex, compliance, connections, constrain, critical dialogue, critical topics, cross-cultural, cultivates, cultural competence, cultural differences, cultural engagement, cultural variances, DACAmented, deeper understanding, devaluing, dialogue, differences, display, dispositions, distort, diversity, diversity education, dominance, empowerment, encourage, engagement, enrich, equality, equity, ethics, ethnicities, experiences, exploring, facilitate, heterosexism, honest, identify, identities, inclusion, intercultural, intersectionality, intra-cultural, introduce, justice, leadership, managing, map, marginalized, meaningful, microaggressions, mindfulness, multicultural, multiple, nationalities, open, oppression, oppressive, organizational development, peer educator, possibilities, power, privilege, productively, promoting, racial justice, racial legacies, racism, reciprocity, recognizing, reflection, religious intolerance, resources, safe, self-awareness, self-exploration, sexism, skills, slights, social categories, social identities, social ills, social justice, social justice education, solidarity, space, strengthen, structural, struggle, student success, student support, subtle, support, supportive, systemic, systems, transformative, transphobia, unconscious bias, understanding, undocumented, validating, white supremacy, and xenophobia.

Miscellaneous Institutes and Centers

A multitude of institutes and centers anchor the social justice bureaucracies. They are often the seeds of the larger bureaucracy: a Center for Diversity becomes an Office of Diversity, a Social Justice Institute becomes a Social Justice academic program, and a nominally non-ideological Student Life Center becomes the hub for social justice programming. A newly founded social justice bureaucracy can envelop an older center or institute and align it with the larger bureaucracy’s goals—or retain it as an autonomous, awkwardly fitting component.

A significant number of these institutes and centers do not fit precisely within the bureaucratic categories listed above. (See Chart 13: Miscellaneous Institutes and Centers.) Some are centers that have not yet become an office. Others have a thematic focus that differentiates them from the more generic bureaucracies. These institutes and centers thicken the web of social justice bureaucracy—each in a different way. This report emphasizes the nationwide similarities of the social justice bureaucracies, but these miscellaneous centers illustrate the variety of social justice education within different institutions.

Twenty-nine of the 60 institutions we examined possessed miscellaneous institutes and centers with explicit social justice commitments. Eight institutes were devoted to civic engagement—seeds for future Offices of Service Learning. These were DePaul University’s Irwin W. Steans Center, Marquette University’s Center for Community Service, Northwestern University’s Center for Civic Engagement, Occidental College’s Center for Community Based Learning, Pepperdine University’s Pepperdine Volunteer Center, Stony Brook–SUNY’s Center for Community Engagement and Leadership Development, University of New Mexico’s Community Engagement Center, and University of Pennsylvania’s Civic House.

Another seven institutes focused on diversity and multiculturalism: Davidson College’s Spencer-Weinstein Center for Community and Justice, Gonzaga University’s Unity Multicultural Education Center, Hamline University’s Hedgeman Center for Student Diversity Initiatives and Programs, University of Colorado Boulder’s Cultural Unity and Engagement Center, Ursinus College’s Institute for Inclusion and Equity, Vanderbilt University’s Student Center for Social Justice & Identity, and Whitman College’s Glover Alston Center.

Four institutes concentrated on gender: Arizona State University’s Center for Gender Equity in STEM, Miami University of Ohio’s Dennis L. Carlson Sexuality Education Center, Occidental College’s Center for Gender Equity, and Pacific University’s Center for Gender Equity.

Three institutes concentrated on ethics: Brandeis University’s International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life; Lake Forest College’s Ethics Center; and University of Alabama Birmingham’s Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility

Two institutes apiece focused on the environment (Occidental College, Southern Oregon University), human rights (University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Washington), identity-group activism (San Francisco State University, Stony Brook–SUNY), leadership (Cabrini University, University of Wisconsin), and race (University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill).

One institute apiece concentrated on hate (Gonzaga University), immigration (Cabrini University), injustice (University of Kansas), justice (University of Minnesota), and spirituality (Pacific University).

The distribution of subject matters for these miscellaneous institutes roughly parallels the general distribution of social justice education into these different subject matters.

The varieties of social justice commitments sponsored by miscellaneous institutes and centers include activism programs (Cabrini University, Occidental College, Pepperdine University, San Francisco State University, Southern Oregon University, Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Kansas, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington), courses (Northwestern University, University of Alabama Birmingham), events (Arizona State University, Brandeis University, Gonzaga University, Lake Forest College, Pacific University, Vanderbilt University), leadership development (Cabrini University, University of Colorado Boulder), mission statements (Davidson College, Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Wisconsin Madison, Whitman College), programs (DePaul University, Gonzaga University, Hamline University, Occidental College, University of Alabama Birmingham, Ursinus College), retreats (University of Colorado Boulder), student training (Marquette University, Miami University of Ohio, Vanderbilt University), and workshops (Brandeis University).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 13: Miscellaneous Institutes and Centers.)

Miscellaneous Institutes and Centers: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Arizona State University (AZ): Center for Gender Equity in STEM

2016 Hackathon for Social Justice

“Research demonstrates that most people hold unconscious, implicit assumptions that influence their judgments and perceptions of others. … We engage in critical dialogue on implicit bias because it is one of the challenges girls and women of color face in STEM.”

Cabrini University (PA): Center on Immigration

Home Page

“The Center on Immigration at Cabrini University is an academic, nonpartisan organization that promotes immigrant justice through research, education, and advocacy.”

Gonzaga University (WA): Gonzaga Institute for Hate Studies

Mission

“The GIHS convenes scholars, students, practitioner-experts, government and civil society organizations … to expand theoretical and applied knowledge, personal and social awareness, and values-based research-supported methods in our areas of humanitarian engagement.”

Lake Forest College (IL): Ethics Center

Events

“Intersections: Re-imagining Gender and Human Rights in Africa … Koyaanisqatsi: Film on environmental and cultural ethics … ‘Sexual Minorities and Mental Health’ ... ‘The Good Food Revolution: Our Hope for a Sustainable Future.’”

Miami University of Ohio (OH): The Dennis L. Carlson Sexuality Education Studies Center

Home Page

“[U]nique student-centered, community-minded, intersectionality-aware, multidisciplinary informed, social justice focused, and human rights-oriented educational services space that insists on utilizing sound pedagogy, praxis, best practices, and ethics.”

Occidental College (CA): Center for Gender Equity

Home Page

“The mission of the Center for Gender Equity is to address the needs of women, men, non-binary, agender, and transgender members on campus by providing support, advocacy, and programming that promotes awareness, personal empowerment, mutual respect, and equity.”

Pacific University (OR): Center for Gender Equity

Love Your Body Week

“Touch Yourself Tuesday is focused on getting to know your own body. We will have Masturbation goodie bags, information on getting tested for STDs, and an assortment of games.”

University of Alabama Birmingham (AL): Institute for Human Rights

Interconnection Among Dance and Human Rights

“Dance is where people can use movement to portray inequities. Different social justice issues ranging from the environment to racial inequality can be addressed through dance. Never underestimate how powerful dance can be.”

University of Colorado Boulder (CO): Cultural Unity & Engagement Center

Ignite Social Justice Retreat

“Students will not only gain a deeper understanding of their own identities but will have opportunities to meet new friends and to build new and strengthen existing coalitions between individuals and groups.”

University of Pennsylvania (PA): Civic House

Social Justice Framework and Theory of Change

“Exploration of root causes of social issues including an analysis of intersecting injustices on individual, organizational, and institutional levels. Engagement in praxis-cycles of action and critical reflection … to enhance learning and critical thinking and lead to thoughtful action.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes action, addressed, advocacy, agender, applied knowledge, assumptions, aware, awareness, best practices, build, challenges, civil society organizations, coalitions, community minded, critical dialogue, critical reflection, critical thinking, cultural ethics, deeper understanding, dialogue, empowerment, engagement, enhance, environmental, equity, ethics, expand, exploration, framework, gender, good food, hate, humanitarian, human rights, identities, immigrant justice, implicit, implicit bias, inequities, informed, injustices, insist, institutional, interconnection, intersectionality-aware, intersections, judgments, mental health, multidisciplinary, mutual respect, needs, non-binary, nonpartisan, pedagogy, perceptions, personal awareness, personal empowerment, powerful, practitioner-experts, praxis, praxis-cycles, promotes, racial inequality, reflection, re-imagining, respect, root causes, services, sexual minorities, sexuality education, social awareness, social issues, social justice, sound, space, strengthen, support, sustainable, theory, thoughtful, transgender, understanding, unconscious, values-based, and women of color.

Title IX Offices

Title IX bureaucracies are imposed by federal requirement on all universities that receive federal funds. Federal law does not formally require that the responsible Title IX officials form enormous bureaucracies—but what began as a skeleton of paid and unpaid officials has metastasized into an ever-growing administrative labyrinth.

Some part of this growth is natural bureaucratic empire-building. Another part results from the expansion of the definition of sexual harassment to include loosely defined “bias,” and the recent importation of “gender expression” into the categories putatively protected by Title IX. These expanded Title IX bureaucracies also claim ever-increasing powers—whose most notable corollary has been to abrogate the rights of due process on campus. Title IX bureaucracies have developed a well-justified reputation for 1) anti-male bias; 2) increasing suppression of free speech; and 3) a strong tendency to scant procedural defenses for those accused of sexual misconduct.³²² The Department of Education’s decision to rescind its most extreme Title IX mandates has still left in place campus bureaucracies largely staffed by social justice advocates, and a custom of due process violation on American campuses.³²³

Because Title IX bureaucracies execute a federal legal mandate, they tend to avoid explicit affirmations of social justice ideology. We therefore have provided no chart listing such affirmations. We may note, however, that Title IX offices register pervasive affiliation with social justice education. Such affiliations include:

At Occidental College, the Title IX office incorporates social justice vocabulary into its webpage subsections on “Queer and Trans Guide” and “Education & Advocacy.” Occidental’s Title IX initiatives include a Queer and Trans Guide,³²⁴ with commitments to Gender Inclusive Student Housing, Gender Inclusive Restrooms, and Preferred Name and Gender Policy.³²⁵ Occidental’s listed resources include Project SAFE [Sexual Assault Free Environment], which educates “through a strengths-based model of empowerment and lens of social justice.”³²⁶ Project SAFE also enrolls Active Bystanders, under the name of Upstanders.³²⁷ Occidental’s Title IX office includes an unfortunately loose, social justice-derived definition of force in its definition of sexual assault: “Perpetrators may use emotional coercion, psychological force, or manipulation to coerce a victim into non-consensual sex.”³²⁸
San Francisco State University’s Title IX Office endorses social justice and “gender equity,” and takes these to require All-Gender Restrooms: “It is in line with SF State’s self-stated values of social justice, equity, and inclusion to ensure that all students have full access to restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identities and gender expression.”³²⁹

Title IX offices generally should be taken as integral components of the social justice bureaucracy, even though legal restrictions inhibit their formal explicit commitment to social justice.

Pervasive Social Justice

Social justice advocates make sure there is no escape from social justice advocacy. Social justice now affects where students live and sleep, by way of Offices of Residential Life and Living Learning Communities. Social justice organizes voluntary informers to enforce social justice advocacy in all private life, by way of Bias Incident Response Teams. Break and Study Abroad programs ensure that students remain yoked to social justice even in off-campus academic programs. For each of these bureaucracies, we also list the number of institutions that possess that office, their varieties of sponsored social justice commitments, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

Social justice administrators have set up institutions to make social justice advocacy inescapable. Offices of Residential Life have turned large amounts of housing into means for social justice advocacy. The most intensive social justice advocacy proceeds through Living Learning Communities (LLC)—housing units dedicated to themes such as Global Citizenship, Gender and Social Justice, and Social Justice Action. Bias Incident Response Teams, which rely on voluntary informers (“active bystanders”) throughout campus, dedicate themselves to gathering reports of “bias incidents”—which, practically speaking, can include any word or action that offends social justice advocates. Bias Incident Response Teams effectively act as enforcers of social justice orthodoxy on campus. Break and Study Abroad programs have also been largely taken over by social justice advocates, and are now frequently exercises in service-learning and social justice advocacy. Just as Offices of Residential Life subject students to social justice education even while they are eating and sleeping, and Bias Incident Response Teams monitor every private social interact, Study Abroad and Break programs subject students to social justice education even while they are away from campus.

Social Justice Residence Halls

Offices of Residential Life have also turned increasingly large amounts of housing into means for social justice advocacy. (See Chart 14: Social Justice Residence Halls.) Offices of Residential Life are bureaucracies like any other. Yet they affect student life distinctively, since they capture students at the moments when they might otherwise get a respite from social justice ideology—when they eat, sleep, and relax. Offices of Residential Life ensure that social justice advocacy continues twenty-four hours a day.

Practically, social justice advocacy in Offices of Residence Life has least effect in commuter schools, relatively little effect in vast public universities where the emphasis necessarily must be on efficiently housing thousands of students, and the most effect on small, liberal arts colleges, where Residential Life bureaucrats can divert a larger proportion of resources per student to social justice advocacy.

The University of Montana, with fewer than 7,000 undergraduates, touts its Residence Hall Social Justice Programming: “UM Housing strives to create positive, inclusive, and respectful living and learning communities that nurture a diverse campus. One way that we do this is by planning and putting on programs that focus on topics of social justice.”³³⁰

At colleges and universities of any size, the most intensive social justice advocacy proceeds through Living Learning Communities (LLC). These are themed housing units—usually housing better than what a student could ordinarily expect to receive. These privilege social justice cadres among the student body with superior housing, and provide a practical incentive for students to join those cadres.

Many of these LLCs’ themes are different aspects of social justice advocacy. A large number of social justice LLCs are directly sponsored by social justice bureaucracies. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s “Service & Leadership Residential Learning Program (S&L) is an initiative of Carolina Housing in partnership with APPLES and Carolina Leadership Development.”³³¹ The University of Toledo’s Carter Hall is associated with the University’s First Year Experience Program.³³² The First Year Research Experience (FYRE) Living Learning Community at Miami University of Ohio is likewise associated, as its name suggests, with First Year Research Experience.³³³

An overlapping subset of LLCs include attached courses, which are frequently exercises in social justice education. At Cabrini University’s Balance Learning Community, “All of the courses in the Balance LC revolve around the practice of reflexivity: turning a thoughtful, introspective lens on one’s self and one’s actions. In AST 206 [Conflict and Cooperation], COL 101 [College Success Seminar], ECG 100 [Engagements with the Common Good introductory courses, generally social justice-themed], and AST 205 [History of Art and Protest] students practice awareness training, deep listening, deliberative dialogue and appreciative inquiry attentive to worldviews or backgrounds that are different from their own.”³³⁴

George Mason University’s Gender and Social Justice LLC is attached to WMST 318 Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Environment: “As a member of the community, students will be able to participate in volunteer opportunities both on and off campus to apply theories of gender to community and campus activism. Students will also be able to learn about gender and social justice as well as become advocates and activists around gender equality through both on and off campus opportunities using an intersectional lens.”³³⁵

Gonzaga University’s Solidarity and Social Justice LLC “is a partnership between Housing and Residence Life and Gonzaga’s Solidarity and Social Justice academic department. This LLC is designed for sophomore students with a passion for social justice that extends beyond the classroom. Admission preference to this community is given to students with majors or minors in Solidarity and Social Justice, Native American Studies, Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies, and/or Environmental Studies.” Enrolled students are required to register for a one-credit Solidarity and Social Justice class, attend on-campus social justice events, and take part in “Hosting/creating spaces for dialogue.”³³⁶

We may note briefly that Indiana University Bloomington’s Spectrum Community “has a partnership with the Indiana University LGBTQ + Culture Center and a connection to the Gender Studies department”;³³⁷ Miami University of Ohio’s Community Justice and Well-Being Living Learning Community is associated with the Fostering Just Communities Certificate Program;³³⁸ and Saint Mary’s College of California’s Gaels 4 Justice is associated with Sociology 008, a service-learning course.³³⁹

Twenty-eight of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Social Justice Residence Halls with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of themes include activism (Cabrini University, California State University Northridge, Miami University of Ohio), civic engagement (Indiana University Bloomington), food justice (Occidental College), gender identity (Berea College, Evergreen State College, George Mason University, Miami University of Ohio, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Montana, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Ursinus College), global citizenship (Eastern Kentucky University, Gonzaga University, University of Florida, Whitman College), leadership (Cabrini University, George Mason University, Southern Oregon University), multiculturalism (Cornell University, Evergreen State College, Occidental College, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Massachusetts Amherst), music (University of Pennsylvania), race (University of Colorado Boulder, Ursinus College, Whitman College), service-learning (Indiana University Bloomington, University of New Mexico, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill), social justice (Barnard College, Gonzaga University, Marquette University, Saint Mary’s College of California, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Minnesota), spirituality (Saint Mary’s College of California), and sustainability (Berea College, California State University Northridge, Cornell University, Davidson College, Southern Oregon University, University of Pennsylvania).

Chart 14: Social Justice Residence Halls includes a maximum of two social justice residence halls per institution. Eleven institutions possessed three or more social justice residence halls—University of Massachusetts Amherst (8), Cabrini University (5), University of Minnesota (5). George Mason University (4), Miami University of Ohio (4), Berea College (3), Gonzaga University (3), Indiana University Bloomington (3), Occidental College (3), Saint Mary’s College of California (3), and University of Colorado Boulder (3).

The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s eight social justice residence halls included Nuance: Multicultural Student Community (multiculturalism); Spectrum: LGBTQIA+ Community (gender identity); Impact: Self Awareness, Social Justice & Service (Office of Civic Engagement & Service Learning); Connecting with Social Justice (social justice); Cultural Explorations (understanding and combatting intersectional oppression); Exploring Society (understanding and combatting intersectional oppression); Literary Perspectives (social justice literature); and Sustainability & Society (sustainability).³⁴⁰

Cabrini University’s five social justice residence halls include IMPACT Living and Learning Community (Leadership Minor); Realizing Dreams LLC (identity groups); Voices of Justice LLC (activism, advocacy, community organization); Balance Learning Community (deliberative dialogue, reflexivity); and Common Grounds Learning Community (religion-themed multiculturalism).³⁴¹

The University of Minnesota’s five social justice residence halls include CFANS Diversity House (Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence, Office for Diversity and Inclusion); Environment House (sustainability); Lavender House (gender identity); MLK Beloved Community (black identity); and Social Justice Action (social justice, Social Justice Leadership Retreat).³⁴²

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those Residence Halls social justice commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 14: Social Justice Residence Halls.)

Social Justice Residence Halls: Social Justice Commitments

Cabrini University (PA)

IMPACT Living and Learning Community

“Explore leadership, locally and globally, within the Leadership Studies minor via the lens of psychology, business administration, and the engagements with the common good.”

Voices of Justice LLC

“[M]eeting and interacting with scholars, activists, community organizers, and experts from local regional advocacy groups. …”

Cornell University (NY)

Ecology House

“Students who live here vary in their experience saving the planet, some helping shape fossil fuel laws in their home country and some just learning about concepts like phantom power.”

Multicultural Living Learning Unit

“All residents are invited to participate in a series of McLLU programs known as ‘McLLUnity Nights,’ led by residents, Cornell faculty, and staff on topics about identity, activism, expression, current events, and culture.”

Evergreen State College (WA)

Legacy Hall

“Legacy Hall is an intentional living community on campus where students from a variety of cultural backgrounds and multiple intersectional identities live together in a community grounded in racial justice and multicultural student success at Evergreen.”

Rainbow Fort

“This safe-space gender-inclusive housing is for students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, questioning, transgender, gender non-conforming, gender queer, asexual, and/or intersex, as well as committed allies.”

George Mason University (VA)

Leadership & Community Engagement: Embrace Your Passion for Service

“Members examine local and global issues through academic study and activism, with an emphasis on leadership, positive change and active citizenship.”

LGBTQ+

“The LGBTQ+ LLC strives to create an on-campus environment of care, support, and trust; both within LGBTQ communities and across lines of gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, culture, religion, ability, and other identity groups.”

Gonzaga University (WA)

Global Citizenship

“The hall’s sequential programming is designed to encourage a reflection on the self as an intersection of identities, to foster global understanding and citizenship, and to engage and celebrate difference in community.”

Solidarity and Social Justice

“Admission preference to this community is given to students with majors or minors in Solidarity and Social Justice, Native American Studies, Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies, and/or Environmental Studies.”

Miami University of Ohio (OH)

Community Justice and Well-Being

“The Community Justice and Wellbeing LLC provides students with the unique opportunity to collaborate with students, staff, faculty, and community stakeholders affiliated with the new Initiative for Community Justice and Wellbeing.”

IDEAS: Gender Inclusive Living Environment

“This community is open to all students on the gender identity and sexuality spectrum and their allies. … This community supports students who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming in choosing (or being placed with) a roommate of any gender.”

Southern Oregon University (OR)

Green House

“The SOU Green House … will be focused on sustainability, adventure, leadership, and applied research. Students, faculty and community members will work together to understand and solve problems through investigation, collaboration and action.”

Skeptic House

“Students will develop a collaborative multimedia project such as a documentary providing coverage of the value of vaccinations, or develop a grant proposal for a local non-profit, or write and publish a research paper or series of short stories.”

University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)

Nuance: Multicultural Student Community

“Whether pursuing a program of study related to social justice or simply interested in dialogue and exploration …, students will have opportunities to take classes together, engage in dialogues …, and connect with campus organizations and centers focused on social justice.”

Impact: Self Awareness, Social Justice & Service RAP Fall 2018

“[Impact was] developed and coordinated through the UMass Amherst Office of Civic Engagement & Service Learning (CESL), which deeply integrates social justice theory, learning through community engagement, self-exploration, and self-awareness.”

University of Minnesota (MN)

Lavender House

“[O]pen to any students who identify with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual community. Students … explore and express their whole selves, including their gender identities and sexuality in a safe and affirming environment.”

Social Justice Action

“[Y]ou will enhance your leadership skills related to social justice concepts and have the opportunity to work with other students through peer education and outreach. Community members will receive priority in attending the annual Social Justice Leadership Retreat.”

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (NC)

Pride Place

“We envision a housing community in which every LGBTQ+ student feels safe, included, and empowered. As residents, students will learn about the LGBTQ+ community and its many intersections, build relationships, and actively engage in the community.”

Service & Leadership

“The Service & Leadership Residential Learning Program (S&L) is an initiative of the Department of Housing and Residential Education at UNC-Chapel Hill in partnership with APPLES and Carolina Leadership Development.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes ability, action, active citizenship, actively engage, activism, advocacy groups, affirming, allies, applied research, asexual, bisexual, build, care, celebrate, change, citizenship, civic engagement, collaborate, committed, common good, community, community engagement, community justice, community organizers, connect, cultural backgrounds, culture, dialogue, difference, ecology, empowered, engage, enhance, environmental, ethnicity, experience, experts, exploration, express, fossil fuel, gay, gender, gender identities, gender-inclusive, gender non-conforming, gender queer, global, grant proposal, green, identify, identity, identity groups, inclusive, integrates, intentional, interacting, intersectional, intersex, investigation, justice, leadership, lesbian, LGBTQ+, lines, multicultural, multiple, non-profit, opportunities, outreach, pansexual, participate, passion, peer education, phantom power, positive change, power, pride, queer, questioning, race, racial justice, reflection, relationships, safe, safe space, self-awareness, self-exploration, sequential programming, service, service-learning, sexuality spectrum, sexual orientation, social justice, solidarity, stakeholders, student success, supports, sustainability, theory, transgender, trust, understand, wellbeing, and whole selves.

Bias Incident Response Teams

Bias Incident Response Teams are dedicated to gathering reports of “bias incidents”—which, practically speaking, can include any word or action that offends social justice advocates.³⁴³ (See Chart 15: Bias Incident Response Teams.) Intent does not matter in the definition of “bias.” Vanderbilt University, for example, includes “unconscious bias” or “implicit bias” in its definition of bias.³⁴⁴ Students are encouraged to file Bias Reports, so Bias Incident Response Teams can rely on voluntary informers throughout the campus. The University of Massachusetts Amherst uses the term of art “active bystander” to refer to these voluntary informers.³⁴⁵

George Mason University adds to its Bias Incident Report Form the proviso that “it is important for you to know that some bias-motivated, prejudice or otherwise disrespectful acts may be constitutionally protected speech and thus not subject to University disciplinary action or formal investigation.”³⁴⁶ Such stipulations are rare.

Bias Incident Response Teams effectively act as enforcers of social justice orthodoxy on campus. Students and administrators work together by arranging for “bias” complaints against ideologically dissenting professors.³⁴⁷ These complaints lead to administrative investigations that are themselves a punishment, regardless of the outcome—and which can lead to expulsion.

