Activist students at Notre Dame University are demanding substantial changes to the curriculum and campus culture at the Catholic university. The changes they propose are designed to cater to female, non-white, and LGBT students at the university.
The group End Hate at ND has issued a list of demands, which it hopes will make the university a more inclusive and welcoming place for so-called marginalized identity groups.
And apparently, the “anti-hate” group exists mainly to hate on white men.
End Hate at ND describes itself as “an initiative for organizing civil action against racist, xenophobic, sexist, trans-exclusionary and queer-phobic structures at Notre Dame.” The group has engaged in many protests at the university.
From the group’s list of demands, under the heading of “Decolonizing Academia,” the social-justice warrior group demands that a minimum of half of the coursework and required reading be created by non-white men or females.
“Cultural competence is key in building empathy for marginalized folks. No course or program of study should have a view limited to white, western, and/or male voices. We demand that people who are of Color, Indigenous, Black, queer or not male are represented in the authorship of at least half course and major required readings.”
In other words, white men are bad. Non-whites, females, and LGBT are good — simply by the virtue of not being white men. “Diversifying the canon helps eliminate the violence of only privileging white scholarship. Everyone should see themselves represented in coursework.”
End Hate at ND has other demands as well. They demand an end to Notre Dame’s Parietal rules which limit the visitation of members of the opposite sex in residence halls from 9:00 a.m. to midnight during the week and 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m. on weekends. The activists claim that the system helps to “enforce heteronormativity and gender norms that propagate homophobia in the form of microaggressions, slurs and a spirit of exclusion.”
So gays — male and female — don’t like that they’re allowed to remain in residence halls filled with potential sexual partners while heterosexuals are denied this privilege. It sounds like a weird thing to be upset about.
Under the heading, “Call it out when you see it,” End Hate at ND calls out white people again. “When white people at this predominantly white institution let the use of slurs, prejudice and hate speech occur without condemnation, this affirms the hate and produces an unsafe environment for already marginalized people.”
Charged rhetoric such as this ignites the very “hateful” conditions they say they’re trying to end. When a group lsuch as End Hate at ND specifically calls out one race and gender of people, it is engaging in the very behavior it claims to stand against.
The list also calls for the university to admit its sin of colonization and Catholic evangelism on the indigenous people of the region and “initiate a relationship” with local native tribes in an attempt to “work towards justice.”
In addition, the group calls for mandatory “Diversity Training” in each of Notre Dame’s residence halls.
All of the “demands” are unreasonable in some way, but the group’s insistence on the non-white male authorship of course materials stands out as especially troublesome, since it calls for significant changes to the school’s syllabus based on the identity group of whomever created it rather than its quality. I would tend to doubt whether Notre Dame and its teaching staff choose course materials based on the creed or race of who wrote it. It’s more likely that they choose those materials based on the quality of the information contained therein.
And shouldn’t that be the case? As college students struggle through textbooks and required reading assignments shouldn’t they be more worried about the content of what they’re studying instead of obsessing over the race, gender, and sexual orientation of who created it? Shouldn’t the required reading in a private Catholic university generally reflect the faith traditions and ideals of the people who created it?
Above all, shouldn’t the coursework in a college, regardless of the subject, offer truth? Is racial, religious, and sexual orientation diversity now more important than truth?
The university’s mission statement says “yes”: “The University is dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake.”
Notre Dame might be the most well-known Catholic university in the entire world. By choosing to go to a Catholic school, why don’t these students understand that they’re choosing a Catholic education?
Image: Screenshot of nd.edu ad
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects with a primary focus on the ongoing anthropogenic climate-change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached at [email protected]