University of Massachusetts Amherst specifies the campus resources for Bias Reporting and Referral—not only public safety and putatively impartial institutional sources (UMass Amherst Police Department, Dean of Students Office, Center for Counseling and Psychological Health, Disability Services) but also representatives of the social justice bureaucracies—Center for Women and Community, Center for Multicultural Advancement and Student Success, Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and Stonewall Center. University of Massachusetts Amherst’s links to national resources provide a list of nonprofit and governmental organizations integrated into social justice advocacy: Americans for Immigrant Justice, Anti-Defamation League, Partners Against Hate, Southern Poverty Law Center, Lambda Legal, Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, Know Your [Title] IX.³⁴⁸ These links to the social justice labyrinth register how firmly embedded Bias Response is within social justice advocacy.

Miami University of Ohio uses its Action Steps for a No-Hate Campus to encourage all students to become enforcers of social justice mores—and to regard white men as a suspect class, in the name of anti-bias: “Statistics indicate that most hate callers are white males under the age of 22 with low self-esteem. The motivation is typically a feeling of disenfranchisement.”³⁴⁹

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has written a comprehensive report, based on analysis of 231 Bias Response Teams at public and private institutions in 2016, on the disturbing characteristics of these Bias Response Teams: opaque membership; indiscriminately mixed concerns of public safety, media relations, and non-criminal speech and activity; few faculty, and hence little concern with academic freedom; fuzzy definitions of bias, including, as FIRE reports in its Bias Response Team Report 2017, “A significant minority [of codes that] include political affiliation or speech as a potential bias, inviting reports of and investigations into political speech by law enforcement and student conduct administrators”; and vague rules that give administrators “leeway to impose sanctions for speech they dislike.”³⁵⁰

The world of Bias Response is a world of bureaucracy and hysteria, used to justify yet further growth of social justice bureaucracy. Pomona College’s Incident Response Team found a meme on a Facebook group—U PC Breaux—to be a Bias-Related Incident.³⁵¹ At Kansas State University, interim Associate Provost for Diversity Zelia Wiley sent the campus an email about “a derogatory social message and photo [that] was sent out via social media”:

On Sept. 15, the university received notice that a derogatory social message and photo was sent out via social media. The involved person is not currently enrolled at the university. It is our understanding the second individual in the photo is not associated with the university.

Immediately upon notification, the Campus Climate Response Team, or CCRT, which consists of representatives from the Office of Diversity, Office of Institutional Equity, Office of Student Life, the K-State Student Union and Division of Communications and Marketing, met to address this recent social media posting. This racially offensive photo with a derogatory message has upset the K-State family and is not in concert with our principles of community. Such messages on social media are harmful to all.

In cooperation with the Office of Student Life and the Office of Institutional Equity, or OIE, the university will reinforce its value for diversity and inclusion while also communicating our principles of community for all students, faculty and staff. As an integral part of the response to this concern, the university will offer support services to any affected student and also will contact the involved parties. This incident supports our continued proactive outreach and cultural training efforts to the students, faculty and staff. Additionally, our office is working diligently with the Student Governing Association, or SGA, its multicultural student coordinator and interested student groups to realize its Diversity 2025 goals, which include social justice.

The Office of Diversity mentors and advises our various multicultural student organizations, especially our core groups—the Black Student Union, or BSU; Hispanic American Leadership Organization, or HALO; Asian American Student Union; and Native American Student Association—who have shown leadership in raising the university’s awareness to these incidents in a thoughtful way. We also support our affinity groups, Black Faculty Staff Alliance, or BFSA, Alianza, LGBTQ Faculty Staff Alliance and Indigenous Alliance who are not immune to such comments and yet they work to support and mentor our future leaders.

As members of the K-State family, we should always visualize and work toward a safe, welcoming environment for our community. I and other members of the CCRT welcome the opportunity to speak with our affected students and employees as we continue create a culture of inclusion for the entire K-State family.³⁵²

It is worth emphasizing that Wiley took this incident as the occasion for further university-wide social justice initiatives, even though “The involved person is not currently enrolled at the university. It is our understanding the second individual in the photo is not associated with the university.” A myriad of such “Bias Emergencies” provide occasions for further extensions of the social justice bureaucracy.

Not all colleges with Bias Response Teams are so badly off. The University of Iowa acknowledges that the entire effort to control “bias” conflicts with freedom, academic and otherwise: “UI faculty had concerns about a more formal bias response team because of its potential negative effects on material taught in the classroom, and on classroom discussion of controversial topics.” Nevertheless, the university still decided to create a “Campus Inclusion Team” as a “sounding-board.”³⁵³ Ursinus College possesses a Discriminatory Act Response Team. The use of the phrase “Discriminatory Act” instead of “bias” specifies an actual action rather than the subjective judgment of a state of mind. Yet Ursinus does still leave the door open to (for example) bringing someone up on charges for harassment for the “discriminatory act” of using pronouns to refer to sex rather than “gender.” Furthermore, the Discriminatory Act Response Team has a broader remit than just punishment:

Even if the College determines that a discriminatory act did not occur [emphasis ours], the sentiments expressed in such situations may be evidence of community tensions or conflict that call for further discussion. The Discriminatory Act Response Team aims to stand by those marginalized or injured by such situations and to set the stage for communal reparations. … Depending on the nature of an incident, the larger community may gather for town halls, teach-ins, candlelight vigils, facilitated dialogues, rallies, or other programming involving external speakers and trainers.³⁵⁴

Ursinus College uses relatively restrained language to govern its Discriminatory Act Response Team—and it is still authorized to engage in remarkably coercive re-education of the campus.

Bias Emergency Response Teams are not yet a full-fledged secret police for social justice educators, but they are the most Orwellian of the social justice organizations on campus.

Thirty-two of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Bias Incident Response Teams, or other formalized means to report Bias. Below we reproduce extracts of the sorts of “bias” investigated by 10 of those Teams. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 15: Bias Incident Response Teams.)

Bias Incident Response Teams

Davidson College (NC): Bias Education and Response

Bias Incident

“Professors who make pejorative comments or stereotypes about a protected class of people, i.e. females, religious minorities, racial minority groups, or people with disabilities are also guilty of committing a bias incident.”

George Mason University (VA): Bias Incident Reporting Team

Report Bias Motivated Incidents

“Often incidents involving Implicit or Explicit Bias, prejudice or otherwise disrespectful acts may be constitutionally protected speech. … [T]his Bias Related Incident reporting process helps Mason record and evaluate such occurrences for climate assessment and planning purposes.”

Gonzaga University (WA): Bias Incident Assessment & Support (B.I.A.S.) Team

Understanding Bias

“A bias incident, on the other hand, is non-criminal conduct, speech, or expression motivated, in whole or in part, by bias or prejudice … Our commitment to openness and free expression, however, does not protect harassment or expressions of bias or hate based on social identity.”

Indiana University Bloomington (IN): Care Team

Examples of Bias Incidents

“[I]ntolerance, discrimination, hostility, harassment, hate, mistreatment, prejudice, bigotry, injustice, favoritism, homophobia, xenophobia, racism, tendency, ageism, privilege, marginalization, retaliation, bullying, incivility, stereotyping, and microaggressions.”

Lake Forest College (IL): Bias Incident Response Process

Home Page

“Illustrative examples of potential bias incidents include targeted graffiti or vandalism, homophobic or sexist jokes, racist epithets, religious slurs, or demeaning remarks on social media. Bias incidents may or may not be intended to cause harm.”

Marquette University (WI): Bias Report and Support System Team

Bias Incidents

“Reports summarizing incidents of bias will be made available to the Vice President for Student Affairs and the Provost. … [These] reports will also inform choices about future education and prevention programming efforts to address and reduce bias incidents.”

Pomona College (CA): What is a Bias-Related Incident?

How Do Free Speech Requirements Impact Bias-Related Incidents / Hate Crimes?

“[Free] speech and expressive conduct, however, may be inconsistent with the College’s community values and it may present an opportunity for open dialogue, debate and better understanding of the scope of protected speech and the role of tolerance in a community.”

University of Florida (FL): U Matter We Care

Home Page

“As a Gator, you have an obligation to take an active role in fostering an appreciation for diversity and sending the message loud and clear that bias-related acts will not be tolerated.”

University of Wisconsin Madison (WI): Bias or Hate Reporting

Home Page

“Incidents of bias can include, but are not limited to: microaggressions, slurs, degrading language, epithets, graffiti, vandalism, intimidation, symbols, assault and harassment.”

Ursinus College (PA): Discriminatory Act Response Team

What Is the Investigatory Process?

“Even if the College determines that a discriminatory act did not occur, the sentiments expressed in such situations may be evidence of community tensions or conflict that call for further discussion. The Discriminatory Act Response Team aims to stand by those marginalized or injured by such situations and to set the stage for communal reparations.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes address, ageism, appreciation, bias, bigotry, bullying, climate assessment, community values, degrading language, demeaning, dialogue, discrimination, discussion, disrespectful, epithets, favoritism, fostering harassment, hate, homophobia, hostility, implicit bias, incivility, inform, injustice, intimidation, intolerance, marginalization, microaggressions, mistreatment, open dialogue, pejorative comments, planning purposes, prejudice, prevention programming, privilege, protected class, racism, reparations, retaliation, sexist, slurs, social identity, stereotypes, symbols, tensions, tolerance, understanding, and xenophobia.

Break and Study Abroad Programs

Break and Study Abroad programs have been largely taken over by social justice advocates, and are now frequently exercises in service-learning and progressive advocacy. (See Chart 16: Break and Study Abroad Programs.) These programs have increasingly abandoned the idea that they provide the opportunity to take classes abroad and that the students make individual decisions about what other parts of the foreign country they should learn about. Study abroad programs instead have become secular variations of the church mission trip to Appalachia, by way of experiential learning carefully selected only to support social justice causes.

This distortion even affects study abroad programs focused on the harder disciplines. Belmont University’s Study Abroad to Australia, for example, integrates mathematics with social justice education:

Assistant Professor of Mathematics and fellow trip leader Dr. Brad Schleben engaged students in his “Math of Social Justice” course, an opportunity for students to navigate their ability to question data while confronting the elements of power, privilege and interdependence seen in cross-cultural dynamics. Students had the opportunity to participate in active learning experiences including service projects, discussions with members of both the Quandamooka and Nyawaygi aboriginal communities and exposure to organizations pushing for social awareness and change—all from both a mathematical and human viewpoint.³⁵⁵

The growth of national programs that are themselves dedicated to experiential learning and social justice facilitates the shift by study abroad and break programs on each campus toward social justice. Notable national programs devoted to social justice include Alternative Breaks³⁵⁶ and the School for International Training (SIT).³⁵⁷ Even if individual colleges’ study abroad officials had no desire to take part in social justice education, their dependence on these national organizations would subject their students to social justice education.

Just as Offices of Residential Life subject students to social justice education even while they are eating and sleeping, Study Abroad and Break programs subject students to social justice education even while they are away from campus. Indeed, they make Study Abroad more parochial than ever, since they ensure that students never escape the tight net of American social justice education.

Study Abroad and Break programs subject students to social justice education even while they are away from campus. Indeed, they make Study Abroad more parochial than ever, since they ensure that students never escape the tight net of American social justice education.

Twenty-eight of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Break and Study Abroad Programs with explicit social justice commitments. The subjects of these programs included active citizenship (Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg), advocacy (Cabrini University), community development (Barnard College, Cornell University, Northwestern University, Occidental College, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri), education policy (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill), gender identity (University of Washington), global citizenship (Pacific University), health (Davidson College), international development (Cornell University, Lake Forest College, University of Minnesota, Washington State University), multiculturalism (Occidental College), peace (University of Colorado Boulder), poverty alleviation (Belmont University), prisons (University of Michigan), service (DePaul University, Lake Forest College), service-learning (University of Colorado Boulder, University of Florida), social justice (Brandeis University, DePaul University, George Mason University, Lafayette College, Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington), sustainability (Arizona State University, Barnard College, Belmont University, Southern Connecticut State University, University of New Mexico, Whitman College), and youth activism (Whitman College).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those social justice commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 16: Break and Study Abroad Programs.)

Break and Study Abroad Programs: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Belmont University (TN)

Belmont in Haiti & the Dominican Republic: One Island, Two Countries, Many Cultures

“Combine classroom experiences with volunteer work in Haiti/Dominican Republic and develop a better understanding of poverty alleviation, bringing about justice and how issues of public health affect both poverty and injustice.”

Belmont in Australia: Poisons and Social Justice Down Under

“[W]e will learn about Australian wildlife, customs, and current movements aimed to reverse the degradation of various habitats. In this program we will blend the concepts of science and math as they relate to social justice and ecological issues.”

Cornell University (NY)

SIT: Chile, Cultural Identity, Social Justice, and Community Development

“Major Topics of Study: Chile’s ‘successful’ economic model, development, and social inequalities, Community responses to Chile’s socioeconomic changes, The Pinochet regime, human rights violations, and Chilean history, Truth, justice, and reconciliation.”

MSID Senegal

“Study international development in Senegal. …You’ll also contribute through an internship or research project with a nonprofit organization while you are there. Explore the complexities created by issues such as environment, globalization, public health, and social justice.”

DePaul University (IL)

Berlin, Germany

“The program specifically seeks to explore the critical traditions in human rights law and how they relate to specific justice struggles confronting immigrants, religious minorities, communities of color, women, LGBT, and trans*people [sic] in Germany and the U.S.”

Service Immersions

“Each year over 150 DePaul students choose to dedicate their Spring or Winter break to service, reflection, simplicity, community, spirituality and social justice during a Service Immersion.”

Lafayette College (PA)

From Me to We: A Social Justice Experience

“[Students] ... come together in an intensive exploration of the foundations of social justice. The retreat offers a safe space for authentic dialogue between emerging student leaders and encourages them to build a coalition toward social change on campus and in society at large.”

Lake Forest College (IL)

ECUADOR – Minnesota Studies in International Development

“You’ll … contribute to an internship or research project with a nonprofit organization while you are there. Explore the complex realities around issues such as environment, globalization, public health, and social justice.”

JFRC Rome

“Social justice is a core tenet of the Jesuit philosophy of faith and service, with a particular call to defend the weak, the oppressed, and the marginalized. The John Felice Rome Center takes up that charge through service opportunities.”

University of Colorado Boulder (CO)

PACS and Study Abroad Programs

“[S]ome examples of popular programs with peace themes: ... Brazil: Culture, Development, and Social Justice ... Chile: Culture, Development, and Social Justice ... Switzerland: International Studies, Organizations, and Social Justice ... South Africa: Service Learning.”

Service-Learning Education Abroad

“Service learning [sic] is a type of civic engagement which offers students coursework that engages students in activities that address human needs. It weaves course content and service together so that each complements the other, involves reciprocity with the community.”

University of Michigan (MI)

Study Abroad Provides Practical Application to Social Justice Issues

“Adrienna Perales, MSW ’14, along with other students with the Global Course Connections spent time with the Prostitution Information Center (PIC) in Amsterdam to learn more about the business of being a sex worker. … ‘Amsterdam considers sex workers normalized and provides grass roots outreach with sex workers to offer sex education, healthcare information and condom distribution,’ Perales said. ‘The information we gained during our study abroad was directly supported by our U-M SSW Theories of Change course and the focus on harm reduction,’ explained Emily Whitley, MSW ’14.”

Prison Creative Arts Project, Study Abroad

“Brazil has a long history of using theatre as a vehicle to discuss and promote social justice causes. … [Y]ou will collaborate with Brazilian theatre students and faculty … observing the theatre work being done not just in Brazilian prisons but also in the Maré favela.”

University of Minnesota (MN)

MSID—International Development in Thailand

“You’ll also contribute through an internship or research project with a nonprofit organization while you are there. Explore the complexities created by issues such as the environment, globalization, sustainability, and social justice.”

Community Development, Empowerment & Social Justice in Kenya

“Join a group of students who are passionate about community development, social justice, intercultural education, and service-learning to discover how citizens, communities, and NGOs are working to improve health and wellbeing.”

University of Washington (WA)

LGBTQ Program Crosses Border

“When Anu Taranath led a study abroad program in Mexico this summer, the focus was LGBTQ issues. … [R]oundtable discussions … covered everything from transgender women in prison to the impact of Trump’s presidency on human rights work in Mexico.”

Social Justice and NGO Activism

“Everyone talks about becoming a ‘global citizen,’ but what does this really mean? This program explores this question by learning about the current scene of social justice activism in Bangalore through partnerships with non-governmental organizations … throughout the city.”

Whitman College (WA)

SFS: Cambodia Conservation, Ethics and Environmental Change

“Topics of study include migratory birds, water use, agricultural development, deforestation, and Buddhist social norms. In addition, during the semester students visit many key social justice organizations and international conservation non-governmental organizations.”

SIT: Nicaragua Youth Culture, Literacy, and Media

“[E]xplore Nicaragua a generation after the revolution and investigate how people in Nicaragua and Cuba are creatively advocating for change. In addition to many site visits in Nicaragua, students gain comparative perspectives on youth issues during an excursion to Cuba.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes activism, activitism, address, advocating, authentic, change, civic engagement, coalition, collaborate, communities of color, community, community development, community responses, complexities, complex realities, confronting, contribute, creatively, critical traditions, cultural identity, culture, dedicate, dialogue, ecological, empowerment, encourage, engages, environment, ethics, experience, explore, global citizen, globalization, health, human needs, human rights, immigrants, injustice, intensive, intercultural education, internship, justice, justice struggles, LGBTQ, marginalized, non-governmental organizations, nonprofit organization, oppressed, partnerships, passionate, peace, poverty alleviation, practical application, prison, promote, reciprocity, reconciliation, reflection, relate to, religious minorities, safe space, service, service immersions, service-learning, service opportunities, social change, social inequalities, social justice, spirituality, theatre work, transgender, trans*people, wellbeing, youth culture, and youth issues.

Social Justice Events

Individual events make up the fabric of campus life. A sample of social justice events gives a sense of the variety of means by which social justice education operates. We list the number of institutions whose events included explicit social justice commitments, their varieties of social justice commitments, the subjects of social justice activism, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

All these social justice bureaucracies sponsor a large number of social justice events on campus. (See Chart 17: Events.) These events, and the larger programs they are embedded in, are a large portion of the actual substance of social justice education on campus.

There are far too many social justice events to catalog. We provide here a sampling of the variety of social justice events, to give a sense of the variety of means by which social justice education operates. We confined this sampling to no more than two events per institution.

Forty-four of the 60 institutions we examined had events with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of social justice events include activism programs (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill), commencements (Barnard College), community mobilizations (DePaul University), conferences (Arizona State University, Barnard College, Gonzaga University, Hamline University, Northwestern University, Occidental College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Pomona College, San Francisco State University, Southern Oregon University, Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Florida, University of Kansas, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of New Mexico, University of Washington, Whitman College), dialogues (City College CUNY), festivities (University of Colorado Boulder), films (Miami University of Ohio, Pepperdine University, Roosevelt University, University of Washington), fine arts performances (California State University Northridge, Davidson College, Merrimack College, Pomona College, Southern Connecticut State University), hunger banquets (Kansas State University), lectures (Arizona State University, Berea College, Brandeis University, Gonzaga University, Occidental College, Pepperdine University, Roosevelt University, Saint Mary’s College of California, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Kansas, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, Vanderbilt University, Whitman College), projects (Brooklyn College CUNY), residence hall programs (University of Montana), resource fairs (City College CUNY), retreats (City College CUNY, San Francisco State University, University of Nevada Las Vegas), roundtables (Cornell University), student education (Kansas State University, Lafayette College, Merrimack College), student training (Stony Brook–SUNY), workshops (City College CUNY, Southern Oregon University, University of Kansas, University of Michigan), and youth activities (City College CUNY).

The subjects of these events included activism (Barnard College, Merrimack College, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Missouri, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill), ally education (Lafayette College, University of Florida), arts (Ohio Wesleyan University, University of Michigan), Black Lives Matter (University of Kansas), civic engagement (University of Massachusetts Amherst), community organizing (Berea College, DePaul University, Hamline University), diversity (Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Washington), food (Saint Mary’s College of California, University of Nevada Las Vegas), gender identity (Barnard College, Hamline University, Kansas State University, Saint Mary’s College of California, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Kansas, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico, Whitman College), health care (Saint Mary’s College of California), immigrants, refugees, and illegal aliens (Arizona State University, Berea College, Gonzaga University, Miami University of Ohio), implicit bias (Stony Brook–SUNY), leadership (Southern Oregon University), LGBTQ (Barnard College), mental illness (Davidson College), policing (Brooklyn College CUNY, University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt University), power (Occidental College, Whitman College), prisons (Arizona State University, Gonzaga University, Pomona College, University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt University), racial identity (California State University Northridge, Hamline University, Kansas State University, Pomona College, San Francisco State University, University of Kansas, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, Washington State University), social justice (Brandeis University, California State University Northridge, City College CUNY, Cornell University, Lafayette College, Northwestern University, Pepperdine University, Roosevelt University, San Francisco State University, Southern Connecticut State University, Southern Oregon University, University of Kansas, University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of Montana, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania), sustainability (Merrimack College, Occidental College, University of Colorado Boulder), and writing (Arizona State University).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those institutions’ events. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 17: Events.)

Sample Social Justice Events

Arizona State University (AZ)

Arizona Writing and Social Justice Conference

“The range of potential topics includes: border studies and writing, immigration issues, bi- and multi-lingual writing, refugee language-learning and writing, human rights literature and its histories, indigenous communities, prison writing, writing for and about sexual communities, community health and writing, writing for social movements, environmental justice literature, community-centered creative writing, homeless writers, working-class and labor writing, and more.”

States of Incarceration National Exhibit

“The latest assault on immigrants and noncitizens will destroy many lives before it is finished. But these attacks will be defeated for precisely the same reason that they are now energized: America has evolved. Join us for a lecture and conversation with Mark Dow, author of ‘American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons.’”

California State University Northridge (CA)

CSU-Northridge Performance Ensemble

“Together with Dr. Kurt Lindemann’s Communication class, Dr. Jeanine Minge and the Performance Ensemble investigated the ways sexism, classism, racism, and heterosexism are mapped on the bodies of those participating in the entertainment industry.”

Conscious Culture: A Social Justice Open Mic

“The Africana Studies Department ‘The Black House,’ in collaboration with the Chicana/o Studies Department, the CSUN Slam Team, Revolutionary Scholars, Vocal Artillery and Civil Discourse & Social Change, cordially invites all CSUN students, organizations and faculty who are concerned with any, and all contemporary social justice issues, to come out and express yourselves, through poetry, prose, song, art and dance.”

Kansas State University (KS)

Social Justice Alliance Hosts Out & Proud Event

“Students can enjoy crafts and caffeine while engaging in conversation centered around National Coming Out Day. Information about gender identity, expression, sexuality and attraction also will be provided in addition to tips for coming out and ways to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.”

Social Justice Alliance for Unthanksgiving

“Students will celebrate indigenous peoples of the Americas, while participating in a hunger banquet.”

Occidental College (CA)

CTSJ Conference of Undergraduate Research<

“CTSJ 2018 is centered around the theme ‘The Analysis of Power,’ and will provide a place for undergraduates to engage in thoughtful discussion that offers new perspectives on our modern cultural climate through critical theoretical frameworks. This theme is informed by Foucault’s work on truth and power, which does not separate the economy of power from truth.”

Public Interest Lawyering Fall Speaker Series

“Join us for the final speaker, Angela Johnson, from EarthJustice. Her talk is a part of the Public Interest Lawyering Fall Speaker Series which is focused on rebellious lawyering, community action, and social justice.”

San Francisco State University (CA)

Constitution Day

“Slavery, Servitude, and the Constitution … Mikias Wondyfraw, ‘Social Ontology of Police Violence: Social Groups and Social Institutions’ … White Supremacy in Constitutional Law: An Interactive Workshop … Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, ‘How the Second Amendment Reveals White Nationalism’ ... Ian F. Haney López, ‘The Future of Whiteness: Dog Whistle Politics or Cross-Racial Solidarity?’”

2019 SF State Faculty Retreat

“How do you infuse social justice into your classroom? How does social justice inform your curriculum? How do students grapple with social justice in their coursework and assignments? How does social justice inform your teaching, service, scholarship, and creative work? How does your scholarly and creative work contribute to understandings of social justice in your discipline?”

University of Michigan (MI)

Race and Social Justice in Education Symposium Series

“Michael J. Dumas … is primarily interested in how schools become sites of Black material and psychic suffering and anti-black violence, how disgust with and disdain for blackness inform defenses of inequitable distribution of educational resources, and ways that anti-blackness persists in education policy discourses and in broader public discourses on the worth of economic and educational investment in Black children.”

Marching Forward Social Justice Events

“Non-Violent Action Workshop … ‘Over/come(ing)’ Art Series Opening with Juliet Seignious … Horizons of the Racial Justice Movement … Comics as a Social Justice Medium. …”

University of Minnesota (MN)

Critical Conversations about Diversity & Social Justice

“Latinx Voice; Latinx Vote: How Demographics are Shifting the American Political Landscape … Queer Indigenous and People of Color: Changing the Face and Focus of the LGBTQ Movement … Police, Prisons, and Legal Power: Reforming our U.S. System of Justice. …”

Reparations, Repatriation, and Redress Symposium

“We will question the impoverishment of our imaginations when it comes to reparations for African Americans and land claims for native peoples in particular, as well as across multiple marginalized social groups.”

University of Missouri (MO)

Social Justice Symposium

“The day’s schedule will include a keynote speaker, lunch, and multiple breakout sessions that could address topics like ethnicity, culture, multiculturalism, women’s advocacy, LGBTQ advocacy, gender, ability, serving our veteran student population, and sustainability.”

Show Me Title IX Conference

“The Show Me Title IX Conference program included several tracks: Booster Training Courses for Coordinators and Investigators; Education and Prevention; Social Justice; Policy and Procedures; K–12; and Community Colleges.”

University of Nevada (NV)

Student Diversity & Social Justice Programs & Events

“The Cultural Leadership Retreat (CLR) is a three-day, two-night weekend with interactive workshops designed to facilitate students [sic] understanding of diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice to explore leadership within a diverse society.”

Radical Consciousness Conference

“The main goal of the Radical Consciousness Conference (RCC) is to build a foundation of knowledge that will enhance student success in leadership experience and empower students to engage in social justice work.”

Whitman College (WA)

Power and Privilege Symposium

“Think You’re Woke? Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is … Dude, Shut Up and Listen: Creating Inclusive Classroom Spaces … Environmentalism at White Man College. …”

Andjelkovic Lecture Series

“Indrani Sigamany (MA, PhD) has devoted her 30-year career to social justice and international development, with a specialization in gender and indigenous people.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes ability, action, advocacy, alliance, anti-black, blackness, bodies, border studies, celebrate, classism, collaboration, coming out, community, community action, community-centered, community health, conscious, contribute, cross racial, cultural climate, culture, critical, diversity, empower, engage, enhance, environmentalism, environmental justice, ethnicity, evolved, experience, explore, express, facilitate, Foucault, frameworks, gender, gender expression, gender identity, grapple, heterosexism, homeless, human rights, hunger banquet, immigration, incarceration, inclusive, indigenous communities, indigenous peoples, inequitable, inform, infuse, investigators, labor, leadership, LGBTQ+, listen, marginalized, multiculturalism, multiple, native peoples, noncitizens, non-violent, out, perspectives, police, power, prevention, prison writing, prisons, privilege, proud, psychic, public interest, race, racial justice, racism, radical, rebellious lawyering, refugee, reparations, resources, revolutionary, sexism, sexual communities, sexuality, shut up, social change, social groups, social justice, social movements, social ontology, student success, suffering, sustainability, theoretical, thoughtful, understandings, Unthanksgiving, violence, white man, white nationalism, whiteness, white supremacy, woke, and working-class.

Student Training

Student training identifies, catechizes, and provides work experience for the next generation of social justice advocates. This student training is especially useful for training the next generation of social justice educators. We list the number of institutions whose student training included explicit social justice commitments, their varieties of social justice commitments, the language of sample social justice commitments, and their social justice vocabulary keywords.

The social justice bureaucracies engage in large amounts of student training. (See Chart 18: Student Training.) This student training identifies, catechizes, and provides work experience for the next generation of social justice advocates. This student training is especially useful for training the next generation of social justice educators. The Diversity Peer Educator of today is the Dean of Diversity of tomorrow. Today’s Social Justice Scholar will become tomorrow’s Dean of Student Affairs. Student training provides the cadres for social justice activism.

The Diversity Peer Educator of today is the Dean of Diversity of tomorrow. Today’s Social Justice Scholar will become tomorrow’s Dean of Student Affairs. Student training provides the cadres for social justice activism.

At Gonzaga University, the offices of Diversity, Inclusion, Community, and Equity and Housing and Residence Life co-sponsor six Social Justice Peer Educators. These students are involved in the Bias Incident Report machinery; propagandize their fellow students; and conduct social justice workshops. One Social Justice Peer Educator provided a good window into how these cadres speak and think:

If our campus is predominately white and all of our RAs are predominately white and potentially come from certain socioeconomic classes, or a certain ableism, students can feel more comfortable coming to someone who has a different type of title, a different type of presumed knowledge and education regarding certain things so I think that’s the biggest step, just having somebody that’s different than an RA.³⁵⁸

Merrimack College’s O’Brien Foundation Scholarship Program funds students to prepare them for careers in social justice education:

Year Two: O’Brien Scholars will be expected to work at Hands to Help for a total of 5 hours per week. ... O’Brien Scholars would engage in an Alternative Spring, Winter, or Summer Break Service Immersion program in order to broaden the scope of their awareness of social justice issues in the world. ... Year Four: ... O’Brien Scholars will either develop a capstone project directed at real life advocacy for social change or participate in a year-long advocacy project with a local non-profit.³⁵⁹

DePaul University hosted the Direct Action & Research Training (DART) Center’s information session on Careers in Community Organizing for Social Justice:

DART hires and trains organizers to build organizations that have successfully addressed issues including:

Plugging the school-to-prison pipeline
Reining in predatory lending practices
Expanding access to primary health and dental care
Prioritizing funding for affordable housing and job training
Fighting for immigrants’ rights
Police accountability.³⁶⁰

By scholarships, the provision of student jobs, and linking social justice cadres to careers, social justice educators ensure that social justice education is linked to social justice jobs for graduates.

Twenty-eight of the 60 institutions we examined possessed Student Training with explicit social justice commitments. The varieties of social justice student training include activism vocational training (Barnard College, Northwestern University, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico), awards (Southern Connecticut State University), career fairs (Cornell University, DePaul University, Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Michigan, University of Montana), funding (Brandeis University, Cabrini University, Merrimack College, Miami University of Ohio, Roosevelt University, University of New Mexico, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Pennsylvania, Whitman College), retreats (University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of Nevada Las Vegas), student jobs and internships (Brandeis University, Northwestern University, Ohio Wesleyan University, Stony Brook–SUNY, University of Florida, University of Kansas, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of New Mexico, University of Washington, Ursinus College), and workshops (University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Wisconsin Madison).

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those social justice commitments. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 18: Student Training.)

Student Training: Sample Social Justice Commitments

Barnard College (NY)

Action Academy

“Action Academy is a [sic] 8-week training series running from March through April that will teach a select group of Barnard College students the necessary tools to meaningfully engage in community organizing and social activism.”

Brandeis University (MA)

Brenda Meehan Social Justice-in-Action Grant

“The Brenda Meehan Social Justice-in-Action grants are designed to provide support for student-organized events that bring together academic and activist perspectives on important current public policy issues, such as healthcare, immigration, harassment, criminal justice reform, and climate change.”

Cabrini University (PA)

Science Scholars for Social Justice

“In a new cohort-based scholarship program at Cabrini, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in social justice issues through science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Science Scholars for Social Justice (SSSJ) program provides accepted Biology and Chemistry majors up to $8,000/year for four years ($32,000).”

DePaul University (IL)

Careers in Community Organizing for Social Justice

“The Direct Action & Research Training (DART) Center will hold an online information session on Wednesday, October 3 at 6 pm central to discuss careers in community organizing with DePaul students and alumni interested in uniting congregations and working for social, economic and racial justice.”

Merrimack College (MA)

O’Brien Foundation Scholarship Program

“The O’Brien Foundation Scholarship Program will seek to embed social justice and civic engagement into the educational experience of our O’Brien Scholars. ... O’Brien Scholars will either develop a capstone project directed at real life advocacy for social change or participate in a year-long advocacy project with a local non-profit.”

Stony Brook–SUNY (NY)

Diversity Peer Education

“The Diversity Peer Education program will train students on how to effectively engage others, analyze situations, and bring about change in the campus context through the lens of diversity and social justice.”

University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)

2018 Resistance Center Internship

“Intern responsibilities will generally relate to the three broad programmatic areas of the Resistance Center: a military recruitment report, nuclear disarmament, and sanctuary cities/immigration policy.”

University of Minnesota (MN)

Social Justice Leadership Retreat

“The following two days are used to facilitate a journey for each student in exploring their own identities, sharing their personal story in their small group, listening to the personal stories of others, and attending training sessions on privilege, understanding personal identities, and what all of this means in leadership. Topics of discussion and reflection include race and racism, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, and campus climate.”

University of New Mexico (NM)

Race and Social Justice Fellowship and Trainings

“Few [other] training institutes in the country focus on qualitative research methods and, currently, none incorporate discussions regarding the intersections of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and other dimensions of inequality.”

University of Washington (WA)

Social Justice Organizers

“Ongoing programs from SJO and our founding group, Diversity Programmers, include Dine-n-Dialogue discussion series, film screenings, advocacy workshops, heritage month programs, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Cross-Cultural Engagement Retreat, Brave Space, and much more.”

Social justice vocabulary in just these extracts includes action, activist, advocacy, brave, campus climate, campus context, change, civic engagement, class, climate change, community organizing, criminal justice reform, cross-cultural, dialogue, direct action, diversity, economic justice, embed, engage, ethnicity, experience, exploring, facilitate, gender, harassment, heritage month, identities, immigration, indigenous peoples, inequality, intersections, journey, leadership, lens, meaningfully, non-profit, nuclear disarmament, organizers, participate, peer education, personal identities, personal stories, privilege, qualitative research methods, race, racial justice, racism, real life, resistance, sanctuary cities, sexual orientation, sharing, social activism, social change, social justice, socioeconomic climate, space, tools, understanding, and uniting.

Social Justice Jobs

Social justice education prepares students for positions in private industry, progressive nonprofit organizations, progressive political campaigns, government bureaucracies, K–12 education, social work, criminal justice, and the professoriate by way of graduate school. Higher education administration directly employs massive numbers of social justice advocates. Social justice job requirements, such as diversity statements, ensure that only social justice advocates will qualify for positions in higher education. We list extracts of social justice requirements from several institutions’ job advertisements. We also list a sample of the variety of jobs reserved for social justice advocates.

Social justice education prepares students for positions in private industry (human resources, diversity associates), progressive nonprofit organizations, progressive political campaigns, progressive officials’ offices, government bureaucracies, K–12 education, social work, criminal justice, and the professoriate by way of graduate school. University administration and faculty directly provide a massive source of employment for social justice advocates: the total number of social justice advocates employed in higher education must be well above 100,000. Soon all of higher education may be reserved for social justice advocates, since university job advertisements have begun explicitly to require affirmations of diversity, social justice, and the like. Functionally, these affirmations will reserve higher education employment to the 8% of Americans who are progressive activists.

Functionally, these affirmations will reserve higher education employment to the 8% of Americans who are progressive activists.

University Hiring: Social Justice Educators

Universities employ substantial number of social justice advocates. The majors in women’s studies, ethnic studies, and social justice can springboard from jobs as students interning in the university bureaucracy to positions in private industry (human resources, diversity associates), nongovernmental organizations, government, K–12 education, and the professoriate by way of graduate school.

But university administration itself provides a massive source of employment for social justice advocates. At Ohio State University in 2018, “88 [diversity-related] administrators receive an estimated $7.3 million in total compensation, which includes $5.38 million in salaries and an estimated $1.89 million in fringe benefits.”³⁶¹ If we multiply that number by all the social justice bureaucracies in Ohio State University—service-learning and Title IX, sustainability and student affairs—and then multiply that number by all the ca. 4,700 colleges and universities in the country, there must be at least tens of thousands of social justice educators in American higher education administration—perhaps hundreds of thousands.

If we add the number of professors dedicated to social justice education, scattered through all the disciplines, an estimate of hundreds of thousands of social justice educators in higher education as a whole becomes even more plausible. All you need is an average of 30 social justice educators in each American college and university to push the total of social justice educators above 100,000—and Ohio State University employs 88 administrators just for diversity.

Employment in higher education can be remarkably plush. In 2018, the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) reported that full professors in “Area, Ethnic, Cultural, Gender, and Group Studies” earned an average salary in 2017–2018 that was almost $12,000 greater than the average across all disciplines—$105,656 to $93,830. The only categories that earned higher average salaries were Architecture and Related Services, Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, Engineering, Legal Professions and Studies, and Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Service. Assistant professors in this category earned less of a premium, but still out-earned most rivals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.³⁶²

A great many such jobs are less richly rewarded. The median salary of the 79 diversity administrators at Ohio State University whose salary was listed was $56,559, plus benefits.³⁶³ But that is a decent living—and a decent living available for hundreds of thousands of social justice advocates, who rarely have employable skills for anything but social justice education.

The annual nationwide cost for just the salaries of social justice educators, not even including the cost of benefits, should be taken very conservatively at 100,000 x $56,000 = $5.6 billion. The total costs of social justice education, narrowly defined, must be above $10 billion annually—perhaps far, far above.

The total costs of social justice education, narrowly defined, must be above $10 billion annually—perhaps far, far above.

University Hiring: Job Requirements

Informal social justice requirements have been in place for many academic jobs for a generation and more, in any administrative unit or department taken over by social justice advocates. Now, however, university job advertisements have begun explicitly to require affirmations of diversity, social justice, and the like.

Job advertisements most frequently stipulate commitment to social justice for jobs such as Director of Diversity Initiatives or Education Professor—but job advertisements for Librarians or Data Science Professors also now require a commitment to social justice. (See Chart 19: Social Justice Job Advertisements.) Preference sometimes substitutes for requirement—but that scarcely softens the effective restriction of the job pool to social justice advocates.

Diversity statements, which ask “job applicants [to] address how they can contribute to a culture of inclusion and equity within the campus community,” have become so common that colleges now provide standardized advice on how to compose them.³⁶⁴ The University of California Los Angeles requires all applicants for regular faculty positions to fill out an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Statement.³⁶⁵ Evergreen State College requires job applicants, by way of its commitment to Equity and Diversity, to “submit a 1-2 page statement that addresses your professional and/or community-based experiences and teaching practices that prepare you to educate and support students often underserved by higher education.”³⁶⁶ Inside Higher Ed published an article giving tips to all its readers on how to craft a diversity statement. The author emphasized that,

I can assure you that many faculty members truly care about diversity and equity and will read your statement closely. I have been in the room when the diversity statement of every single finalist for a job search was scrutinized. The candidates who submitted strong statements wrote about their experiences teaching first-generation college students, their involvement with LGBTQ student groups, their experiences teaching in inner-city high schools and their awareness of how systemic inequalities affect students’ ability to excel. Applicants mentioned their teaching and activism and highlighted their commitment to diversity and equity in higher education.³⁶⁷

Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, politely notes that terms such as diversity and equity are “ambiguous,” and that these statements could be interpreted as requiring affirmation of critical race theory, along with corollaries such as “structural racism, white privilege and supremacy, microaggressions, economically driven power relationships, and intersectionality.”³⁶⁸ The more alarming truth is that these statements will be interpreted as requiring an affirmation of all these aspects of social justice theory.

Commitments to social justice, diversity, and equity are rapidly becoming an explicit prerequisite for all university employment.

To whom are these jobs being reserved? A 2018 study indicates that 8% of Americans may be categorized as progressive activists, 11% as traditional liberals, and 15% as passive liberals.³⁶⁹ Functionally social justice education largely reserves employment to the 8% of Americans who are progressive activists. Another 26% might be able to secure occasional employment. Two-thirds of Americans can never secure employment that requires a commitment to social justice—unless they lie assiduously and continuously.

Forty-seven of the 60 institutions we examined possessed job advertisements with explicit social justice requirements. We included only two job advertisements for each institution, but most institutions posted many more job advertisements with social justice requirements. Institutions with particularly extensive social justice requirements included:

University of Colorado Boulder, for jobs including a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator; an Assistant Director of Leadership Development; an Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development; a Post-Doctoral Associate in Disaster Mental Health and Vulnerable Populations; an Assistant Professor of Equity, Diversity, and Justice in Education; a National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Internal Evaluator; a Triage/Crisis Clinician; and a Lead Instructor for Global Sustainability Scholars.³⁷⁰
University of Massachusetts Amherst, for jobs including an Assistant/Associate Professor in the College of Education, Science Education, Mathematics, Science, and Learning Technologies Concentration; a Communications and Marketing Specialist; an Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication; an Assistant Professor in Higher Education (Quantitative Methods); a Lecturer in Science Education Online, TECS/College of Education; and a Social Thought & Political Economy Associate Program Director.³⁷¹
University of Wisconsin Madison, for jobs including a Director of Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum; a Clinical Assistant or Associate Professor of Legal Assistance to Institutionalized Persons; an Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor in Human Development and Family Studies; a Civil Society and Community Studies Faculty in Native Scholarship; an Admin Assistant and Facility Coordinator at the College Library; a Shelving & Storage Verona Shelving Facility Assistant; an Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor of Human Development and Family Studies; and an Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies.³⁷²

Below we reproduce extracts from 10 of those institutions’ job advertisements. (All hyperlinked references are in Chart 19: Social Justice Job Advertisements.)

Social Justice Job Advertisements

Barnard College (NY)

Assistant Dean for Student Life

“The Assistant Dean provides guidance and strategic visioning for social justice education, leadership development, identity development, and community development. The Assistant Dean has a high level of responsibility within Student Life, and across campus to foster inclusive communities and address institutional climate around equity.”

Program Coordinator for Prevention Education

“Lead the Being Barnard ongoing education campaign, in coordination with the Title IX team, addressing topics of wellness, intervention, violence education, social identity & social power, and relationships.”

Cornell University (NY)

Residence Hall Director

“Our division is comprised of leading student affairs experts who support our campus on pressing student life matters including public service, health, wellness, social justice, residential living, food services, sports, recreation, career services, and student activities and organizations including sorority and fraternity life.”

Associate Dean of Students and Director of Women’s Resource Center

“Diversity/Social Justice Education facilitation or teaching experience.”

Davidson College (NC)

Program Coordinator for Diversity & Inclusion

“Prefers a Master’s degree in student affairs, higher education, social justice education or a related field. Qualified applicants will have completed courses and/or trainings related to college student development, curriculum design, diversity/social justice, gender/sexuality studies, ethnic studies international relations and/or religious studies.”

Assistant Director for Civic Engagement / Program Director

“The Assistant Director plays a central role in coordinating events and programs in the center including a semi-annual granting program and collaborative programming across the division that focuses on the intersection of civic engagement and social justice issues.”

Evergreen State College (WA)

Computer Science 2018-19 Regular Faculty

“We strongly encourage applicants who have had experience teaching and/or working with students from underserved populations and whose teaching and/or research addresses connections between computer science and social justice.”

Director of The Washington Center and The Learning & Teaching Commons @The Washington Center, Administrative Faculty

“1-2 page statement of your experience and/or practice with diversity and equity issues.”

Lafayette College (PA)

Electrical and Computer Engineering, Assistant Professor 2019-20

“In your cover letter, please address how your scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and/or community service might support Lafayette College’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

Chemistry Department, Assistant Professor

“All members of the College community share a responsibility for creating, maintaining, and developing a learning environment in which difference is valued, equity is sought, and inclusiveness is practiced.”

Merrimack College (MA)

Assistant Professor of Communication

“We take seriously interrogations of power and examinations of intersectional systems of oppression, and we embrace and encourage social justice-oriented pedagogies.”

Dean of the School of Liberal Arts

“Candidates should have a demonstrated commitment to experiential education, community engagement, and evidence of promoting a diverse and inclusive environment for students, faculty, and staff in alignment with Merrimack’s goals and priorities.”

San Francisco State University (CA)

Assistant Professor, Ancient Greek/Roman Philosophy

“Providing curricula that reflect all dimensions of human diversity, and that encourage critical thinking and a commitment to social justice.”

Tenure-track Position in Linguistics: Sociolinguistics

“Providing curricula that reflect all dimensions of human diversity, and that encourage critical thinking and a commitment to social justice.”

University of New Mexico (NM)

Assistant Professor: Instrumental Music Education

“Creative specializations in two or more of the following areas: conducting, jazz, assessment, diversity, band education, orchestral education, string pedagogy, multicultural music education, mariachi, music learning theory, culturally responsive pedagogy, sociology, psychology, special learners, technology, vernacular music, social justice, or creativity.”

Open Rank – Clinical Law Professor

“The School of Law’s Clinical Law Program is widely regarded to be among the finest in the country. It is committed to serving low-income clients, increasing access to justice for those historically under-served, and to social justice advocacy.”

University of Pennsylvania (PA)

Associate Director of Alumni and Student Engagement

“The School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) is noted for its commitment to social justice and to educating students that will take an active role in the struggle against oppression.”

Professor of Practice in K-12 Educational Leadership

“We welcome candidates committed to social justice and interested in mentoring students and advising student leadership initiatives.”

University of Wisconsin Madison (WI)

Director of Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum

“The Writing Center and WAC Program have a long-standing commitment to social justice and equity.”

Shelving & Storage, Verona Shelving Facility

“The Libraries at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are dedicated to the practices of social justice, diversity, equality, and respect among our staff, students, collections, and services. We strive to overcome historical and divisive biases in our society and embrace diverse points of view as assets to the fabric of our community. All positions will be called on to contribute to building this environment.”

Later Employment

Social justice education also doubles as a way to train social justice advocates to staff sectors of the job force including progressive nonprofit organizations, progressive political campaigns, progressive officials’ offices, government bureaucracies, K-12 education, social work, criminal justice, and higher education administration.

A March 2019 search for full-time jobs advertised on Indeed.com with the keyword “social justice” produced results for 792 new jobs.³⁷³ These jobs included:

National Community Outreach Coordinator for The Center for HIV Law and Policy;
Policy Specialist for the Urban League of Portland;
Public Policy Analyst for Planned Parenthood;
Director of Service Immersion & Social Justice for Providence College;
Civil Rights Bureau Chief – Social Justice Division for the New York State Office of the Attorney General;
Grants Administration Associate for Research and Policy for Verité, Inc.;
Bail Disruptor for The Bail Project;
Social Justice Community Organizer for the Institute for Community Leadership;
Assistant Director for Multicultural Student Development at Appalachian State University;
Director of Admissions at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee;
English Teacher at Summit Public Schools;
Director of Activism and Engagement at PEN America;
History Teacher at Capital Preparatory Schools;
School Security Officer at Chicago Public Schools; and
Community Organizer for SEIU United Health Care Workers.

The nonprofit sector provides substantial employment for social justice advocates—with considerable scope for individual preference. Social justice advocates can choose to focus on a particularly appealing aspect of progressive activism, such as the environment or illegal immigration. Such specializations are also possible within careers such as government bureaucracies, K-12 education, and higher education administration. Given the overarching commitment to progressive political activism, social justice advocacy provides a sufficiently broad variety of career paths to attract individuals with a variety of interests.

Social justice education’s focus on the majors that train people who work for the government—teachers, social workers, and court personnel—is also a practical goal. Social justice control of these credentialing bottlenecks allows them to channel the normal ambition of young Americans toward social justice activism. That control reserves to social justice activists much or all of white-collar government employment, with the bonus of a practical guarantee of lifetime job security.

All social justice employment attracts the loyalty of students aware that their own talents are insufficient to secure comfortable employment, and who must hope that they can parlay devotion to social justice into a full-time job.

Social justice’s focus on jobs serves to attract a critical mass of recruits from the overlapping ranks of the ambitious and the incompetent.

Journals

Hundreds of academic journals publish social justice pseudo-scholarship, frequently consisting of after-action reports on social justice activism on campus that act as how-to guides for other social justice educators. These publications allow social justice educators to pretend to outsiders that they are engaged in academic research. We list a sampling of 250 academic journals largely or exclusively devoted to social justice education, to illustrate the range of pseudo-disciplines that rely on this pretense of scholarship.

Peer-reviewed academic publication is required to get tenure. Professors are supposed to do genuine research so as to contribute to the body of human knowledge. Social justice educators therefore have to publish a minimum amount of peer-reviewed academic research. This is required for social justice educators who are nominally professors. Social justice administrators also seek out such publications—especially at the higher levels, where it is customary to have a resume with a postgraduate degree and some academic publications. If you want to be promoted from Service-Learning Program Coordinator to Dean of Community Engagement, it helps to have a doctorate and a handful of published articles.

The difficulty is that social justice education is political activism, not inquiry into truth. Social justice educators’ apparatus of journal and book publication is cargo-cult scholarship³⁷⁴—an empty imitation of the form of academic research, which hoaxers regularly demonstrate cannot be distinguished from gibberish.³⁷⁵ “Theory” which justifies the latest political activism alternates with after-action reports on social justice activism on campus—how-to guides for other social justice educators. These publications allow social justice educators to pretend to outsiders that they are engaged in academic research. It is a tribute to the remaining power of the academic ideal that social justice educators also pretend to themselves that they are engaged in real research.

Academic book publishers house an important component of social justice education’s cargo-cult scholarship. So in 2018 Bloomsbury published Assessment for Social Justice: Perspectives and Practices within Higher Education; Palgrave Macmillan published Educating for Citizenship and Social Justice: Practices for Community Engagement at Research Universities, and Peter Lang published Civic Engagement in Diverse Latinx Communities: Learning From Social Justice Partnerships in Action. The table of contents for Civic Engagement in Diverse Latinx Communities gives a fair cross-section of what counts as scholarship for social justice educators:

Civic Engagement: Learning from Teaching Community Praxis

Imagining a Nueva Casita: Puerto Rican Subjectivities and the Space of the “In-between” on an Urban Farm in Western Massachusetts

Subject-Heading or Social Justice Solidarity? Civic Engagement Practices of Latinx Undocumented Immigrant Students

Keeping It Real: Bridging U.S. Latino/a Literature and Community Through Student Engagement

Public Humanities and Community-Engaged Learning: Building Strategies for Undergraduate Research and Civic Engagement

Community as a Campus: From “Problems” to Possibilities in Latinx Communities

Motherists’ Pedagogies of Cultural Citizenship: Claiming Rights and Space in a Xenophobic Era

Responsibility, Reciprocity, and Respect: Storytelling as a Means of University-Community Engagement

Arizona-Sonora 360: Examining and Teaching Contested Moral Geographies along the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Saber es Poder: Teaching and Learning about Social Inequality in a New England Latin@ Community

Media Literacy as Civic Engagement

“I Exist Because You Exist”: Teaching History and Supporting Student Engagement via Bilingual Community Journalism

Hashtag Jóvenes Latinos: Teaching Civic Advocacy Journalism in Glocal Contexts

Chicana/o Media Pedagogies: How Activism and Engagement Transform Student of Color Journalists

Lessons from Migrant Youth: Digital Storytelling and the Engaged Humanities in Springfield, MA

Yet it is academic journals that are the core of social justice education’s cargo-cult scholarship. Social justice educators who only need minimal publications seek out these journals, while those who will eventually write entire books start out with journal articles. Social justice education relies upon journal publication for its claim to scholarship.

Since no reputable journal will accept social justice educators’ pretense to scholarship, social justice educators have had to take over, or create wholesale, hundreds of academic journals dedicated to social justice scholarship. Publication is easy, since the editors and the peer reviewers are also social justice educators.

We have listed 250 academic journals largely or exclusively devoted to social justice education. (See Chart 20: Social Justice Journals.) Their specializations mirror the range of social justice education—ethnic studies and gender studies, education journals and sustainability journals, journals devoted to critical studies, dialogue, diversity, equity, experiential education, inclusive education, intercultural communication, multicultural education, peace, service-learning, social inclusion—and, of course, social justice. Social justice educators in almost any discipline or department can find a journal to publish their work.

We list below 50 social justice journals, to give a sense of their variety:

Action Research Journal

American Indian Law Journal

Asian American Journal of Psychology

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Critical Intersections in Education

Critical and Radical Social Work

Disability Studies Quarterly

Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

Ecopsychology

Environmental Justice

Equity & Excellence in Education

Feminist Review

Global Sustainability

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies

Health Equity

Intercultural Communication Education

International Journal of Critical Pedagogy

International Journal of Diverse Identities

International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace

International Journal of Restorative Justice

Journal for Activist Science & Technology Education

Journal for Multicultural Education

Journal for Peace & Justice Studies

Journal of Access, Retention, and Inclusion in Higher Education

Journal of African American Studies

Journal of Bisexuality

Journal of College and University Student Housing

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Journal of Diversity in Higher Education

Journal of Experiential Education

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health

Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education

Journal of Human Rights & Social Justice

Journal of Inclusive Education

Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education

Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Journal of Social Inclusion Studies

Journal of Social Work

Journal of Student Affairs

Journal of Student Success and Retention

Journal of Sustainability Education

Journal of the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition

Journal of Transformative Education

Latino Studies

Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

Peace and Conflict Studies

Qualitative Social Work

Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order

Social Justice and Equity Law Journal

Transgender Studies Quarterly

The table of contents of the first issue in 2018 of Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs³⁷⁶ provides a fair sense how intensively these journals devote themselves to social justice scholarship:

Supporting Social Justice Literacy in Student Affairs and Higher Education Graduate Preparation Programs
Higher Education in the Era of Illusions: Neoliberal Narratives, Capitalistic Realities, and the Need for Critical Praxis
“I Knew What I Was Going to School For”: A Mixed Methods Examination of Black College Students’ Racialized Experiences at a Southern PWI
Colonized and Racist Indigenous Campus Tour
Surviving Domestic Violence and Navigating the Academy: An Autoethnography

Two abstracts of articles from this issue provide deeper insight into the nature of social justice scholarship.

Supporting Social Justice Literacy in Student Affairs and Higher Education Graduate Preparation Programs³⁷⁷

This study highlights a promising practice for learning and teaching in social justice or diversity courses in graduate preparation programs (GPPs). In these contexts, pedagogical approaches that both challenge and support students’ understanding of core concepts of social justice curriculum. Novel to the social justice courses in this study was a two-part photo project wherein students from dominant and non-dominant identity groups benefitted from the curriculum. Interpretations are based on qualitative data from students and faculty in a required social justice course in a GPP. Findings are presented through an imperfect narrative among study participants.

Colonized and Racist Indigenous Campus Tour³⁷⁸

This article explores the macro-structural aspects of college campuses and environments to understand how higher education institutions have created, maintained, and justified hostile campus climates against Indigenous students. It uncovers the embedded racist and genocidal values that are often cherished through dominant campus tours. This includes addressing how an incomplete understanding of history leads to centering oppressive values that disenfranchise Indigenous students in higher education. Offered is an abbreviated interpretation of the concept of Power and Place (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001), centering critical Indigenous values in the assessment. The case study articulates the historical and contemporary aspects of space and place in higher education. The authors embark upon a virtual racist campus tour by rearticulating typical campus tour components: history, student life, academic life, and campus leadership through a critical Indigenous approach. Lastly, recommendations are offered who [sic] wish to engage in work that dismantles educational systemic racism.

Social justice scholarship is useful for revealing the deeply radical nature of social justice ideology, when social justice advocates are speaking to fellow advocates. But it also reveals the complete emptiness of its substance—these examples of social justice scholarship consist of nothing more than a description of an assigned photo project in a required social justice course and a vitriolic attack on the practice of the campus tour.

The only value of social justice scholarship is as a credential to justify employment at a university.

Accreditation

The bureaucracy of accreditation plays an important role in forwarding social justice advocacy at America’s colleges and universities. We briefly survey the criteria used by the six major regional accreditors to forward social justice, and then examine how a sample university in each accrediting region uses accreditation to assess and make more effective its own social justice initiatives.

Accreditation Bureaucracy

The bureaucracy of accreditation plays an important role in forwarding social justice advocacy at America’s colleges and universities. We do not examine it here in detail, since this report focuses on social justice advocacy at individual institutions. Instead we briefly survey how accreditation complements social justice initiatives within each institution.

America’s colleges and universities “voluntarily” undergo accreditation at regular intervals—an examination by academics and administrators at other institutions, who determine in painstaking bureaucratic detail whether an institution is fiscally sound, possesses a proper infrastructure, and provides a sound education. Accreditation is only nominally “voluntary.” Only accredited institutions are eligible to receive student education grants and loans, and other sources of federal education money. A disaccredited college or university will almost certainly undergo an immediate, large, and painful fiscal contraction. It will run a real risk of going bankrupt.

Accrediting organizations are not part of the federal government, although the Department of Education itself accredits accreditors via the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI). Some accrediting organizations are geographic, and cover particular regions, while others focus on specialized institutions or individual disciplines. Accrediting organizations possess significant autonomy, since they are directly responsible neither to the larger public via the Department of Education nor to the smaller communities that support individual institutions.

This autonomy translates to hidden power, which bureaucrats at both the Department of Education and individual institutions tacitly support. When an accrediting agency requires a controversial action, or gives a controversial interpretation to an anodyne principle, both the Department of Education and the individual institution can disclaim responsibility.

The six regional accreditors have somewhat different standards, but all of them embody the same basic approach. It emphasizes evaluating a college or university according to its own formal mission statement; analyzing its financial stability; soliciting a “self-study” from the college or university in which it addresses all of the accreditor’s standards; and preparing for a formal site visit by a team of outside reviewers from peer institutions.

In the last thirty years, accreditation has also been dominated by the theory of “assessment,” which treats each detail of college life, including individual courses, as subject to continuous scrutiny aimed at eliminating weaknesses and developing new strengths. “Assessment” is often deeply disliked by faculty members, who find that it authorizes interference with their teaching and their syllabi by campus bureaucrats. The word “assessment” may sound benign to outsiders, but on campus it indicates a regime of continuous bullying by high-handed administrators.

Bureaucrats at individual institutions also use accreditation to increase their power, by reshaping education into the assessable form that can be brandished to an accreditation committee as a bona fides. As the University of Washington put it in its Year Seven Self-Evaluation Report (2013), “the assessment process is integrated into the normal academic life of students and faculty, rather than being an extraneous ‘add-on.’”³⁷⁹ This assessable education consists of programs run by these bureaucrats and of assessments that give them power over class structure, department goals, and other putatively independent aspects of the university. Faculty, librarians, and other supposedly autonomous individuals waste much of their time serving on accreditation committees or doing work to satisfy accreditation bureaucrats’ demands.

Social justice advocates use accreditation within this broader context whereby accreditation bureaucrats reduce higher education into an assessment machine run by college bureaucrats. Some accreditation bureaucracies require diversity, or other keywords that can be used to justify the creation of social justice requirements, programs, or assessments. Where accreditation bureaucracies do not explicitly require social justice advocacy, college bureaucrats justify social justice advocacy as a way to fulfill the accreditation requirements. In both cases, social justice advocates within colleges and universities use accreditation to make their advocacy more effective.

Accreditation for Social Justice

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accredits postsecondary institutions in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, New Mexico, South Dakota, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The HLC’s criteria for accreditation include several requirements that effectively require social justice advocacy:

1.C. The institution understands the relationship between its mission and the diversity of society.

The institution addresses its role in a multicultural society. The institution’s processes and activities reflect attention to human diversity as appropriate within its mission and for the constituencies it serves. …

3.B. 4. The education offered by the institution recognizes the human and cultural diversity of the world in which students live and work.³⁸⁰

As we will see below, the keywords multicultural and diversity justify a remarkable amount of social justice advocacy.

The HLC will make these requirements more radical in its revised criteria, which come into effect in September 2020. The revised criteria state:

1.C. The institution provides opportunities for civic engagement in a diverse, multicultural society and globally-connected world, as appropriate within its mission and for the constituencies it serves.

1. The institution encourages curricular or cocurricular activities that prepare students for informed citizenship and workplace success.

2. The institution’s processes and activities demonstrate inclusive and equitable treatment of diverse populations.

3. The institution fosters a climate of respect among all students, faculty, staff and administrators from a range of diverse backgrounds, ideas and perspectives. …

3B. 3. The education offered by the institution recognizes the human and cultural diversity and provides students with growth opportunities and lifelong skills to live and work in a multicultural world. …

3C. 1. The institution strives to ensure that the overall composition of its faculty and staff reflects human diversity as appropriate within its mission and for the constituencies it serves.³⁸¹

These revised criteria will add the keywords civic engagement, inclusive, equitable, and climate of respect to ensure that all institutions seeking accreditation from the HLC must sponsor social justice advocacy even more intensively. They will also push institutions toward even more demanding race and sex preferences.

The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) accredits postsecondary institutions in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. NECHE pushes for social justice education by a lengthy series of requirements. Its criteria devote the longest attention to diversity—race and sex preferences for students, faculty, and staff, and the institutional support needed to retain unqualified members of the institution who receive these preferences. Most bluntly, “The institution addresses its own goals for the achievement of diversity among its students and provides a safe environment that fosters the intellectual and personal development of its students” (Standard Five, Preamble).³⁸² NECHE’s criteria also foster social justice advocacy by way of conspicuously citing civic engagement and global awareness as goods an institution might pursue (8.2); and requiring both co-curricular activities and co-curricular assessment (5.15, 8.4).

The WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) Senior Colleges and University Commission (WASC-SCUC) accredits postsecondary institutions in California, Hawaii, and several Pacific territories. WASC-SCUC also pushes for group identity preferences in the name of diversity: “Consistent with its purposes and character, the institution demonstrates an appropriate response to the increasing diversity in society through its policies, its educational and co-curricular programs, its hiring and admissions criteria, and its administrative and organizational practices” (1.4).³⁸³ WASC-SCUC pushes more specifically for undergraduate programs that “actively foster” an appreciation for diversity and civic engagement (2.2a). WASC-SCUC also provides the guideline that “The institution has demonstrated institutional commitment to the principles enunciated in the Equity and Inclusion Policy” (1.4). This four-page document generally pushes for social justice advocacy: “Engagement with historical and contemporary issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are educational objectives that can be productively incorporated into programs at any level.”³⁸⁴

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) accredits postsecondary institutions in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. MSCHE provides only a few textual nudges toward social justice. Its Ethics and Integrity criterion includes “a climate that fosters respect among students, faculty, staff, and administration from a range of diverse backgrounds, ideas, and perspectives” (2.2).³⁸⁵ Its Design and Delivery of the Student Learning Experience criterion states that undergraduate general education programs should expand students’ “cultural and global awareness and cultural sensitivity,” and generally include “the study of values, ethics, and diverse perspectives” (3.5).

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) accredits postsecondary institutions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. SACSCOC does not appear to have language that pushes social justice in its main criteria, although its Diversity Statement would softly push institutes in that direction.³⁸⁶

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) accredits postsecondary institutions in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. NWCCU does not appear to have language that pushes social justice in its main criteria.³⁸⁷

The Association of American Colleges & Universities, although not itself an accreditor, provides a series of VALUE Rubrics, which colleges and universities may voluntarily adopt. These include rubrics for Civic Engagement, Intercultural Knowledge and Competence, and Global Learning, all of which serve to forward social justice advocacy.³⁸⁸

Social Justice Initiatives for Accreditation

Some of these six regional accreditors push the institutions they accredit substantially toward social justice advocacy, some only a small amount, and some—at least in their written standards—not at all. Yet even in those states governed by a regional accreditor that avoids explicit social justice standards, accreditation somehow seems to advance the social justice agenda. This happens in two ways. First, social justice advocates within the colleges and universities seize the occasion of accreditation to paste their priorities over the actual standards. Second, the site review teams sent to campus by the accreditors often have their own robust social justice priorities that are translated into accreditation “concerns.” As a process, accreditation is often more fervently social justice-oriented than it appears in the standards themselves. If we look at several institutions’ self-study reports for accreditation, and similar documents, we can sketch the variety of ways that accreditation forwards social justice advocacy.

The University of Kansas, accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, cites multiple programs and initiatives in its Self-Study (2014) to satisfy the HLC’s diversity and multiculturalism criteria—1.C.1, 1.C.2, and 3.B.4.

Criterion 1.C, The institution understands the relationship between its mission and the diversity of society, generally justifies:

“developing and promoting academic programs and research emphases on area studies programs such as African and African American Studies, American Studies, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies”;
a learning goal and associated two-course general education requirement to “Respect human diversity and expand cultural understanding and global awareness” satisfied by “choosing from among over 350 approved courses or through experiential learning programs such as study abroad and the Global Awareness Program”;
“Co-curricular diversity initiatives [that] are led and coordinated through the Office of Diversity and Equity in the Provost’s Office”; and
“The newly hired vice provost for diversity and equity is leading an effort to develop a multifaceted, campus-wide diversity agenda.”³⁸⁹

Criterion 1.C.1, The institution addresses its role in a multicultural society, more specifically justifies:

institutional diversity goals such as “The promotion of and support for a diverse and inclusive community of mutual respect,” in its Statement on Diversity and Inclusion, its Bold Aspirations strategic plan, and the Medical Center’s strategic plan;
“The KU Core explicitly requires students to meet diversity goals”; and
the establishment of a vice provost for diversity and equity.³⁹⁰

Criterion 1.C.2., The institution’s processes and activities reflect attention to human diversity as appropriate within its mission and for the constituencies it serves, justifies:

the euphemized race and sex quotas of increased student, faculty, and staff diversity;
“Activities [that] include a school climate survey, a retreat focused on diversity issues in higher education settings, multiple brown bag lunch sessions on topics such as micro-aggressions, and a shortened version of Safe Zone training”;
academic units such as the Latino/a Studies Minor and the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies;
bureaucracies including the Office of Diversity and Equity, the Office for Diversity in Science Training, the Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Institutional Opportunity and Access office, the Academic Achievement and Access Center, the Office of International Programs, the Student Involvement and Leadership Center, the LGBTQ Resource Center, the Center for Educational Opportunity Programs (TRIO, Upward Bound, and McNair Scholars); and
“At the Medical Center, cultural competency is woven throughout the curriculum. The summer prior to starting medical school, admitted students participate in a book program through the Office of Cultural Enhancement and Diversity. Students read a book highlighting the impact of cultural differences on patients’ health and healthcare in the United States. Once on campus, students discuss the book with faculty and other students and/or meet the author on campus. In coursework, diversity and cultural competency are stressed in preclinical curriculum and clerkships. In the fourth year, cultural competency is addressed through service learning immersion experiences.”³⁹¹

Criterion 3.B.4, The education offered by the institution recognizes the human and cultural diversity of the world in which students live and work, justifies, somewhat duplicatively:

The Diversity general education requirement, satisfied by courses such as CLSX 374 Gender and Sexuality, Ancient and Modern, SOC 521 Wealth, Power and Inequality, and WGSS 327 Perspectives on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender;
academic units such as African American Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies;
co-curricular programming including the Global Awareness Program (GAP), the Global Scholars Program, the Global Partners Program, the Office of Study Abroad, the Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity, the Office of International Programs; and
the Office of Multicultural Affairs, whose activities include:
Clors of KU (“an annual weekend retreat. … Concepts of inclusion, diversity, and social justice drive the discussions and development of an action plan to bring back to campus”);
the Social Justice Awards (“LGBTQ Ally Award, Programming Award, Gender Equity Award, Excellence in Academia Award, and Outstanding Advocate Award”);
the Tunnel f Oppression (“a three-day event where various forms of media are utilized to introduce students to a wide range of oppressions and ‘isms’”);
Scial Justice Week (“includes presentations, documentaries, and roundtable discussions on social justice”); and
Hawk Link (“special sectins of the University 101 orientation course for first-generation, low-income, or historically marginalized first-year students”).³⁹²

The Higher Learning Commission’s follow-up Report of a Comprehensive Evaluation Visit (2015) confirmed that these programmatic initiatives were precisely what the accreditors desired. The evaluators concluded, with satisfaction, that “The University also has an Office of Multicultural Affairs, an Office for International Programs, and a Center for Women & Gender Equity, that positively contribute to a diverse and inclusive campus environment.”³⁹³

The University of Massachusetts likewise satisfies the New England Commission of Higher Education standards for diversity, civic engagement, and global awareness by the euphemized race and sex quotas of increased student, faculty, and staff diversity, institutional commitments to sustainability, equity, and diversity, a Diversity Strategic Planning Steering Committee, a two-course Diversity general education requirement, Residential Academic Programs, Defined Residential Communities, Student Services and Co-Curricular Experiences, the Office of Civic Engagement and Service Learning, assessment by such means as a Campus Climate Survey, and Building Bridges, “a campus initiative that sought to draw on the power of solidarity and creative expression to bring people together across race, religion, class, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, nationality and more.”³⁹⁴

Pepperdine University’s Interim Report (2015) to the WASC Senior Colleges and University Commission (WASC-SCUC) cites multiple programs and initiatives in its Self-Study (2014) to satisfy the WSCUC’s diversity and civic engagement criteria, as well as its own diversity mission statement. These include:

providing “a substantive and qualitative plan that would define, frame, and develop actions toward meeting the University’s diversity strategic goals and to initiate assessment processes to measure institutional change in this area”;
the euphemized race and sex quotas of increased student, faculty, and staff diversity;
requiring each school within Pepperdine to incorporate diversity into its own goals, reviews, and assessments;
increasing the numbers and powers of the University Diversity Council;
“Student Affairs continues to help the Pepperdine community celebrate diversity and develop multicultural competence through a variety of channels,” including the Student Government Association, Housing and Residence Life, the Pepperdine Volunteer Center, and Intercultural Affairs (ICA). “ICA also leads the annual sophomore educational field trip to San Francisco that offers a chance for students to explore social movements in an intensive weekend program. During this trip, small groups of students, faculty, and staff visit historic sites and consider the relationship between social justice and social movements while meeting participants from activist groups involved in efforts such as the Green movement, Black Power movement, American Indian movement, women’s movement, and free speech movement”;
integrating the “Community and global understanding” strategic goal with the diversity strategic goal: “This project in particular will inform both the curricular and co-curricular programs as it examines structural diversity, psychological diversity, and students’ knowledge and understanding of diversity, social justice, and global awareness”; and
providing data for “a set of metrics for the UDC to help monitor the status of structural and psychological diversity.”³⁹⁵

Barnard College Periodic Review Report (2016) to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) catalogues programs that satisfy both MSCHE’s brief Diversity requirements and Barnard’s own diversity and community and identity goals. These include:

the euphemized race and sex quotas of increased student, faculty, and staff diversity;
establishment of the President’s Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion;
“the Campus Life Committee of the Board led an inclusive process to examine whether and how to consider transgender and gender-nonconforming students for admission”;
“The Office of Student Life holds inclusion and equity at the center of its programs, advising, and events. Its recently developed mission and vision statement (see Appendix B) extends the understanding of diversity towards one of inclusion, equity, and social justice. A broad array of programs engage students in exploration of multiple and intersecting identities, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexuality, class and socio-economic status, ability, and religion”;
“seminars for faculty about diversity, identity, and inclusion in the classroom … Each day-long seminar will focus on ‘inclusive pedagogy’”;
staff workshops on diversity and inclusion;
“Identity-based socials connect faculty, staff, and students around experiences as people of color, LGBTQIA people, and first-generation college students”;
“The New York City Civic Engagement Program (NYCCEP) provides students with training and education about social justice issues, methods of engagement, and models for change, as well as numerous opportunities to participate in service and partner with local communities”; and
“In November 2015, when racially based incidents at the University of Missouri and Yale sparked student protests across the country, President Spar, Provost Bell, Dean of the College Avis Hinkson, and Associate Dean for Student Life Alina Wong hosted a college-wide Town Hall on the National Day for Solidarity.”³⁹⁶

The University of Florida’s Compliance Certification (2014) for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) cites relatively few programs to satisfy the SACSCOC’s appended diversity statement. These include the Diversity Studies general education requirement, Multicultural and Diversity Affairs, euphemized race quotas for law student admissions, and self-reporting assessments.³⁹⁷

The relatively brief diversity accreditation for SACSCOC, however, does not tell the entire story. Individual components of the University of Florida provided more extensive accreditation to disciplinary accreditors. The College of Journalism and Communications, for example, provided a Self-Report (2017) to the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC), which included 28 pages to satisfy their “Standard 3: Diversity and Inclusiveness.” The College of Journalism’s Self-Report was required to “Provide examples of professionals, visiting professors, and other guest speakers invited or sponsored by the unit during the past three years whose background or expertise served to introduce students to diverse perspectives. (Five examples a year is sufficient and those examples should include the name, title, subject area/expertise, race, gender of speakers to provide context.)” The College of Journalism replied with a detailed list:

2017

Pat Ford, male Caucasian, vice chair of the Burson-Marsteller who founded the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, which he chaired for five years, and instituted diversity training, is a professional-in-residence at the College this year teaching public relations strategies and the importance of tailoring messages to diverse audiences.
Richard Johnson, African-American male, writer for SBNation, spoke about race relations in sports.
Kelly Price, female, NBC affiliate in Green Bay, spoke about jobs in sports media, including issues related to women in sports media.
Yvette Miley, female, African-American, SVP/MSNBC and NBC News; Jeanne Mitchell, female, senior director of federal relations, ExxonMobil; Helen Stefan Moreau, female, CEO, The Midtown Group spoke at the 2017 Becoming a Woman of Influence event, an annual event since 2015, that provides advice to young women on how to navigate their professional and person life.
Tania Paul, female African American, (Associate Media Director for Horizon Media, Los Angeles), Donovan Triplett, male African American (Account Planner for BBDO, Atlanta), and Jina Choi, female Asian (Junior Account Executive for Zimmerman Advertising, Washington, D.C.) spoke on panel “From Florida Halls to Industry Walls” and about multicultural career paths.
Bill Imada, male Asian-American, (Chairman and Chief Creativity Officer of IW Group, a communications firm that specializes in reaching the Asian-American community) spoke at an Ad Society meeting about his experience in marketing, public relations and advertising.
Doug Melville, Chief Diversity Officer for TBWA\Worldwide, spoke at an Ad Society meeting.
frank [sic], an annual three-day gathering of social change communicators and movement builders, organized as part of our Public Interest Communications programs, includes a number of speakers who speak about communication strategies to address issues such as poverty, race, gender and sexual orientation equality, health disparities, etc. Speakers in 2017 included: Shanelle Matthews, African-American female, communications director, Black Lives Matter; Bridget Evans, African-American female, founder, Fuel; Dr. Ibram Kendi, African-American male, winner of 2016 National Book Award for non-fiction and founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University; Rashad Robinson, African-American male, executive director, Color of Change.³⁹⁸

The College of Journalism’s Self-Report typifies the effect of the myriad disciplinary accreditors who also push for social justice advocacy at colleges and universities nationwide.

The University of Washington’s Year Seven Self-Evaluation Report (2013) did not have to provide a progress report on diversity, multiculturalism, or civic engagement initiatives to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). Nevertheless, the University took advantage of accreditation to catalogue its own efforts. These included:

emphasizing their institutional goals of diversity and global citizenship, to be delivered by means including experiential learning programs;
the euphemized race and sex quotas of increased student, faculty, and staff diversity;
diversity trainings for faculty and staff;
Student Learning Outcomes for Global Perspective, Diversity, and Civic Engagement;
The Center for University Studies and Programs (CUSP) Learning Goal of “Inclusive Practices [to] focus on how best to deepen the richness of human experience, with its differences of race, gender, ability, religion, age, language, sexual orientation, and class”;
bureaucracies including the Office of Student Life ( “We strongly believe in the importance of the values and concepts associated with human understanding, social equity, globalization, and multiculturalism”), the Office for Equity and Diversity, the Department of Student Involvement, the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, the Center for Advising, Diversity, and Student Success, Office of Community-Based Learning and Research, the Center for Experiential Learning & Diversity, the Center for Multicultural Education, the Ethnic Cultural Center/Theatre, Intellectual House [Native American], the Q Center (“They work to … facilitate the integration of Q concerns in all campus discourse and training on ‘diversity’ and social justice”), the Women’s Center, the Graduate Opportunities and Minority Achievement Program, the UW Common Book, and the Husky Leadership Initiative;
“Students in Partnership for Organizing Transformation (SPOT). The SPOT is a student-driven center that provides a gathering space for dialogue, conversations, and activities related to diversity, difference, inclusion, and community”; and
“Enhancing the commitment to diversity and inclusiveness is one of seven UW Bothell priorities, outlined in the 21st Century Campus Initiative strategic plan. Under the plan, the Chancellor appointed a Diversity Council of faculty, staff, and students. The council has guided the development of initiatives, including cultural events, diversity lectures and conversations; renewed support for diversity clubs and groups; diversity internships; development of academic course work; and development of a Diversity minor. The Diversity Council recently conducted a Student Experience Survey, designed to inform ongoing development of diversity initiatives. UW Bothell is currently recruiting for the new position of Director of Diversity and Campus Engagement. The Director will report to the Chancellor and work closely with the Diversity Council to increase opportunity, equity, and inclusivity in all aspects of campus life.”³⁹⁹

Conclusion

The self-study reports that colleges and universities produce for accreditation are valuable catalogues of the requirements, academic programs, and bureaucracies that these institutions believe forward diversity, multiculturalism, civic engagement, and other components of social justice education. They register both the pressures of accreditors toward social justice advocacy, and the institutions’ own social justice campaigns.

Accreditation’s assessments of social justice advocacy spur each college to give teeth to its vague commitments toward social justice. Accreditation spurs the institutions to intensify their race and sex preferences, to require students to take social justice courses as part of their general education requirements, to support social justice departments, and to hire vast numbers of social justice bureaucrats. Colleges and universities can then present these concrete measures to the accreditors as assessable evidence that their commitment to social justice is more than just words.

American universities need federal money, and so they are always preparing for accreditation. More and more higher education has become bureaucratic and homogenous, subordinated to the need to produce assessable results for accreditation bureaucrats. Social justice advocacy uses accreditation to thicken their social justice regulations and bureaucracies, and ensure that they operate with industrial efficiency.

Conclusion

Higher education reform must disrupt higher education’s ability to provide stable careers for social justice advocates. We recommend Nine General Reforms:

1. Eliminate experiential learning courses;

2. Remove social justice education from undergraduate general education requirements;

3. Remove social justice education from introductory college courses;

4. Remove social justice requirements from departments that provide employment credentials;

5. Remove social justice positions from higher education administration;

6. Restrict the power of social justice advocates in higher education administration;

7. Eliminate the “co-curriculum”;

8. Remove social justice requirements from higher education job advertisements; and

9. Remove social justice criteria from accreditation.

These reforms should come at the federal level and the state level. Moreover, students should cease cooperating with social justice regulations.

Social Justice’s Challenge to Higher Education

American colleges and universities should dedicate themselves to a complex of linked goals: vocational training, the transmission of Western Civilization, character training, fostering virtuous citizenship, and the untrammeled search for truth.⁴⁰⁰ Universities devoted to social justice

hobble vocational training,
cripple the transmission of Western Civilization,
redefine character training as social justice propaganda,
redefine fostering virtuous citizenship as social justice activism, and
replace the academic’s search for truth with the activist’s search for power.

Social justice education—compulsive, coercive, and bullying—replaces the academic’s search for truth with the activist’s search for power. Social justice education reduces the university to a vocational school for progressive political activists. To trace the extent of social justice education is to trace the destruction of the university as an institution devoted to the search for truth.

Social justice education—compulsive, coercive, and bullying—replaces the academic’s search for truth with the activist’s search for power.

A leaven of individuals within the university still resist the total imposition of social justice education. There are not enough of them to be effective. The few members of the academy who wish to reform the university no longer have the power to do so. They will likely be replaced by social justice advocates when they retire. While we will always welcome internal reform of higher education to remove social justice education, we cannot expect our universities to make the needed changes. The cause of the university—the cause of intellectual and academic freedom—must be supported from the outside, by every American who does not wish our colleges transformed into factories for social justice education.

The reform of the universities is in the larger self-interest of every American devoted to his country’s liberty. Social justice education aims to create cadres and mobs devoted to imposing social justice on the country as a whole. Large numbers of its disciplines are focused on the capture of the machinery of government. The machine of social justice education must be disrupted if we are to preserve our country’s liberty.

Reform Principles

The crisis of social justice education is bound up with the larger crisis of American higher education. Reforms to reduce or eliminate social justice education ought to accompany complementary reforms addressed at different aspects of American higher education.

For example, the NAS has proposed a lengthy series of reforms to the Higher Education Act, by way of the Freedom to Learn Amendments.⁴⁰¹ These amendments address aspects of higher education ranging from the structure of government loan programs and accreditation requirements to the nature of government guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of association on campus. Most of these reforms would also indirectly reduce social justice advocacy on campus. The Goldwater Institute’s model bill to protect free speech on campus would limit the authoritarian power of social justice advocacy.⁴⁰² So too would Secretary DeVos’s proposed reforms to strengthen due process in Title IX investigations.⁴⁰³

A remarkable amount of social justice education is propaganda to support group identity preferences for college admissions and employment. Eliminating group identity preferences will eliminate much of the rationale for social justice education—as well as eliminate the bureaucratic rationale for maintaining Offices of Diversity, Multicultural Affairs, Equity, and Inclusion. At the very least, requiring colleges to be fully transparent about the discriminatory effects of group identity preferences will undercut a good deal of social justice propaganda.⁴⁰⁴

The NAS generally welcomes reforms to tighten fiscal discipline in higher education; to maximize students’ civil liberties and due process rights; and to restrict the ability of the Department of Education to provide administrative guidance documents that impose social justice policy by “supplementing” federal law. All these reforms are worth doing in their own right, and they will also restrict the effects of social justice education.

None of these reforms, however, will affect the actual machinery of social justice education. Nor do they focus on the way social justice advocates use higher education to train and to employ social justice cadres. A central goal of higher education reform must be to disrupt higher education’s ability to provide stable careers for social justice advocates.

These reforms cannot be aimed piecemeal at individual campuses. Social justice education is a national initiative, which has taken over entire disciplines and professions. The problem is not that individual social justice educators are excessively political, but that the entire professional framework of higher education is shifting toward social justice advocacy. Social justice’s capture of higher education must be opposed on a similarly national scale. Above all, the opposition must aim at cutting off the national sources of funding for social justice education.

Public tax dollars provide the largest single source of money for social justice education, and the public universities promise the most useful focus of reforming attention. The public and its representatives have greater leverage on public university policy, and this leverage should be exercised as much as possible. To reform the public universities is also to reform the heart of American education. Nearly three quarters of American students enrolled in postsecondary institutions study in public colleges and universities.⁴⁰⁵ To reform the public universities in just half our states would place significant pressure on the social justice career track—perhaps enough pressure to destroy it. Higher education reform must deny social justice education the use of public tax dollars. Public tax money should not be used to subsidize social justice advocates’ political machinery.

Nine General Reforms

The following nine general reforms would severely disrupt social justice education:

1. Eliminate experiential learning courses.

Experiential learning courses are the heart of social justice education. They destroy the idea of education as the search for truth and replace it with the idea of education as the search for power. They lower academic standards. They provide vocational training for social justice advocacy and they divert academic resources to support social justice organizations. Eliminating experiential learning courses will greatly reduce both the incentive for social justice advocates to take over higher education and their ability to train new social justice advocates.

1. Remove social justice education from undergraduate general education requirements.

Social justice professors cannot rely on voluntary student enrollment to justify their continued employment. They insert social justice into undergraduate general education requirements to further their takeover of the arts and sciences faculty, to subject all undergraduates to social justice propaganda, to further the idea that education is identical with social justice advocacy, and above all to reserve to themselves an increasing portion of scarce faculty tenure lines. Remove social justice education from undergraduate general education requirements and student indifference will greatly reduce the number of social justice professors.

1. Remove social justice education from introductory college courses.

Social justice professors blend social justice advocacy with courses that introduce students to a discipline. They do this partly to make their social justice advocacy more effective, and partly to ensure that social justice advocates receive preference for teaching introductory courses—which are the most popular courses in any department. Removing social justice education from introductory college courses will remove the idea that a discipline requires social justice advocacy—or social justice advocates.

1. Remove social justice requirements from departments that provide employment credentials.

Departments and schools that provide employment credentials, for jobs such as K–12 teacher, principal, social worker, and criminal justice administrator, increasingly require students to take social justice courses. These requirements both provide employment for social justice educators and reserve large numbers of these jobs, which number in the millions, for social justice advocates. Removing social justice education requirements from the departments and schools that provide employment credentials will remove social justice advocates from their lucrative roles gatekeeping and monopolizing these careers.

1. Remove social justice positions from higher education administration.

Social justice advocates have taken over the vast majority of higher education administration, especially the “co-curricular” offices. These social justice administrators actually control higher education, not the professors. Their positions must be defunded. No internal reform of the university can begin until the social justice positions are removed from the university.

1. Restrict the power of social justice advocates in higher education administration.

Higher education reformers cannot hope to eliminate social justice administrators immediately. They should therefore seek out means to restrict the scope of the administrators’ power over students and faculty. These reforms cannot be as effective as getting rid of the social justice administrators in the first place, but they should be enacted as interim measures.

1. Eliminate the “co-curriculum.”

The “co-curriculum” serves as 1) a vain attempt to retain unqualified students in college; 2) a means to subject students to social justice activism and propaganda; 3) a means to recruit students to join the social justice cadres; and 4) a way to employ social justice advocates after graduation. The “co-curriculum” should be eliminated, along with all associated jobs and paid internships, in areas such as student life, residential life, first-year experience, diversity, sustainability, and community engagement.

1. Remove social justice requirements from higher education job advertisements.

Colleges and universities are moving to make adherence to social justice an explicit job requirement, via “diversity statements” and job advertisements that explicitly require commitment to social justice. These job requirements will reserve all employment in higher education for social justice advocates. All political litmus tests for employment in higher education must be eliminated.

1. Remove social justice criteria from accreditation.

Regional and disciplinary accreditors require colleges and universities to engage in social justice advocacy, and social justice advocates use accreditation as a way to justify social justice advocacy and make it more effective. All criteria that forward social justice, such as diversity, multiculturalism, and civic engagement, should be removed.

The first four tactics focus on ways to reduce the numbers of social justice advocates from the professoriate, while respecting tenure and other faculty privileges. There is no need in any case to make a direct assault on social justice professors. Since tenured faculty are slowly disappearing from the university, all education reformers need to do is remove the requirements to study social justice courses. Without those requirements, student disinterest in social justice should substantially reduce the numbers of social justice professors.

The fifth tactic, to remove social justice positions from higher education administration, is not so precise. The number of higher education administrators rises every year, higher education administrators control university budgets, and no delicate tactic is likely to remove them from power. Their positions can only be reduced in numbers and power if state and federal legislators work concertedly to defund them, by any means that come to hand. The overarching goal is to remove social justice administrators from power within the university, and to eliminate higher education administration as a secure career path for social justice advocates.

The sixth tactic, to restrict the power of social justice advocates in higher education administration, is an interim tactic only. It should be pursued so as to limit the damage that social justice administrators do; it is not as effective as removing the social justice administrators.

The seventh tactic, to eliminate the “co-curriculum,” reinforces the fifth and sixth tactics by eliminating the largest bureaucracies devoted to social justice advocacy in higher education administration.

The eighth tactic is aimed against the new initiative to reserve all of higher education for social justice advocates. This initiative is only beginning to be put into effect, but it will complete the social justice advocates’ takeover of higher education. If it is allowed to succeed, nothing of value will remain in American higher education.

The ninth tactic addresses the crucial role that accreditation agencies play in forwarding social justice education.

Reform Venues

Some reforms can come at the federal level—from the Department of Education, from the Department of Justice, and, with more permanent effect, from Congress. Declaring experiential courses ineligible for federal student aid, for example, would do more to reduce social justice education than any other single act.

State governments, however, are the most promising venue for effective higher education reform. State governments can exert significant power upon public universities, since they provide substantial amounts of the universities’ funding. Some public universities have substantial private endowments—University of Colorado Boulder, for example, has an endowment of $1.06 billion, and only receives $81.4 million annually in direct state funding.⁴⁰⁶ The Colorado Community College System as a whole, by contrast, relies for about 30% of its annual revenues on direct state funding or state financial aid to students.⁴⁰⁷ Yet even a relatively deep-pocketed institution such as CU Boulder cares deeply about the state government’s fiscal contribution. Moreover, state governments have regulatory powers to match their powers of the purse, and can (for example) impose statutory requirements on universities or select reform-minded trustees to oversee university affairs. State governments can substantially reduce social justice education in their public university systems.

State governments are likely to appoint committees to draft these education reforms. State governments must appoint no social justice educators to these committees, since they will prevent any effective reforms from emerging. Practically, state governments should generally avoid appointing members of state education bureaucracies or higher education administrators. Dedicated advocates of traditional education should form a majority of all committees.

Federal and state governmental activity provide blunt tools by which to eliminate social justice education. Ultimately, they cannot succeed by themselves. Americans themselves, and not their government, must act to remove social justice advocacy from our colleges and universities.

Parents must refuse to pay for social justice courses. Trustees at private colleges and universities must exercise oversight and remove social justice advocates from the administrations. Education philanthropists must condition their financial support for higher education on the elimination of social justice advocacy. Businesses and nonprofit organizations must weigh in to demand that higher education cease to operate as an extension of progressive politics. They must also cease to create social justice jobs in the private sector, such as human resources positions dedicated to diversity. All citizens must express their desire for higher education reform that purges social justice advocacy from our universities.

Reform Policies

We provide a basic roadmap for removing social justice education from higher education—knowing that education reformers within the executive branch and the legislature, and in civil society, will determine what precise reforms are most effective and most feasible. Our primary goal in this report has been to delineate the size and nature of social justice education, and to suggest in general terms where to focus education reform.

Eliminate experiential learning courses.

Define credit-hours eligible for student loans and grants to exclude experiential learning.
Remove accreditation for institutions with experiential learning courses.
Eliminate federal work-study for community service.
Eliminate discretionary/competitive grants for experiential learning.

Remove social justice education from undergraduate general education requirements.

Limit and define general education requirements.
Create standard curricula for required courses that exclude social justice education.
Eliminate “competency-based” general education frameworks.

Remove social justice education from introductory college courses

1. Create standard curricula for introductory courses that exclude social justice education.

Remove social justice requirements from employment-credentialing departments.

Remove social justice from disciplinary requirements that provide job credentials.
Require rigorous external assessments of all graduates from gatekeeping disciplines.
Allow alternative credentialing, so job seekers can avoid social justice requirements.

Remove social justice positions from higher education administration.

Freeze staffing and cap funding and salaries for higher education administration.
Eliminate Bias Incident Response Teams.
Sunset administrative offices: e.g., shut down diversity and sustainability offices when a quantifiable level of diversity and sustainability has been achieved.
Require strategic plans at public universities to reduce the numbers of administrators.
Shift funding from higher education administration to tuition remission.
Stiffen education qualifications for higher education administrators, in areas of genuine knowledge rather than social justice pseudo-disciplines.

Restrict the power of social justice advocates in higher education administration.

Define the functions, goals, and vocabulary of higher education administrators.
Publicize political discrimination by higher education administrators.
Require public universities to guarantee due process rights; freedoms of speech, religion, and association; institutional neutrality; and intellectual freedom.

Eliminate the co-curriculum.

Define the functions and goals of the co-curriculum, and eliminate all positions that serve those functions or forward those goals.

Remove social justice requirements from higher education job advertisements.

Prohibit political litmus tests, such as those for social justice, diversity, or sustainability.

Remove social justice criteria from accreditation.

Require public universities to cease cooperation with social justice criteria for accreditation.

Student Non-Cooperation

The most effective solution to social justice education is for students to cease cooperating with social justice regulations. They should refuse to take required social justice courses and leave college without an empty credential if the universities refuse to graduate them. They should refuse to attend social justice activities. They should refuse to cooperate with bias response teams. They should refuse to cooperate with inquisitions by social justice administrators.

Students should also actively speak up in class against propaganda by their professors, and actively defend students, professors, and outside speakers from shoutdowns, violence, and other harassment by social justice mobs. But much of social justice education will collapse if students simply ignore its requirements.

Organizations focused on restoring liberty to higher education should research each campus’s apparatus of social justice requirements and publicize particular components which students should ignore. Mass non-cooperation will make it difficult for campus administrations to penalize individual students. Any attempts to penalize students for mass non-cooperation will also arouse favorable publicity, which should force campus administrations to retreat.

The non-cooperation, civil disobedience tactics of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., crippled British rule in India and Jim Crow in the American South. They should also be effective at crippling social justice education.

The University Restored

Social justice advocates pose a grave challenge to higher education. This challenge is national, and will require a national response. Student non-cooperation will significantly reduce the power of social justice education, but education reformers’ response must focus on cutting off funding for social justice education. Social justice advocates have flourished by a shrewd focus on draining higher education’s coffers to provide reliable salaries and career tracks for their cadres within the university. An equally shrewd focus on defunding them can serve to rid the university of social justice advocacy.

This reform campaign serves the interests of the nation as a whole. Social justice advocacy has been spreading into politics and the business world from its cradle in academia, with equally pernicious consequences as it subordinates these spheres to its own ends. The best way to remove social justice advocacy from the country as a whole is to remove it from its lucrative nest in higher education.

But that is not why we oppose social justice education. The National Association of Scholars champions a system of higher education dedicated to seeking out the truth. We can think of nothing more beautiful than a community of scholars working jointly and freely to learn and to teach. Social justice education destroys what a university should be. It shackles free minds and reduces the university to a squalid endeavor to propagandize young Americans and turn them into the leaders and followers of mob politics. Social justice education casually destroys what the Western university has taken centuries to build: an institution and a culture devoted to fostering the habit of free inquiry.

Social justice education destroys what a university should be. It shackles free minds and reduces the university to a squalid endeavor to propagandize young Americans.

We are dedicated to restoring this rare jewel—not just because America will be unspeakably impoverished by its destruction, but for its own sake. We call on all Americans who share our love for the free university to join us in ridding it of social justice education.

Select Bibliography

Adams, Paul, and Novak, Michael. Social Justice Isn’t What You Think It Is. Encounter Books, 2015.

Alinsky, Saul. Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. Vintage Books, 2010.

Bell, Derrick. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. Basic Books, 1992.

Burke, Thomas Patrick. The Concept of Justice: Is Social Justice Just? Bloomsbury, 2011.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.

Droel, William L. What Is Social Justice? ACTA Publications, 2011.

Dworkin, Ronald. “What Is Equality? Part 1: Equality of Resources.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981): 185–246.

Dworkin, Ronald. “What Is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Welfare.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981): 283–345.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan. Vintage Books, 1995.

Hayek, F. A. Law, Legislation and Liberty: A New Statement of the Liberal Principles of Justice and Political Economy. Routledge, 2013.

Is Social Justice, Just? Special issue of The Independent Review 24, 1 (2019).

McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies.” In Privilege: A Reader, Michael S. Kimmel and Abby Ferber, eds. (Westview Press, 2009), pp. 13–26.

Miller, David. Social Justice. Clarendon Press, 1976.

Molinari, Lori. “What Does the Left Mean by Social Justice?” The Heritage Foundation: Issue Brief 4667 (2017), https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2017-03/IB4667.pdf.

Nagel, Thomas. Equality and Partiality. Oxford University Press, 1991.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books, 2013.

Nussbaum, Martha C. Sex and Social Justice. Oxford University Press, 1999.

O’Neill, Ben. “The Injustice of Social Justice,” Mises Institute, 2011, https://mises.org/library/injustice-social-justice.

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Belknap, 1971.

Rothman, Noah. Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America. Regnery Gateway, 2019.

Sandel, Michael J., ed. Justice: A Reader. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Walzer, Michael. Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism and Equality. Blackwell, 1985.

¹ Usage of “Social Justice” from 1800 to 2008, Google Books Ngram Viewer, https://rb.gy/avj2e0.

² Martin Rhonheimer, “The True Meaning of ‘Social Justice’: A Catholic View of Hayek,” Economic Affairs 35, 1 (February 2015), pp. 35–51, http://austrian-institute.org/en/the-true-meaning-of-social-justice/.

³ “During a Hunger Banquet, each group experiences the wealth or poverty of their representative group. The very rich dine on a meal that most North Americans would consider standard: meat, vegetables, side dishes and clean water. The middle class receives a small bowl of rice and beans, typical of the meal that middle-class households often consume around the world. The poorest group sits on the floor, receiving only a communal pot of rice that leaves them all hungry.” Host a Hunger Banquet, Food for the Hungry, https://www.fh.org/2014/03/06/host-a-hunger-banquet/.

⁴ This is an informal estimate. No detailed study exists; one is sorely needed.

⁵ Stephen Hawkins, et al., Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape (More in Common, 2018), p. 6, https://rb.gy/q6p7ii.

⁶ San Francisco State University Mission Statement, San Francisco State University, http://senate.sfsu.edu/policy/revision-mission-statement-policy.

⁷ Resources for Self-Learning, Equity & Community Inclusion, San Francisco State University, https://equity.sfsu.edu/resources.

⁸ Laura Waxmann, “SF State President Apologizes for Comments About Zionists,” San Francisco Examiner, February 28, 2018, https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/sf-state-president-apologizes-for-comments-about-zionists/.

⁹ General Education, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/general-education/.

¹⁰ Lower-Division General Education, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/general-education/lower-division/#text.

¹¹ U.S. History and Government Requirement, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/graduation-requirements/#USHaGR.

¹² SF State Studies, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/sf-state-studies/.

¹³ Comm Courses, San Francisco State University, Coursicle, https://www.coursicle.com/sfsu/courses/COMM/.

¹⁴ All University (A U), San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/courses/a_u/.

¹⁵ Dean of Students Leadership Awards, Division of Student Life, San Francisco State University, https://dos.sfsu.edu/content/dean-students-leadership-awards.

¹⁶ First-Year Experience: Area E Course Expectations & Student Learning Outcomes, San Francisco State University, https://ueap.sfsu.edu/content/first-year-experience-area-e-course-expectations-student-learning-outcomes.

¹⁷ Service Learning, Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, San Francisco State University, http://icce.sfsu.edu/students/csl_courses.

¹⁸ Equity & Community Inclusion, San Francisco State University, https://equity.sfsu.edu/.

¹⁹ Ad Hoc Work Group on Equity & Social Justice Educational Outreach, San Francisco State University, https://equity.sfsu.edu/workgroup.

²⁰ César E. Chávez Institute, San Francisco State University, https://cci.sfsu.edu/center.

²¹ Constitution Day 2018 Program, San Francisco State University, https://history.sfsu.edu/content/constitution-day-2018-program.

²² 2019 SF State Faculty Retreat, San Francisco State University, https://facaffairs.sfsu.edu/2019-faculty-retreat.

²³ Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, PhilJobs: Jobs for Philosophers, https://philjobs.org/job/show/11018; Tenure-Track Position in Linguistics: Sociolinguistics, ChronicleVitae, https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000441944-01.

²⁴ Mitchell Langbert, “Homogeneous: The Political Affiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty,” Academic Questions 31, 2 (2018), pp. 186–97, https://www.nas.org/articles/homogenous_political_affiliations_of_elite_liberal; and see Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte, “Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty,” The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics 3, 1 (2005), https://doi.org/10.2202/1540-8884.1067; Sylvia Hurtado, et al., Undergraduate Teaching Faculty: The 2013–2014 HERI Faculty Survey (Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, 2014), https://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/HERI-FAC2014-monograph.pdf; Samuel J. Abrams, “There Are Conservative Professors. Just Not in These States,” The New York Times, July 1, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/there-are-conservative-professors-just-not-in-these-states.html. Some disciplines have resisted this radicalizing drift more successfully: see James W. Ceaser and Robert Maranto, “Why Political Science Is Left But Not Quite PC: Causes of Disunion and Diversity,” in The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reforms, eds. Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess (Washington, DC: The AEI Press, 2009), pp. 209–24, https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/-politically-correct-university_100224248924.pdf.

²⁵ John M. Ellis, Charles L. Geshekter, Peter W. Wood, Stephen H. Balch, A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California (National Association of Scholars, 2012), https://rb.gy/zk2yn4; Stephen H. Balch, The Politicization of the Pennsylvania Public University System (National Association of Scholars, 2005), https://rb.gy/feyj36.

²⁶ John Rawls’s thought was enormously important in reviving the idea of social justice in America and giving it intellectual respectability. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Belknap, 1971). Yet though Rawls is a crucial figure in the intellectual genealogy of modern social justice theory, modern social justice advocates in the university do not cite him frequently. Usually, figures such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Peggy McIntosh are their conscious sources.

²⁷ Thomas Patrick Burke, The Concept of Justice: Is Social Justice Just? (Bloomsbury, 2011). See also the symposium Is Social Justice, Just? in The Independent Review 24, 1 (2019), http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/toc.asp?issueID=98; and Noah Rothman, Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America (Regnery Gateway, 2019).

²⁸ Lori Molinari, “What Does the Left Mean by Social Justice?” The Heritage Foundation: Issue Brief 4667 (2017), p. 1, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2017-03/IB4667.pdf.

²⁹ “Defining ‘Social Justice’—What Is Social Justice?”, Reach & Teach, http://www.reachandteach.com/content/index.php?topic=socialjustice.

³⁰ “Defining ‘Social Justice’—What Is Social Justice?”, Reach & Teach.

³¹ “Defining ‘Social Justice’—What Is Social Justice?”

³² “Defining ‘Social Justice.’”

³³ Jon Miltimore, “Hayek: Social Justice Demands the Unequal Treatment of Individuals,” Foundation for Economic Education, November 13, 2018, https://fee.org/articles/hayek-social-justice-demands-the-unequal-treatment-of-individuals/.

³⁴ Molinari, “What Does the Left Mean by Social Justice?” pp. 2–4.

³⁵ “Memorandum,” Social Justice Task Force, SUNY Plattsburgh, August 1, 2018, https://www.plattsburgh.edu/_documents/president/recommendations-of-the-social-justice-task-force.pdf.

³⁶ Johnny Townsend, “Mandatory Courses on Race, Gender, and Social Justice,” LA Progressive, November 23, 2018, https://www.laprogressive.com/internalized-racial-superiority/.

³⁷ Rod Dreher, “Weimar Villanova,” The American Conservative, April 16, 2019, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/weimar-villanova-billie-murray/.

³⁸ Sherry K. Watt, “How to Start a Revolution,” ACPA Senior Scholars Blog, http://www.myacpa.org/blogs/senior-scholar-blog/how-start-revolution.

³⁹ “UF Social Justice Summit: For the Gator Good,” Social Justice Summit, University of Florida, https://education.ufl.edu/socialjusticesummit/.

⁴⁰ Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (Vintage Books, 1995); Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (Vintage Books, 2010).

⁴¹ Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge, 1990).

⁴² Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (Basic Books, 1992).

⁴³ Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies,” in Privilege: A Reader, Michael S. Kimmel and Abby Ferber, eds. (Westview Press, 2009), pp. 13–26.

⁴⁴ “ABC’s of Social Justice: A Glossary of Working Language for Socially Conscious Conversation,” Department of Inclusion & Multicultural Engagement, Lewis & Clark College, https://www.lclark.edu/live/files/18474-abcs-of-social-justice; “A Glossary of Social Justice Warrior Terminology, 2nd Edition,” The Zeroth Position, https://www.zerothposition.com/2018/03/30/glossary-social-justice-warrior-terminology-2nd-edition/.

⁴⁵ Anthony Esolen, “Pronouns, Ordinary People, and the War over Reality,” Public Discourse, October 12, 2016, https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/10/17811/.

⁴⁶ Coalition for Social Justice, Mission (What We Do), https://coalitionforsocialjustice.org/what-we-do/.

⁴⁷ Living Wage, Unitarian Universalist Association, https://www.uua.org/economic/livingwage.

⁴⁸ Resolution on Environmental and Climate Justice, National Nurses United, https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/sites/default/files/nnu/CNA-NNOC-Environmental-Justice-Resolution.pdf.

⁴⁹ “CSJ Official Advocacy Statement on Efforts to Replace the Affordable Care Act,” Counselors for Social Justice, April 7, 2017, https://www.counseling-csj.org/news/csj-official-advocacy-statement-on-efforts-to-replace-the-affordable-care-act.

⁵⁰ Robby Soave, “Leaked Internal Memo Reveals the ACLU Is Wavering on Free Speech,” Reason, June 21, 2018, https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/21/aclu-leaked-memo-free-speech.

⁵¹ K.C. Johnson and Stuart Taylor, The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities (Encounter, 2017).

⁵² “Voting Rights,” Southern Coalition for Social Justice, https://www.southerncoalition.org/voting-rights/.

⁵³ Marie-Christine Ghreichi and Sara Osman, “Black Lives Matter and Social Justice,” News and Events, University of Minnesota, July 28, 2016, https://cla.umn.edu/news-events/story/black-lives-matter-and-social-justice.

⁵⁴ Rosita Johnson, “Social Justice at Stake in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case,” People’s World, May 4, 2007, https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/social-justice-at-stake-in-mumia-abu-jamal-case/.

⁵⁵ Carrie Pettus-Davis and Matthew W. Epperson, “From Mass Incarceration to Smart Decarceration,” Center for Social Development, CSD Working Papers No. 14-31 (2014), https://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/WP14-31.pdf.

⁵⁶ Sophie Quinton, “Marijuana Bills Increasingly Focus on Social Justice,” Pew Stateline Article, July 19, 2018, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/07/19/marijuana-bills-increasingly-focus-on-social-justice.

⁵⁷ Morgan Hughes, “Salem State Researcher a ‘Champion’ of Social Justice,” The Boston Globe, October 5, 2018, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/globelocal/2018/10/05/salem-state-researcher-champion-social-justice/hD19GIS2zRIY1di09Fr0NI/story.html.

⁵⁸ “DACA Provides All Students with a Lesson in Social Justice,” PBS Newshour, February 5, 2018, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/daily-videos/__trashed/.

⁵⁹ Aisha Dodwell, “7 Reasons Why We Should Have Open Borders,” New Internationalist, November 29, 2017, https://newint.org/blog/2017/11/29/why-open-borders.

⁶⁰ Christopher Kang, “Why Affirmative Action Matters in the Larger Social and Racial Justice Movement: An Asian American Perspective,” The Huffington Post, December 17, 2015, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-kang/why-affirmative-action-ma_b_8829830.html.

⁶¹ Anthony Moujaes, “UCC Social Justice Advocates Keep Watch on ‘Religious Freedom,’” United Church of Christ News, https://rb.gy/bztug8.

⁶² Lore M. Dickey and Anneliese A. Singh, “Social Justice and Advocacy for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Clients,” Psychiatric Clinics North America 40, 1 (2017), pp. 1–13, https://www.psych.theclinics.com/article/S0193-953X(16)30075-2/pdf.

⁶³ Seffi Kogen, “How BDS Is Forcing Jewish Students Out of Social Justice Activism,” Forward, September 4, 2016, https://forward.com/opinion/349000/how-bds-is-pushing-jewish-students-out-of-social-justice-activism/.

⁶⁴ Natalia Smolentceva, “The Right to Abortion Is a Right to Social Justice,” Legal Dialogue, November 5, 2018, https://legal-dialogue.org/the-right-to-abortion-is-a-right-to-social-justice.

⁶⁵ Madison Park and Kyung Lah, “Berkeley Protests of Yiannopoulos Caused $100,000 in Damage,” CNN, February 2, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/us/milo-yiannopoulos-berkeley/index.html.

⁶⁶ Robby Soave, “Think the Green New Deal Is Crazy? Blame Intersectionality,” Reason, February 8, 2019, https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/08/green-new-deal-intersectionality-ocasio.

⁶⁷ Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (The World Publishing Company: Cleveland and New York, 1958), pp. 267–302, https://www.azioniparallele.it/images/materiali/Totalitarianism.pdf.

⁶⁸ Will Gu, “Pomona Adds Social Justice to Stats Curriculum,” The Claremont Independent, January 26, 2018, https://claremontindependent.com/pomona-adds-social-justice-stats-curriculum/.

⁶⁹ Mark Judge, “China’s Cultural Revolution and the Social Justice Left,” Law and Liberty, July 13, 2018, https://www.lawliberty.org/2018/07/13/chinas-cultural-revolution-and-the-social-justice-left/.

⁷⁰ Philip Carl Salzman, “The Growing Threat of Repressive Social Justice,” Minding the Campus, September 19, 2018, https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2018/09/19/the-growing-threat-of-repressive-social-justice/; Shirley Mthethwa-Sommers, “What Is Social Justice Education?” in Narratives of Social Justice Educators: Standing Firm (Springer, 2014), pp. 7–25. https://rb.gy/5x6j2v.

⁷¹ Theresa F. Henry, Athar Murturza, and Renee E. Weiss, “Accounting as an Instrument of Social Justice,” Open Journal of Social Sciences 3 (2015), pp. 66–81, https://file.scirp.org/pdf/JSS_2015011611474208.pdf.

⁷² Martin Predavec, Daniel Lunney, and Thom van Dooren, “Zoology on the Table: The Science, Sustainability and Politics of Eating Animals,” Australian Zoologist 39, 1 (2017), pp. 1–2, https://doi.org/10.7882/AZ.2017.037.

⁷³ Mthethwa-Sommers, “What Is Social Justice Education?” p. 22.

⁷⁴ Emil Višňovský and Štefan Zolcer, “Dewey’s Participatory Educational Democracy,” Educational Theory 66, 1-2 (2016), pp. 55–71, https://oushi.upol.cz/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2016_Deweys-Participatory-Educational-Democracy.pdf.

⁷⁵ Carlos Alberto Torres and Pedro Noguera, eds., Social Justice Education for Teachers: Paulo Freire and the Possible Dream (Sense Publishers, 2008), https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/967-social-justice-education-for-teachers.pdf.

⁷⁶ Heather W. Hackman, “Five Essential Components for Social Justice Education,” Equity & Excellence in Education 38, 2 (2005), pp. 103–9, esp. p. 104, http://ci563sum09.pbworks.com/f/HACKMAN.PDF.

⁷⁷ David Randall, Making Citizens: How American Universities Teach Civics (National Association of Scholars, 2017), https://www.nas.org/images/documents/NAS_makingCitizens_fullReport.pdf.

⁷⁸ Although to recognize that internships can have educational value has always begged the question of why they should be attached to a university, or given college credit. Kevin Carey, “Giving Credit, but Is It Due?” The New York Times, January 30, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/education/edlife/internships-for-credit-merited-or-not.html; Ellen Wexler, “Paying to Work,” Inside Higher Ed, May 17, 2016, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/17/when-students-pay-tuition-work-unpaid-internships.

⁷⁹ E.g., Experiential Learning, Elon Core Curriculum, Elon University, https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/core-curriculum/experiential-learning/.

⁸⁰ Spencer Case, “Is Service-Learning a Disservice to Philosophy?” Quillette, July 18, 2018, https://quillette.com/2018/07/18/is-service-learning-a-disservice-to-philosophy/#_ednref4.

⁸¹ Case, “Is Service-Learning a Disservice to Philosophy?”

⁸² John Kijinski, “On ‘Experiential Learning,’” Inside Higher Ed, January 8, 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/01/08/why-experiential-learning-often-isnt-good-classroom-learning-opinion.

⁸³ Mikyung Ryu, Credit for Prior Learning from the Student, Campus, and Industry Perspectives (American Council on Education, 2013), https://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Credit-for-Prior-Learning-Issue-Brief.pdf.

⁸⁴ See also Stephen Hicks, “Why Postmoderns Train—Not Educate—Activists,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, March 20, 2019, https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2019/03/why-postmoderns-train-not-educate-activists/.

⁸⁵ Dan W. Butin, “The Limits of Service-Learning in Higher Education,” The Review of Higher Education 29, 4 (2006), pp. 473–98, esp. pp. 483, 485–87, https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=soe_facpub.

⁸⁶ Randall, Making Citizens; Margaret B. Kwoka, “Intersecting Experiential Education and Social Justice Teaching,” Northeastern University Law Journal 6, 1 (2013), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2330000; Kathy L. Guthrie and Holly McCracken, “Teaching and Learning Social Justice Through Online Service-Learning Courses,” International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 11, 3 (2010), https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ913861.pdf.

⁸⁷ “Special Issue: New Methods in Social Justice Research for the 21st Century,” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 12, 2 (2009), https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tsrm20/12/2?nav=tocList.

⁸⁸ Fernando Peñaranda, Claudia Vélez-Zapata, and Leslie Rebecca Bloom, “Research from a Social Justice Perspective: The Systematization of an Experience,” International Review of Qualitative Research 6, 1 (2013), pp. 37–55, http://irqr.ucpress.edu/content/6/1/37; Deborah L. O’Connor and Brian J. O’Neill, “Toward Social Justice: Teaching Qualitative Research,” Journal of Teaching in Social Work 24, 3-4 (2004), pp. 19–33, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J067v24n03_02.

⁸⁹ Jeffrey J. Selingo, “Higher Education Is Headed for a Supply and Demand Crisis,” The Washington Post, January 28, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/01/27/higher-education-is-headed-for-a-supply-and-demand-crisis/?utm_term=.4ead9b1a37b1.

⁹⁰ Richard Vedder, “The Diminishing Returns of a College Degree,” The Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-diminishing-returns-of-a-college-degree-1496605241.

⁹¹ Zack Friedman, “Student Loan Debt Statistics in 2018: A $1.5 Trillion Crisis,” Forbes, June 13, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student-loan-debt-statistics-2018/#32c3ae497310.

⁹² E.g., Stephen Combs, “How Political Indoctrination Destroyed the Promise of Learning in College Writing Courses,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, September 7, 2018, https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/09/how-political-indoctrination-destroyed-the-promise-of-learning-in-college-writing-courses/.

⁹³ Diana E. Sheets, “The Crisis in the Humanities: Why Today’s Educational and Cultural Experts Can’t and Won’t Resolve the Failings of the Liberal Arts,” The Huffington Post, July 15, 2013, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-diana-e-sheets/the-crisis-in-the-humanit_b_3588171.html.

⁹⁴ Jonathan Kramnick, “How the Jobs Crisis Has Transformed Faculty Hiring,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 26, 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-the-Jobs-Crisis-Has/244324.

⁹⁵ See also Barry Latzer, The Scandal of Social Work Education (National Association of Scholars, 2007), https://www.nas.org/images/documents/TheScandalofSocialWorkEducation.pdf; David Stoesz, “Unordering Liberty: The Legacy of Frances Fox Piven,” Academic Questions 28, 3 (2015), pp. 281–88, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12129-015-9513-0; Shannon R. Lane and Suzanne Pritzker, “‘Promoting the General Welfare of Society’: The Political Activity of Social Workers and Human Service Organizations,” in Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change (Springer, 2017), pp. 45–76, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-68588-5_3.

⁹⁶ Bureau of Labor Statistics: Postsecondary Education Administrators, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/postsecondary-education-administrators.htm; Postsecondary Teachers, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/postsecondary-teachers.htm.

⁹⁷ E.g., Michael Toscano and Peter Wood, What Does Bowdoin Teach? How a Contemporary Liberal Arts College Shapes Students (National Association of Scholars, 2013), https://rb.gy/hbfcr2.

⁹⁸ Rachelle Peterson and Peter Wood, Sustainability: Higher Education's New Fundamentalism (National Association of Scholars, 2015), https://www.nas.org/storage/app/media/images/documents/NAS-Sustainability-Digital.pdf.

⁹⁹ Current Courses, Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, https://africana.cornell.edu/courses-index.

¹⁰⁰ And see Disinvitation Database, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, https://www.thefire.org/research/disinvitation-database/#home.

¹⁰¹ Gene A. Bunin, “‘We’re a People Destroyed’: Why Uighur Muslims Across China Are Living in Fear,” The Guardian, August 7, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/07/why-uighur-muslims-across-china-are-living-in-fear.

¹⁰² Mission Statement of Yale College, Yale College Programs of Study 2018–2019, Bulletin of Yale University, http://catalog.yale.edu/ycps/mission-statement/.

¹⁰³ ASU Mission & Goals, Arizona State University, https://president.asu.edu/about/asucharter.

¹⁰⁴ Evergreen’s Mission, Evergreen State College, http://www.evergreen.edu/about/mission.

¹⁰⁵ Mission Statement and Values, Gonzaga University, https://www.gonzaga.edu/About/Mission/MissionStatement.asp.

¹⁰⁶ Kansas State University Mission, Kansas State University, https://www.k-state.edu/about/mission/.

¹⁰⁷ Mission, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/our-story/mission.

¹⁰⁸ Values and Principles Statement, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, https://harrisburg.psu.edu/about-us/vision-mission-and-values.

¹⁰⁹ Vision, Mission, & SOU Values, Southern Oregon University, https://sou.edu/president/vision-mission-values/.

¹¹⁰ Mission, Guiding Principles and Vision Statement, University of Colorado Boulder, https://www.cu.edu/mission-university-colorado-guiding-principles-and-vision-statement.

¹¹¹ Purpose and Mission, University of Iowa, https://opsmanual.uiowa.edu/governance/university-iowa/purpose-and-mission.

¹¹² Mission and Integrity, University of Michigan, http://www.accreditation.umich.edu/mission/.

¹¹³ Mission Statements, University of Montana, http://www.umt.edu/president/mission.php.

¹¹⁴ Introduction to Penn, University of Pennsylvania, https://www.upenn.edu/about/welcome.

¹¹⁵ Mission, Vision and Values, University of Toledo, http://www.utoledo.edu/campus/about/mission.html.

¹¹⁶ Vision, Mission, and Values, Washington State University, https://strategicplan.wsu.edu/plan/vision-mission-and-values/.

¹¹⁷ Vision, Mission and Values, Eastern Kentucky University, https://strategicplanning.eku.edu/vision-mission-and-values.

¹¹⁸ Stony Brook University Mission Statement, Stony Brook–SUNY, http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/pres/vision/mission.php.

¹¹⁹ Mason Vision, George Mason University, https://vision.gmu.edu/the-mason-vision/our-goal/.

¹²⁰ Mission Statement, Miami University of Ohio, https://miamioh.edu/about-miami/leadership/president/mission/index.html.

¹²¹ History, Values, & Vision, Prescott College, http://www.prescott.edu/explore/vision-values-history.php.

¹²² Evergreen’s Mission, Evergreen State College.

¹²³ Vision, Mission, & SOU Values, Southern Oregon University.

¹²⁴ Our Mission, Antioch University Los Angeles, https://www.antioch.edu/los-angeles/why-au/mission-values/.

¹²⁵ UAB’s Strategic Plan, University of Alabama Birmingham, http://www.uab.edu/plan/.

¹²⁶ Mission Statements, University of Montana.

¹²⁷ Vision & Values, University of Washington, http://www.washington.edu/about/visionvalues/.

¹²⁸ Vision, Mission, and Values, Washington State University, https://strategicplan.wsu.edu/plan/vision-mission-and-values/.

¹²⁹ San Francisco State University Mission Statement, San Francisco State University, http://senate.sfsu.edu/policy/revision-mission-statement-policy.

¹³⁰ Vision, Mission and Values, Eastern Kentucky University.

¹³¹ Mission Statement and Values, Gonzaga University, https://www.gonzaga.edu/About/Mission/MissionStatement.asp.

¹³² Vision, Mission, & SOU Values, Southern Oregon University.

¹³³ Introduction to Penn, University of Pennsylvania, https://www.upenn.edu/about/welcome.

¹³⁴ History, Values, & Vision, Prescott College.

¹³⁵ Mission, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/our-story/mission.

¹³⁶ Vision, Mission, & SOU Values, Southern Oregon University.

¹³⁷ Board of Regents Policy: Mission Statement, University of Minnesota, https://regents.umn.edu/sites/regents.umn.edu/files/policies/Mission_Statement.pdf.

¹³⁸ Mission and History, Hamline University, https://www.hamline.edu/about/mission.html.

¹³⁹ Mission, Merrimack College, https://www.merrimack.edu/about/mission/.

¹⁴⁰ Origins, Mission and Vision, Pacific University, https://www.pacificu.edu/pacific-directory/leadership/presidents-office/origins-mission-and-vision.

¹⁴¹ UAB’s Strategic Plan, University of Alabama Birmingham, http://www.uab.edu/plan/.

¹⁴² Our Mission, Antioch University Los Angeles, https://www.antioch.edu/los-angeles/why-au/mission-values/.

¹⁴³ Evergreen’s Mission, Evergreen State College, http://www.evergreen.edu/about/mission.

¹⁴⁴ History, Values, & Vision, Prescott College.

¹⁴⁵ San Francisco State University Mission Statement, San Francisco State University, http://senate.sfsu.edu/policy/revision-mission-statement-policy.

¹⁴⁶ University Commitment to Social Justice, Roosevelt University, http://isc.roosevelt.edu/why-roosevelt-university/social-justice.

¹⁴⁷ Cabrini’s Mission, Cabrini University, https://www.cabrini.edu/about/mission.

¹⁴⁸ Mission Statement and Values, Gonzaga University, https://www.gonzaga.edu/About/Mission/MissionStatement.asp.

¹⁴⁹ Charles E. Curran, Catholic Social Teaching 1891–Present: A Historical, Theological, and Ethical Analysis (Georgetown University Press, 2002).

¹⁵⁰ E.g., Courses, Solidarity & Social Justice, Gonzaga University, https://www.gonzaga.edu/college-of-arts-sciences/departments/solidarity-social-justice/courses.

¹⁵¹ See also Inclusion & Diversity Statement of Commitment, Antioch University Los Angeles; Diversity Statement, Brandeis University; EKU Comprehensive Diversity Plan, Eastern Kentucky University; Statement on Diversity, Merrimack College; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy Statement, Ohio Wesleyan University; Office for Equity and Diversity: Mission, Vision, & Values, University of Minnesota.

¹⁵² Diversity and Inclusion, Barnard College, https://barnard.edu/vision-values/diversity-inclusion/mission-statement.

¹⁵³ Commitment to Diversity, Brooklyn College–CUNY, https://rb.gy/bd0cdf.

¹⁵⁴ Inclusive Excellence, Saint Mary’s College of California, https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/about-smc/our-commitments/inclusive-excellence.

¹⁵⁵ Diversity and Inclusion, Prescott College, http://www.prescott.edu/explore/history-values-vision/index.php.

¹⁵⁶ E.g., Kevin Hovland, Shared Futures: Global Learning and Liberal Education (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2006), p. 13, http://archive.aacu.org/SharedFutures/documents/Shared_Futures.pdf.

¹⁵⁷ Anabel Munoz, “CSUN Students Protest Education Requirement Order That Could Affect Diversity, Gender, Cultural Studies,” ABC7, September 14, 2018, https://abc7.com/education/csun-students-protest-over-requirement-order-on-diversity-studies/4239482/; and see Timothy P. White, “General Education Breadth Requirements – Executive Order 1100 – Revised August 23, 2017,” https://calstate.policystat.com/policy/6741976/latest/; Dianne F. Harrison, “CSUN General Education Update,” August 28, 2018, https://www.csun.edu/president/csun-general-education-update.

¹⁵⁸ The Core Curriculum, Columbia University, https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/core; St. John’s College Reading List, St. John’s College, https://rb.gy/daeanc; General Education, University of Chicago, http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/thecurriculum/#generaleducation.

¹⁵⁹ Lower-Division General Education, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/general-education/lower-division/#areaatext; Upper-Division General Education, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/general-education/upper-division/; SF State Studies, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/sf-state-studies/.

¹⁶⁰ The Brown Degree, Brown University, https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/degree/.

¹⁶¹ General Education, San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/general-education/.

¹⁶² University Undergraduate General Studies Requirement, Arizona State University, https://catalog.asu.edu/ug_gsr.

¹⁶³ Engaging the World, Core Curriculum Course Offerings, St. Mary’s College of California, https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/academics/core-curriculum-course-offerings.

¹⁶⁴ Degree Requirements, Indiana University Bloomington, https://bulletins.iu.edu/iub/college/2016-2017/degree-requirements/cultural-studies.shtml.

¹⁶⁵ Diversity, University of Washington, https://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/degree-overview/general-education/diversity/.

¹⁶⁶ “Students receive a full semester of college credit (16 units) while volunteering full-time in a Presidential U.S. Senate U.S. House [sic] or gubernatorial campaign.” POLS 270 Campaign Fieldwork Internship, Occidental College, http://oxy.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2018-2019/Catalog/Course-Descriptions/POLS-Politics/Applied-Politics-Courses/POLS-270.

¹⁶⁷ New Curriculum Degree Requirements (Fall 2020), Cornell University, https://as.cornell.edu/curriculum.

¹⁶⁸ Apply Knowledge and Skills beyond the Classroom (Experiential Learning, EXP+), Stony Brook University, https://rb.gy/2otocz.

¹⁶⁹ Arts and Science Curriculum Proposal, Cornell University, https://as.cornell.edu/curriculum; Global Citizenship, Registration Guide, Hamline University, p. 5, https://rb.gy/dsgvyr.

¹⁷⁰ Stephen Combs, “How Political Indoctrination Destroyed the Promise of Learning in College Writing Courses,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, September 7, 2018, https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/09/how-political-indoctrination-destroyed-the-promise-of-learning-in-college-writing-courses/.

¹⁷¹ GSTR 210 Writing Seminar II: Identity and Diversity in the United States, Berea College, http://catalog.berea.edu/en/2014-2015/Catalog/Courses/GSTR-General-Studies-Required/200/GSTR-210.

¹⁷² Seminars for 2018, Pomona College, http://catalog.pomona.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=28&poid=5385.

¹⁷³ Degree Requirements, Cornell University, https://as.cornell.edu/degree-requirements.

¹⁷⁴ Appendix A.1 General Education (Baccalaureate Degree), Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, http://senate.psu.edu/policies-and-rules-for-undergraduate-students/appendix-a-1-general-education-baccalaureate-degree/.

¹⁷⁵ Difference and Justice in the World, Brandeis University, https://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/bulletin/provisional/req-ugrd-beginning-fall-2019/global-engagement/djw.html.

¹⁷⁶ Justice Matters: Cabrini’s Core Curriculum, Cabrini University, https://www.cabrini.edu/undergraduate/programs/justice-matters-core-curriculum.

¹⁷⁷ University Undergraduate General Studies Requirement, Arizona State University, https://catalog.asu.edu/ug_gsr.

¹⁷⁸ Cultural Diversity Requirement, Davidson College, https://www.davidson.edu/offices/registrar/graduation-requirements/cultural-diversity.

¹⁷⁹ The University Core Registration Guide, Gonzaga University, https://www.gonzaga.edu/-/media/Website/Documents/Academics/University-Core/university-core-registration-guide.ashx?la=en&hash=392F0AE1A3284960706DB05AFB8FDED0500CA70E.

¹⁸⁰ Degree Requirements, Pomona College, http://catalog.pomona.edu/content.php?catoid=28&navoid=5634.

¹⁸¹ Diversity Requirement, University of Colorado Boulder, https://www.colorado.edu/artsandsciences/undergraduate/degree-requirements/general-education-requirements/diversity-requirement.

¹⁸² Race and Ethnicity (R&E) Requirement, University of Michigan, https://lsa.umich.edu/lsa/academics/lsa-requirements/race-and-ethnicity--r-e--requirement.html.

¹⁸³ A&S Diversity Intensive Initiative, University of Missouri, https://coas.missouri.edu/diversity-intensive-initiative.

¹⁸⁴ Multicultural and International Requirements, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, https://www.unlv.edu/provost/multicultural-requirements.

¹⁸⁵ US Global Diversity & Inclusion Undergraduate Requirement, University of New Mexico, https://unmcore.unm.edu/unm-diversity-requirement.html.

¹⁸⁶ Diversity, University of Washington, https://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/degree-overview/general-education/diversity/.

¹⁸⁷ Zachary Michael Jack, “Gen-Ed Revision Could Be Gen-Ed Reduction,” Inside Higher Ed, April 5, 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/04/05/colleges-should-consider-halving-gen-ed-curriculum-requirements-opinion.

¹⁸⁸ General Tuition & Fees Undergraduate Degree Program All Campuses, Fall 2018 and Spring, 2019, Arizona State University, https://catalog.asu.edu/tuitionandfees/fall18undergraddegreeprogallcampus.

¹⁸⁹ Education Department Budget History Table, FY 1980–FY 2019 President’s Budget, United States Department of Education, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/edhistory.pdf.

¹⁹⁰ University Catalogs, University of Minnesota: CI 1826 Social Change, Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Calculus (MATH), https://onestop2.umn.edu/pcas/viewCatalogCourse.do?courseId=817385; ARTS 1001 Introduction to Contemporary Art and Theory (AH, DSJ), https://onestop2.umn.edu/pcas/viewCatalogCourse.do?courseId=005459; BTHX 8520 Social Justice and Bioethics, https://onestop2.umn.edu/pcas/viewCatalogCourse.do?courseId=815966.

¹⁹¹ Mandira Banerjee, “$2.5M Gift to Create Professorship to Support Social Justice,” The University Record, University of Michigan, December 6, 2018, https://record.umich.edu/articles/25m-gift-create-professorship-support-social-justice.

¹⁹² Statement of Core Values, Department of English, Kansas State University, https://www.k-state.edu/english/values.html.

¹⁹³ Charles Kupfer, “American Studies: A Sad Tale of Academic Decline,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, December 28, 2016, https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2016/12/american-studies-sad-tale-academic-decline/.

¹⁹⁴ Although social justice advocates are preparing to expel straight white men from leadership of sustainability organizations. Nicole Smith Dahmen, “The Overwhelming Whiteness of US Environmentalism Is Hobbling the Fight Against Climate Change,” Quartz, January 4, 2017, https://qz.com/877447/the-overwhelming-whiteness-of-the-us-environmentalist-movement-is-hobbling-the-fight-against-climate-change/.

¹⁹⁵ Lyell Asher, “How Ed Schools Became a Menace,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 8, 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Ed-Schools-Became-a-Menace/243062; Jay Schalin, The Politicization of University Schools of Education: The Long March through the Education Schools (The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 2019), https://www.jamesgmartin.center/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The-Politicization-of-University-Schools-of-Education.pdf.

¹⁹⁶ Read the Code of Ethics, National Association of Social Workers, http://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English; Barry Latzer, The Scandal of Social Work Education (National Association of Scholars, 2007), https://www.nas.org/images/documents/TheScandalofSocialWorkEducation.pdf; Allie Bidwell, “How Social Work Is Evolving into Social Justice,” U.S. News & World Report, July 10, 2015, https://www.usnews.com/news/college-of-tomorrow/articles/2015/07/10/colleges-highlight-social-justice-in-schools-of-social-work-public-service.

¹⁹⁷ Joe R. Feagin, “Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty-First Century,” American Sociological Review 66 (2001), pp. 1–20, https://rb.gy/riw28b.

¹⁹⁸ Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars (Palgrave, 2018), p. 187.

¹⁹⁹ Randall, Making Citizens.

²⁰⁰ “At UMass UWW, you can design your own program of study, take 100% online, blended, or on-campus courses that fit into your busy life, and bring in or earn up to 105 credits for your prior coursework, prior learning, and work and life experience.” Why UWW, University Without Walls, University of Massachusetts Amherst, https://www.umass.edu/uww/why-uww.

²⁰¹ Stephen Combs, “Freshman Comp: Often More About Politics Than Sentences,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, July 31, 2015 https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2015/07/freshman-comp-often-more-about-politics-than-sentences/; Stephen Combs, “How Political Indoctrination Destroyed the Promise of Learning in College Writing Courses,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, September 7, 2018, https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/09/how-political-indoctrination-destroyed-the-promise-of-learning-in-college-writing-courses/.

²⁰² WRD 201 The Art of Essay Writing, Occidental College, http://oxy.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2018-2019/Catalog/Course-Descriptions/WRD-Writing-Rhetoric/200/WRD-201.

²⁰³ GSTR 210 Writing Seminar II: Identity and Diversity, Berea College.

²⁰⁴ ENGL 110 Freshman Composition: Rhetoric and Social Justice, City University of New York, https://fiqwsha2.commons.gc.cuny.edu/.

²⁰⁵ ENGL 110 Freshman Composition: Writing Resistance, City University of New York, https://resistance.commons.gc.cuny.edu/.

²⁰⁶ Current Courses, John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University, https://knight.as.cornell.edu/courses-index.

²⁰⁷ Fall 2018 First-Year Writing Seminars, Cornell University, https://fws.arts.cornell.edu/brochures/2018fa_Brochure.pdf.

²⁰⁸ Fall 2018 First-Year Writing Seminars, Cornell University.

²⁰⁹ WRT 2020 Writing for Social Change, Merrimack College, https://rb.gy/giy2ob.

²¹⁰ WRD 377 Writing and Social Engagement: Language, Identity, Collaboration, DePaul University, https://dpuenglish.com/2019/05/16/summer-quarter-course-highlight-writing-and-social-engagement/.

²¹¹ WRD 201 The Art of Essay Writing, Occidental College, http://oxy.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2018-2019/Catalog/Course-Descriptions/WRD-Writing-Rhetoric/200/WRD-201.

²¹² Comm Courses, San Francisco State University, Coursicle, https://www.coursicle.com/sfsu/courses/COMM/.

²¹³ Rhetoric, General Catalog, University of Iowa, http://catalog.registrar.uiowa.edu/liberal-arts-sciences/rhetoric/#coursestext.

²¹⁴ WRIT:2100:0001 Writing and Community Outreach, University of Iowa, https://myui.uiowa.edu/my-ui/courses/details.page?id=888728&ci=171323.

²¹⁵ Heather E. Bruce, “ENT 440.01: Teaching Writing and Justice,” Syllabi 927 (2012), https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7ad8/0b286ca968ed019e644809e0ec5c00b9e6dd.pdf.

²¹⁶ Communication Studies, Courses, University of North Carolina, https://catalog.unc.edu/courses/comm/.

²¹⁷ Comm Courses, San Francisco State University, Coursicle, https://www.coursicle.com/sfsu/courses/COMM/.

²¹⁸ Rhetoric, General Catalog, University of Iowa; Rhetoric, First-Year Seminars, https://myui.uiowa.edu/my-ui/courses/dashboard.page?q.courseSubject=RHET&q.courseNumber=1000&showResults=1.

²¹⁹ Communication Studies, Courses, University of North Carolina.

²²⁰ Arizona Writing and Social Justice Conference, Department of English, Arizona State University, https://english.clas.asu.edu/news-events/events/arizona-writing-and-social-justice-conference.

²²¹ Fall 2018 First-Year Writing Seminars, Cornell University, https://fws.arts.cornell.edu/brochures/2018fa_Brochure.pdf.

²²² Fall CSP Seminars, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/academics/core-program/fall-csp-seminars.

²²³ An MWP Open Institute for Teachers, July 2018, Minnesota Writing Project, http://writing.umn.edu/mwp/open/index.html.

²²⁴ Montana Writing Project, University of Montana, http://hs.umt.edu/mwp/default.php.

²²⁵ Collective Advocacy Project, Writing Fellows, Barnard College, https://writing.barnard.edu/collective-advocacy-project.

²²⁶ Assistant Professor in Rhetoric and Composition, Full-Time Tenure-Track, St. Mary’s College of California, https://apply.interfolio.com/53317.

²²⁷ Courses, Journalism, Gonzaga University, https://www.gonzaga.edu/college-of-arts-sciences/departments/integrated-media/journalism/courses.

²²⁸ Major Requirements, Journalism, DePaul University, https://catalog.depaul.edu/programs/journalism-ba/#majorrequirementstext.

²²⁹ Social Justice and Investigative Reporting, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/journalism/graduate-journalism/specializations/social-justice-and-investigative-reporting/index.html.

²³⁰ Lisa Zimmerelli, “A Place to Begin: Service-Learning Tutor Education and Writing Center Social Justice,” Writing Center Journal 35, 1 (2015), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43673619?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

²³¹ Michelle Hall Kells, “Writing Across the Communities and the Writing Center as Cultural Ecotone: Language Diversity, Civic Engagement, and Graduate Student Leadership,” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, http://www.praxisuwc.com/kells-141.

²³² Asao B. Inoue, “Afterword: Narratives That Determine Writers and Social Justice Writing Center Work,” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, http://www.praxisuwc.com/inoue-141.

²³³ Mia Alafaireet and Nancy Linh Karls, “Writing for Social Justice: Writer-Activists Share Their Work,” Another Word, https://dept.writing.wisc.edu/blog/writing-for-social-justice-writer-activists-share-their-work/.

²³⁴ See also Abigail Herbst, “Why ‘Social Justice Math’ Misses the Point of Learning Math,” Intellectual Takeout, June 27, 2018, https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-social-justice-math-misses-point-learning-math.

²³⁵ A Collective Call to Action: Equity and Social Justice in Mathematics Education: From Awareness to Action, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, https://www.nctm.org/equityandsocialjustice/.

²³⁶ Social Justice Math, Radical Math, http://www.radicalmath.org/main.php?id=SocialJusticeMath.

²³⁷ Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teaching – TM: Lesson Analysis Tool, Teachers Empowered to Advance Change in Mathematics, http://www.mathconnect.hs.iastate.edu/documents/CRMTLessonAnalysisTool.pdf.

²³⁸ “Mathematics Education Through the Lens of Social Justice: Acknowledgment, Actions, and Accountability,” National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics and TODOS: Mathematics for ALL, https://www.todos-math.org/assets/docs2016/2016Enews/3.pospaper16_wtodos_8pp.pdf.

²³⁹ “Mathematics Education Through the Lens of Social Justice: Acknowledgment, Actions, and Accountability,” National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics and TODOS: Mathematics for ALL, https://www.todos-math.org/assets/docs2016/2016Enews/3.pospaper16_wtodos_8pp.pdf.

²⁴⁰ E.g., Toni Airaksinen, “Teachers Learn to Use Math as Trojan Horse for Social Justice,” Campus Reform, May 16, 2017, https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9187; “Teaching Mathematics through Social Justice: Mathematics Ideas for the Classroom and Beyond, A Joint Workshop of NCTM and TODOS,” National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Annual Meeting & Exposition 2019, https://www.nctm.org/Conferences-and-Professional-Development/Annual-Meeting-and-Exposition/Social-Justice-Workshop/; Elisha McNeil, “To Enliven Lessons, Teachers Bring Social Justice into Math Classes,” Education Week Teacher, December 11, 2015, https://rb.gy/6ufwkn.

²⁴¹ Tutoring Math and Science for Social Justice, Evergreen State College, https://evergreen.edu/catalog/offering/tutoring-math-and-science-social-justice-16586.

²⁴² The Mathematics of Social Justice - FYS 141, Lafayette College, https://lafayette.givepulse.com/group/199442-The-Mathematics-of-Social-Justice-FYS-141.

²⁴³ Will Gu, “Pomona Adds Social Justice to Stats Curriculum,” The Claremont Independent, January 26, 2018, https://claremontindependent.com/pomona-adds-social-justice-stats-curriculum/.

²⁴⁴ All University (A U), San Francisco State University, http://bulletin.sfsu.edu/courses/a_u/.

²⁴⁵ All University (A U), San Francisco State University.

²⁴⁶ EDUC 210 Mathematics and Social Justice, University of Michigan, http://www.soe.umich.edu/academics/courses/educ_210/.

²⁴⁷ SW 673 Statistics in Policy Analysis and Evaluation, University of Michigan, https://ssw.umich.edu/courses/descriptions/SW673.

²⁴⁸ CI 1826 Social Justice Calculus (MATH), University Catalogs, University of Minnesota, https://onestop2.umn.edu/pcas/viewCatalogCourse.do?courseId=817385.

²⁴⁹ All University (A U), San Francisco State University.

²⁵⁰ Gu, “Pomona Adds Social Justice to Stats Curriculum,” Claremont Independent.

²⁵¹ Elizabeth Harrington, “Feds Spend $1,009,762 Training ‘Social Justice’ Math Teachers,” The Washington Free Beacon, September 18, 2018, https://freebeacon.com/issues/feds-spend-1009762-training-social-justice-math-teachers/.

²⁵² “College of Education – Science Education – Mathematics, Science, and Learning Technologies Concentration – Assistant/Associate Professor,” University of Massachusetts, https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=5e7cb0daf974502d&tk=1cprusnf1548l803&from=serp&vjs=3.

²⁵³ Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics (2017), pp. 34, 163, https://amte.net/sites/default/files/SPTM.pdf.

²⁵⁴ Lawrence M. Lesser, “Critical Values and Transforming Data: Teaching Statistics with Social Justice,” Journal of Statistics Education 15, 1 (2007), http://jse.amstat.org/v15n1/lesser.html.

²⁵⁵ Kari Kokka, “Healing-Informed Social Justice Mathematics: Promoting Students’ Sociopolitical Consciousness and Well-Being in Mathematics Class,” Urban Education, November 4, 2018, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042085918806947.

²⁵⁶ Kathy Hoke, Lauren Keough, and Joanna Wares, “Mass Incarceration and Eviction Applications in Calculus: A First-Timer Approach,” Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies 29, 3-4 (2019), pp. 345–57, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511970.2018.1505792.

²⁵⁷ Eric “Rico” Gutstein, “The Struggle Is Pedagogical: Learning to Teach Critical Mathematics,” The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today, June 10, 2018, pp. 131–43, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77760-3_8.

²⁵⁸ Hope Buckner, “Students Travel to Australia to Study Poisons and Social Justice,” August 13, 2018, Belmont University, http://news.belmont.edu/students-travel-to-australia-to-study-poisons-and-social-justice/.

²⁵⁹ Randall, Making Citizens.

²⁶⁰ Samuel J. Abrams, “Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators,” The New York Times, October 16, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/opinion/liberal-college-administrators.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur.

²⁶¹ Social Justice Higher Education Administration, MA, University of La Verne, https://laverne.edu/programs/sjhe/.

²⁶² Master of Education in Higher Education Leadership and Social Justice, Bellarmine University, https://www.bellarmine.edu/education/graduate/master-of-education-in-higher-education-leadership-and-social-justice/.

²⁶³ Social Justice Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst, https://www.umass.edu/education/programs/social-justice.

²⁶⁴ Program Learning Outcomes, Master of Arts in Higher Education, University of Redlands, https://www.redlands.edu/study/schools-and-centers/school-of-education/academics/graduate-department-of-leadership-and-highereducation/ma-higher-ed/.

²⁶⁵ Master’s in Higher Education Administration, George Washington University, https://gsehd.gwu.edu/programs/masters-higher-education-administration.

²⁶⁶ MA, Higher Education & Student Affairs Administration, Morgan State University, https://rb.gy/p4ev58.

²⁶⁷ Higher Education Administration (HIED) Ph.D. Program, Bowling Green State University, https://www.bgsu.edu/education-and-human-development/department-of-higher-education-and-student-affairs/higher-education-administration.html; Master of Education in Higher Education Leadership, Oakland University, https://oakland.edu/orgleadership/educational-leadership-programs/mahel/; Graduate Programs, Department of Education Leadership and Policy, University of Texas at Austin, https://education.utexas.edu/departments/educational-leadership-policy/graduate-programs; Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration, University of Vermont, http://catalogue.uvm.edu/graduate/highered/.

²⁶⁸ Jay P. Greene, Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education, Goldwater Institute, Policy Report No. 239, August 17, 2010, https://goldwaterinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/cms_page_media/2015/3/24/Administrative%20Bloat.pdf; J. David Johnson, “Administrative Bloat at the University of Kentucky: A Case Study on Retention,” Academic Questions 30, 4 (2017), pp. 460–70, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12129-017-9673-1.

²⁶⁹ “New Analysis Shows Problematic Boom in Higher Ed Administrators,” New England Center for Investigative Reporting, February 6, 2014, https://www.necir.org/2014/02/06/new-analysis-shows-problematic-boom-in-higher-ed-administrators/.

²⁷⁰ Priya Thomas, “Uncovering the Value of the Co-Curricular Transcript,” Presence, June 22, 2018, http://www.presence.io/blog/uncovering-the-value-of-the-co-curricular-transcript/.

²⁷¹ Co-Curricular Learning Outcomes, Division of Student Affairs, Marquette University, https://www.marquette.edu/student-affairs/assessment-outcomes.php.

²⁷² Co-Curricular Transcript, Student Life, University of California Riverside, http://students701.ucr.edu/vcsa-studentlife/leadership/cocurriculartranscript.html; Thomas, “Uncovering the Value of the Co-Curricular Transcript,” Presence.

²⁷³ Heather Mac Donald, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018), p. 187.

²⁷⁴ DDCE Directory, Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, The University of Texas at Austin, http://diversity.utexas.edu/ddce-directory/; Mark Pulliam, “‘Social Justice’ Is Overrunning the University of Texas,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, August 15, 2018, https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/08/social-justice-is-overrunning-the-university-of-texas/.

²⁷⁵ “OMA Accepting Applications for 2018 Social Justice Fellows,” The University of Kansas, November 13, 2017, https://news.ku.edu/oma-accepting-applications-2018-social-justice-fellows.

²⁷⁶ Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Educators, American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, 2015, esp. pp. 4–5, 14, 30–31, https://rb.gy/6gqkdw.

²⁷⁷ HPC 5821 Social Justice and Inclusion in Student Affairs, Bulletin, Appalachian State University, http://bulletin.appstate.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=10&coid=28774.

²⁷⁸ Diversity and Social Justice Statement for the Division of Student Affairs, University of Florida, https://career.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/UF-DSA-CCC-Diversity-Charge-2.pdf.

²⁷⁹ Kata Traxler, “Doing Student Affairs Work with a Social Justice Lense [sic],” NASPA, June 21, 2016, https://www.naspa.org/constituent-groups/posts/doing-student-affairs-work-with-a-social-justice-lense.

²⁸⁰ Social Justice Education, Division of Student Affairs, Northwestern University, https://www.northwestern.edu/socialjustice/index.html.

²⁸¹ E.g., Brian L. Bourke, “Advancing Toward Social Justice via Student Affairs Inquiry,” The Journal of Student Affairs Inquiry, April 15, 2017, https://jsai.scholasticahq.com/article/1620-advancing-toward-social-justice-via-student-affairs-inquiry; Aaron Hood, “Social Justice in Student Affairs,” AaronHood.net, June 9, 2015, http://aaronhood.net/social-justice-in-student-affairs/; Nadeeka D. Karunaratne, Lauren M. Koppel, and chee ia yang, “Navigating a Social Justice Motivation and Praxis as Student Affairs Professionals,” Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs 3, 2 (2017), pp. 45–50, https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1093&context=jcshesa.

²⁸² Rayane Alamuddin and Melissa Bender, “The First-Year Experience in Two-Year Public Postsecondary Programs,” Ithaka S+R, September 26, 2018, https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/the-first-year-experience-in-two-year-public-postsecondary-programs/; Debra David, “Reaching ‘At-Risk’ First-Year Students through the FYE Course,” San José State University, https://sc.edu/nrc/presentation/international/2009/int2009files/63-PR.pdf.

²⁸³ John Tierney, “Reeducation Campus,” City Journal, Summer 2018, https://www.city-journal.org/first-year-experience-16032.html.

²⁸⁴ David Randall, Beach Books 2017–2018: What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class? (National Association of Scholars: New York, 2018), https://www.nas.org/projects/beachbooks.

²⁸⁵ Sophomore Year Experience, Duke University, https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/hdrl/sophomores-juniors-seniors/sophomore-year-experience-sye; Second-Year Experience, University of Minnesota, http://www.secondyear.umn.edu/; Second-Year Experience, University of Pennsylvania, https://www.nso.upenn.edu/theme-year/second-year-experience.

²⁸⁶ Randall, Making Citizens.

²⁸⁷ Leadership Development & Community Engagement, Northwestern University, https://www.northwestern.edu/lead-engage/index.html.

²⁸⁸ About Us, CU Engage, University of Colorado Boulder, https://www.colorado.edu/cuengage/about-us .

²⁸⁹ Matthew Reade and Ross Steinberg, “President Oxtoby Denies Wrongdoing as IRS Complaint Filed Against Pomona College,” The Claremont Independent, November 16, 2016, https://claremontindependent.com/president-oxtoby-denies-wrongdoing-as-irs-complaint-filed-against-pomona-college/ ; Draper Center for Community Partnerships, Pomona College, https://www.pomona.edu/administration/draper-center/students/programs.

²⁹⁰ Peter Wood and David Randall, “Put an End to Partisan Courses at Public Universities,” Real Clear Politics, October 9, 2018, https://rb.gy/2pjkqh.

²⁹¹ Mitch Smith, “Social Justice Revival,” Inside Higher Ed, January 31, 2012, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/31/colleges-embrace-social-justice-curriculum.

²⁹² Social Justice Institute, Barnard College, http://bcrw.barnard.edu/socialjusticeinstitute/.

²⁹³ “Dean of Students Expanding Diversity, Social Justice and Identity Services,” News, Vanderbilt University, August 18, 2016, https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/08/18/dean-of-students-expanding-diversity-social-justice-and-identity-services/amp/.

²⁹⁴ Toni Airaksinen, “Want Credit for Studying Social Justice? Here Are More Than 100 Colleges with Academic Programs,” The College Fix, June 13, 2017, https://www.thecollegefix.com/want-credit-studying-social-justice-100-colleges-academic-programs/.

²⁹⁵ Social Justice Month, Southern Connecticut State University, http://socialjustice.southernct.edu/index.php; Upcoming Events, http://socialjustice.southernct.edu/schedule.php?week=1.

²⁹⁶ “Triple bottom line,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line.

²⁹⁷ ACPA College Student Educators International, Toward a Sustainable Future: The Role of Student Affairs in Creating Healthy Environments, Social Justice, and Strong Economies, (American College Personnel Association, 2008), http://www.myacpa.org/sites/default/files/ACPA_Sustainability_Monograph.pdf.

²⁹⁸ Anna Coote, “We Can’t Have Social Justice without Sustainability,” Resilience, July 31, 2014, https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-07-31/we-can-t-have-social-justice-without-environmental-sustainability/; Dylan Ruan, “Ecological Justice Is Social Justice Too,” UCSB Sustainability, UC Santa Barbara, February 17, 2016, http://www.sustainability.ucsb.edu/ecological-justice-is-social-justice-too/; Haley Hansel, “How Social Justice and Environmental Justice Are Intrinsically Interconnected,” Pachamama Alliance, January 11, 2018, https://blog.pachamama.org/how-social-justice-and-environmental-justice-are-intrinsically-interconnected.

²⁹⁹ Sustainability and Social Justice, Bryn Mawr College, http://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/what_you_can_do/social_justice/.

³⁰⁰ The Center for Sustainability, Pepperdine University, https://www.pepperdine.edu/sustainability/; About, Sustainability, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, https://sustainability.unc.edu/about/.

³⁰¹ Mike Kensler, “Director’s Corner: The Sustainability Movement Is a Social Justice Movement,” February 6, 2019, Auburn University, http://wp.auburn.edu/sustainability/directors-corner-the-sustainability-movement-is-a-social-justice-movement/.

³⁰² Kathia Benitez, “Social Justice and Sustainability Go Hand in Hand at Northwestern,” sustainNU, January 18, 2018, https://www.northwestern.edu/sustainability/news/2018/2018-01-social-justice.html.

³⁰³ Olivia Saldana, “Office of Sustainability Hosts Social Justice Fair,” The Student Printz, October 31, 2018, http://www.studentprintz.com/office-of-sustainability-hosts-social-justice-fair/.

³⁰⁴ Campus Sustainability Office, 2017 Cornell Guide to Living Sustainably, Cornell University, p. 13, https://rb.gy/h31agg.

³⁰⁵ Sustainability for All, Center for Sustainability, University of Kansas, https://sustain.ku.edu/about/equity.

³⁰⁶ Office of Diversity & Student Equity, San Francisco State University, https://equity.sfsu.edu/node/16.

³⁰⁷ Equity and Inclusion, Arizona State University, https://cfo.asu.edu/equity-and-inclusion.

³⁰⁸ Policy Statement, Office of Diversity and Equity Programs, Southern Connecticut State University, http://www2.southernct.edu/offices/diversity/policy-statement.html.

³⁰⁹ Our Mission, Office of Equity, Northwestern University, https://www.northwestern.edu/equity/about/mission/index.html; Office of Equity and Compliance, University at Albany, https://www.albany.edu/equity-compliance/.

³¹⁰ Equity and Inclusion, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/about-oxy/diversity-inclusion/office-equity-inclusion.

³¹¹ Peter Wood, Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003); and see Malcolm J. Sherman and Tom Wood, Race and Higher Education (National Association of Scholars, 2001), https://www.nas.org/images/documents/NAS_raceAndHigherEducation.pdf.

³¹² See also David J. Armor, Affirmative Action at Three Universities (National Association of Scholars, 2004), https://rb.gy/es3qc7; Russell K. Nieli, The Changing Shape of the River: Affirmative Action and Recent Social Science Research (National Association of Scholars, 2004), https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_the_changing_shape_of_the_river.pdf.

³¹³ “OMA Accepting Applications for 2018 Social Justice Fellows,” The University of Kansas, November 13, 2017, https://news.ku.edu/oma-accepting-applications-2018-social-justice-fellows.

³¹⁴ Diversity and Inclusion, Davidson College, https://www.davidson.edu/student-life/diversity-and-inclusion.

³¹⁵ About (Diversity Peer Educators), Multicultural Center, University of Missouri, https://multiculturalcenter.missouri.edu/train-the-trainers/.

³¹⁶ Social Justice Education, Office of Equity and Diversity, Washington State University, https://diversity.wsu.edu/diversity-education/social-justice-education/.

³¹⁷ Workshops We Offer, Office of Equity and Diversity, Washington State University, https://diversity.wsu.edu/diversity-education/social-justice-education/request-a-workshop/.

³¹⁸ Diversity Education Services, Affirmative Action Office, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, https://www.psu.edu/dept/aaoffice/dsec.htm.

³¹⁹ IC Diversity Toolkit, Intercultural Center, Saint Mary’s College of California, https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/intercultural-center/ic-diversity-toolkit.

³²⁰ Programs, Office of Multicultural Affairs, University of Kansas, https://omaclone.drupal.ku.edu/programs.

³²¹ Programs & Events, Inclusion Initiatives and Cultural Competence, Vanderbilt University, https://www.vanderbilt.edu/iicc/programs-events/.

³²² Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk, “The Sex Bureaucracy,” California Law Review 104, 4 (2016), pp. 881–948, https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4327&context=californialawreview; K.C. Johnson and Stuart Taylor, Jr., The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities (Encounter Books, 2017); George Leef, “Title IX Administers Another Flogging to Campus Free Speech,” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, January 23, 2019, https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2019/01/title-ix-administers-another-flogging-to-campus-free-speech/.

³²³ Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, “A Title IX Win for the Accused,” Inside Higher Ed, February 12, 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/12/title-ix-lawsuit-against-miami-university-has-new-traction.

³²⁴ Sexual Respect and Title IX, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/sexual-respect-title-ix.

³²⁵ Queer and Trans Guide, Sexual Respect and Title IX, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/sexual-respect-title-ix/queer-trans-guide.

³²⁶ Power-Based Violence, Project SAFE, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/project-safe/prevention-education/power-based-violence.

³²⁷ Oxy Upstander, Project SAFE, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/project-safe/prevention-education/oxy-upstander.

³²⁸ Resources for Survivors, Project SAFE, Occidental College, https://www.oxy.edu/project-safe/resources-survivors; Sexual Assault, RAINN, https://rainn.org/articles/sexual-assault.

³²⁹ All-Gender Restrooms, Title IX: Promoting Gender Equity & Preventing Sexual Harassment/Sexual Violence, San Francisco State University, https://titleix.sfsu.edu/content/all-gender-restrooms.

³³⁰ Residence Hall Events, UM Housing, University of Montana, https://www.umt.edu/housing/rh/getinvolved/residencehallevents.php.

³³¹ Service & Leadership, Carolina Housing, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, https://housing.unc.edu/residence-life/residential-learning-programs/service-leadership.

³³² First Year Experience, Office of Residential Life, University of Toledo, https://www.utoledo.edu/studentaffairs/reslife/livinglearning/fye.html.

³³³ First Year Research Experience, Residence Life, Miami University of Ohio, http://miamioh.edu/student-life/residence-life/residential-communities/community-options/index.html#fyre.

³³⁴ Balance Learning Community, Learning Community Program, First Year Experience, Cabrini University, https://www.cabrini.edu/about/departments/first-year-experience/llcs/balance-learning-community.

³³⁵ Gender and Social Justice LLC, Women and Gender Studies, George Mason University, https://wmst.gmu.edu/gender-social-justice-llc.

³³⁶ Solidarity & Social Justice, Living Learning Communities, Gonzaga University, https://www.gonzaga.edu/student-life/housing-dining/living-learning-communities/solidarity-and-social-justice.

³³⁷ Spectrum Community, Learning Communities, Residential Programs and Services, Indiana University Bloomington, https://www.rps.indiana.edu/experience/communities/Spectrum/index.html.

³³⁸ Community Options, Residential Communities, Residence Life, Miami University of Ohio, http://miamioh.edu/student-life/residence-life/residential-communities/community-options/.

³³⁹ Permanent Course Proposal – SOC 008: Gaels 4 Justice, Saint Mary’s College of California, https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/17%20Mar%208%20UEPC%20Complete%20-Soc%20008%20Proposal%20for%20Permanent%20Status.pdf.

³⁴⁰ Defined Residential Communities, Living at UMass Amherst, University of Massachusetts Amherst, https://www.umass.edu/living/learning/drc; Residential Academic Programs, University of Massachusetts Amherst, https://www.umass.edu/rap/programs.

³⁴¹ Learning Community Program, First Year Experience, Cabrini University, https://www.cabrini.edu/about/departments/first-year-experience/llcs.

³⁴² Living Learning Communities, Housing & Residential Life, University of Minnesota, https://housing.umn.edu/living-learning-communities.

³⁴³ Christian Schneider, “Student Files Bias Complaint Against Dorm Roommate for Watching Ben Shapiro Video,” The College Fix, April 5, 2019, https://www.thecollegefix.com/student-files-bias-complaint-against-dorm-roommate-for-watching-ben-shapiro-video/; Robby Soave, “Michigan State Students Filed Bias Incident Reports Over Some Really Petty Things,” Reason, April 5, 2019, https://reason.com/blog/2019/04/05/michigan-state-students-filed-bias-incid.

³⁴⁴ Unconscious Bias, Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Vanderbilt University, https://www.vanderbilt.edu/diversity/unconscious-bias/.

³⁴⁵ Be an Active Bystander, UMatter at UMass, https://www.umass.edu/umatter/be-active-bystander.

³⁴⁶ Bias Incident Report Form, Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education, George Mason University, https://odime.gmu.edu/bias-incident-response-tool/.

³⁴⁷ Brendan Clarey, “Professors Who Voiced Conservative Views Reported to University’s Bias Response Team,” The College Fix, September 30, 2016, https://www.thecollegefix.com/professors-voiced-conservative-views-reported-universitys-bias-response-team/.

³⁴⁸ Follow Up: Bias Reporting and Referral, UMatter at UMass, https://www.umass.edu/umatter/bias/follow-up.

³⁴⁹ Action Steps for a No-Hate Campus, Miami University, https://miamioh.edu/campus-safety/no-hate/action-steps/index.html.

³⁵⁰ Bias Response Team Report 2017, FIRE, https://www.thefire.org/first-amendment-library/special-collections/fire-guides/report-on-bias-reporting-systems-2017/.

³⁵¹ Marc Rod, “Pomona Declares ‘Deeply Offensive’ Secret Meme Group Bias-Related Incident,” The Student Life, September 29, 2017, https://tsl.news/news6875/.

³⁵² Zelia Wiley, “A Letter from Interim Associate Provost for Diversity Zelia Wiley,” September 15, 2016, https://www.k-state.edu/today/info/announcement.php?id=29237.

³⁵³ Tricia Brown, “UI Announces New Campus Inclusion Team,” Iowa Now, January 18, 2017, University of Iowa, https://now.uiowa.edu/2017/01/new-campus-inclusion-team.

³⁵⁴ Policy on Discriminatory Acts, Ursinus College, https://www.ursinus.edu/offices/campus-safety/policy-on-discriminatory-acts/.

³⁵⁵ Hope Buckner, “Students Travel to Australia to Study Poisons and Social Justice,” August 13, 2018, Belmont University, http://news.belmont.edu/students-travel-to-australia-to-study-poisons-and-social-justice/.

³⁵⁶ Break Away, http://alternativebreaks.org/.

³⁵⁷ Why SIT, School for International Training, https://studyabroad.sit.edu/why-sit/.

³⁵⁸ Olivia Jackiewicz, “Social Justice Peer Educators Have Been Appointed in Effort to Reduce Bias Incident Reports,” The Gonzaga Bulletin, September 20, 2018, https://www.gonzagabulletin.com/news/social-justice-peer-educators-have-been-appointed-in-effort-to/article_c14fabb8-bd0b-11e8-a7d6-d7112c8102d5.html.

³⁵⁹ O’Brien Foundation Scholarship, Merrimack College, https://www.merrimack.edu/about/offices_services/hands-to-help/obrien-foundation-scholarship.php.

³⁶⁰ Community Organizing for Social Justice Job Opportunity, September 11, 2018, https://dpuenglish.com/2018/09/11/community-organizing-for-social-justice-job-opportunity/.

³⁶¹ Derek Draplin, “Ohio State Employs 88 Diversity-Related Staffers at a Cost of $7.3M Annually,” The College Fix, September 6, 2018, https://www.thecollegefix.com/ohio-state-employs-88-diversity-related-staffers-at-a-cost-of-7-3m-annually/.

³⁶² Celine Ryan, “Gender, Ethnic Studies Profs Earn about $12k More than Peers,” Campus Reform, August 13, 2018, https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11213; The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), “Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Salaries,” HigherEdJobs, https://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyID=46.

³⁶³ Draplin, “Ohio State Employs 88 Diversity-Related Staffers.”

³⁶⁴ Sarah L. Beck, “Developing and Writing a Diversity Statement,” Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University, https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/developing-and-writing-a-diversity-statement/; Max Diamond, “Pledging Allegiance to Diversity, and to the Tenure for Which It Stands,” Real Clear Investigations, October 23, 2018, https://rb.gy/sedubh.

³⁶⁵ New EDI Statement Requirement for Regular Rank Faculty Searches, University of California Los Angeles, May 24, 2018, https://equity.ucla.edu/news-and-events/new-edi-statement-requirement-for-regular-rank-faculty-searches/.

³⁶⁶ Faculty Hiring: Equity and Diversity, Evergreen State College, https://www.evergreen.edu/facultyhiring/equitydiversity.

³⁶⁷ Tanya Golash-Boza, “The Effective Diversity Statement,” Inside Higher Ed, June 10, 2016, https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/06/10/how-write-effective-diversity-statement-essay.

³⁶⁸ Jeffrey Flier, “Against Diversity Statements,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 3, 2019, https://www.chronicle.com/article/Against-Diversity-Statements/245400.

³⁶⁹ Hawkins, Hidden Tribes, p. 6, https://rb.gy/q6p7ii.

³⁷¹ College of Education – Science Education - Mathematics, Science, and Learning Technologies Concentration - Assistant/Associate Professor, https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=5e7cb0daf974502d&tk=1cprusnf1548l803&from=serp&vjs=3; Communications and Marketing Specialist, https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=c2ddc6cd128f35e5&tk=1cprusnf1548l803&from=serp&vjs=3; Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication, https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=1062ed1bf26ff7b8&tk=1cprusnf1548l803&from=serp&vjs=3; Assistant Professor in Higher Education (Quantitative Methods), https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=66346d3f2d6b6096&tk=1cprusnf1548l803&from=serp&vjs=3; Lecturer – Science Education Online, TECS/College of Education, https://rb.gy/odngk6; Social Thought & Political Economy Associate Program Director, https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=45304.

³⁷³ “Social justice” keyword search, Indeed.com, https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22Social+Justice%22&l=&sort=date.

³⁷⁴ See also Richard P. Feynman, “Cargo Cult Science,” Commencement Address, California Institute of Technology, 1974, http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm.

³⁷⁵ Alexander C. Kafka, “‘Sokal Squared’: Is Huge Publishing Hoax ‘Hilarious and Delightful’ or an Ugly Example of Dishonesty and Bad Faith?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 3, 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sokal-Squared-Is-Huge/244714; Yascha Mounk, “What an Audacious Hoax Reveals About Academia,” The Atlantic, October 5, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/; Helen Pluckrose, “Sokal Affair 2.0: Penis Envy: Addressing Its Critics,” Areo, May 21, 2017, https://areomagazine.com/2017/05/21/sokal-affair-2-0-penis-envy-addressing-its-critics/.

³⁷⁶ Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs 4, 1 (2018), https://ecommons.luc.edu/jcshesa/vol4/iss1/.

³⁷⁷ Kristin I. McCann, “Supporting Social Justice Literacy in Student Affairs and Higher Education Graduate Preparation Programs,” Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs 4, 1 (2018), https://ecommons.luc.edu/jcshesa/vol4/iss1/1/.

³⁷⁸ Robin Starr Minthorn and Christine A. Nelson, “Colonized and Racist Indigenous Campus Tour,” Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs 4, 1 (2018), https://ecommons.luc.edu/jcshesa/vol4/iss1/4/.

³⁷⁹ Year Seven Self-Evaluation Report, University of Washington, p. 39, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/uw-s3-cdn/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2015/02/23170543/UW-Year-Seven-Self-Evaluation-Report.pdf.

³⁸⁰ Criteria for Accreditation, HLC Policy, Higher Learning Commission, https://www.hlcommission.org/Policies/criteria-and-core-components.html.

³⁸¹ Criteria for Accreditation, Adopted Revisions Effective September 2020, Higher Learning Commission, https://rb.gy/pdafkh.

³⁸² Standards for Accreditation, New England Commission of Higher Education, https://www.neche.org/resources/standards-for-accreditation/. See also 5.4, 5.6, 5.8, 5.12, 6.1, 6.5.

³⁸³ Handbook of Accreditation 2013 Revised, WASC Senior Colleges and University Commission, https://www.wscuc.org/book/export/html/924. See also 3.1.

³⁸⁴ Equity and Inclusion Policy, https://flashpoint.columbiacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Equity-and-Inclusion-Policy-WSCUC.pdf.

³⁸⁵ Standards for Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation, Middle States Commission on Higher Education, http://www.msche.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/RevisedStandardsFINAL.pdf.

³⁸⁶ The Principles of Accreditation: Foundations for Quality Enhancement, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges, http://www.sacscoc.org/pdf/2018PrinciplesOfAcreditation.pdf; “Diversity: A Position Statement,” Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges, http://www.sacscoc.org/documents/DiversityStatement.pdf.

³⁸⁷ NWCCU Standards, Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, https://www.nwccu.org/accreditation/standards-policies/standards/.

³⁸⁸ VALUE Rubrics, Association of American Colleges & Universities, https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics.

³⁸⁹ Self-Study, University of Kansas, December 2014, p. 37, http://www2.ku.edu/~irsurvey/hlc2015/University_of_Kansas_Self-Study_Dec2014.pdf.

³⁹⁰ Self-Study, University of Kansas, pp. 37–38.

³⁹¹ Self-Study, University of Kansas, pp. 38–43.

³⁹² Self-Study, University of Kansas, pp. 93–97.

³⁹³ Report of a Comprehensive Evaluation Visit, Higher Learning Commission, pp. 6, 16, https://rb.gy/agqlbp.

³⁹⁴ Comprehensive Evaluation Self-Study, University of Massachusetts Amherst, September 4, 2018, ii, iv–v, 2–4, 26–28, 44–50, 61–62, 69, 93–97, https://umass.app.box.com/s/iqzujz5tkip2vux9jyqfjq2q9zsvgox8/file/337176808459.

³⁹⁵ WASC-SCUC Interim Report, Pepperdine University, October 2015, pp. 21–31, https://www.pepperdine.edu/oie/content/pdf/wasc_interim_report.pdf.

³⁹⁶ Periodic Review Report, Barnard College, 2016, pp. 4–15, 39, https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/periodic_review_report_2016_for_web.pdf.

³⁹⁷ Compliance Certification for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, University of Florida, 2014, pp. 44, 65, 139, 224, 236–38, http://sacs.aa.ufl.edu/media/sacsaaufledu/files/UF-Compliance-Certification-2013.pdf.

³⁹⁸ Self-Study Report for Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications 2011–2017, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, pp. 123–50, esp. p. 148, https://www.jou.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/UFCJC-Accreditation-Self-Report-010818.pdf.

³⁹⁹ Year Seven Self-Evaluation Report, University of Washington, September 3, 2013, pp. 49, 57–58, 60, 121–22, 145, 179–81, 187–90, 323–32, 335, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/uw-s3-cdn/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2015/02/23170543/UW-Year-Seven-Self-Evaluation-Report.pdf.

⁴⁰⁰ See also About Us, National Association of Scholars, https://www.nas.org/about-us.

⁴⁰¹ “The Freedom to Learn Amendments 2.0,” National Association of Scholars, February 22, 2017, https://www.nas.org/articles/the_freedom_to_learn_amendments_2.0.

⁴⁰² Campus Free Speech: A Legislative Proposal, The Goldwater Institute, https://goldwaterinstitute.org/article/campus-free-speech-a-legislative-proposal/.

⁴⁰³ “Proposed Amendment to Title IX,” United States Department of Education, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/title-ix-nprm.pdf. See also Robert Maranto, “Protect Free Speech: Universities Must Defend Rights,” Arkansas Democrat Gazette, September 28, 2018, https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/sep/28/protect-free-speech-20180928/; Richard V. Reeves and Dimitrios Halikias, “Illiberal Arts Colleges: Pay More, Get Less (Free Speech),” Real Clear Markets, March 14, 2017, https://rb.gy/9jhp8s; Keith E. Whittington, Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (Princeton University Press, 2018).

⁴⁰⁴ Robert Maranto, “Shine a Bright Light on Admissions at Harvard and Other Elite Colleges: Release Average Test Scores by Race,” New York Daily News, June 21, 2018, http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-shine-a-light-on-college-admissions-20180619-story.html#nt=byline.

⁴⁰⁵ Table 301.10, Digest of Education Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_301.10.asp?current=yes.

⁴⁰⁶ University of Colorado Boulder, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Colorado_Boulder; “How CU Boulder Is Funded,” Budget and Fiscal Planning, CU Boulder, https://www.colorado.edu/bfp/funding-overview/how-cu-boulder-funded.

⁴⁰⁷ Resources, CCCS Facts & Figures, Colorado Community College System, https://www.cccs.edu/resources/cccs-facts-figures/.

Preface & Acknowledgements
Precis
Executive Summary
Report Structure
Prologue: If You Come to San Francisco
Introduction
Mission Statements
General Education Requirements
The Departments
Experiential Learning
University Administration
Social Justice Bureaucracies
Pervasive Social Justice
Social Justice Events
Student Training
Social Justice Jobs
Journals
Accreditation
Conclusion
Select Bibliography

Preface & Acknowledgements

Precis

Executive Summary

Report Structure

Prologue: If You Come to San Francisco

Introduction

Academia’s Radical Drift

Social Justice Theory

The Concept

Political Goals

Political Orientation and Activism

Social Justice Education

The University Environment

The Four Strategic Initiatives

The Scope of Social Justice Education

Evidentiary Basis

Recommendations

Notes

Mission Statements

General Education Requirements

Distribution Requirements: The Context

Diversity Requirements

Experiential Learning and Other Requirements

Loopholes

Social Justice Requirements

Multiple Requirements

Double Counting

Financial Costs

The Departments

Disciplinary Patterns

Vocational Training

Social Justice Activism

Social Justice Writing

Social Justice Mathematics

Social Justice Education Components

Mission Statements

Requirements

Electives

Notable Social Justice Courses

Experiential Learning

University Administration

Social Justice Bureaucracies

Offices of Student Affairs

Offices of First-Year Experience

Offices of Community Engagement

Offices of Social Justice

Offices of Sustainability

Offices of Equity and Inclusion

Offices of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs

Miscellaneous Institutes and Centers

Title IX Offices

Pervasive Social Justice

Social Justice Residence Halls

Bias Incident Response Teams

Break and Study Abroad Programs

Social Justice Events

Student Training

Social Justice Jobs

University Hiring: Social Justice Educators

University Hiring: Job Requirements

Later Employment

Journals

Accreditation

Accreditation Bureaucracy

Accreditation for Social Justice

Social Justice Initiatives for Accreditation

Conclusion

Conclusion

Social Justice’s Challenge to Higher Education

Reform Principles

Nine General Reforms

Reform Venues

Reform Policies

Student Non-Cooperation

The University Restored

Select Bibliography

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