by Staff Reporter | Mar 28, 2024 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
Arizona State University (ASU) is facing a lawsuit over the inclusivity training it mandates for faculty.
The Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute sued the university earlier this month over the allegedly discriminatory training, on behalf of longtime ASU philosophy and religious studies professor Dr. Owen Anderson. The organization specifically alleged that ASU’s training violated Arizona law, A.R.S. § 41-1494(A), prohibiting trainings, orientations, or therapies that present any blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex.
“Arizona state law prohibits mandatory training for state employees and use of taxpayer resources to teach doctrines that discriminate based on race, ethnicity, sex, and other characteristics,” said Goldwater Staff Attorney Stacy Skankey in a press release.
Contested aspects of the ASU training, “ASU Inclusive Communities,” required faculty to acknowledge the history of white supremacy and social conditions persisting its existence as a structural phenomenon; society’s normalization of white supremacy; the sociohistorical legacy of racism, sexism, homophobia, and structural inequalities that impact minority faculty; white privilege; antiracism; and the relationship between sexual identities and power and the privilege of heterosexuality.
The training also included a video to which Anderson objected. The video encouraged faculty to “critique whiteness,” and to ascribe definite beliefs of good and evil as inherently racist.
“And what colonization did, was it really created this system of binary thinking,” stated the video. “There were folks that were inherently good and folks that were inherently bad, and that led to the systems of superiority that were then written into the foundational documents of our Nation.”
In addition to completing the training, ASU required faculty to pass an exam. The correct answers for that exam reinforced controversial concepts of systemic bias, intersectionality, land acknowledgement, equity, decolonization, microaggressions, and social justice. The Goldwater Institute claimed in their lawsuit that the inclusivity training only served to teach concepts of blame or judgment based on race, ethnicity, or sex.
“The Inclusive Communities training provides discriminatory concepts including, but not limited to: white people are inherently racist and oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; heterosexuals are inherently sexist and oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; white people should receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of their race or ethnicity; white people bear responsibility for actions committed by other white people; land acknowledgement statements are a way of holding one race or ethnicity responsible for the actions committed by other members of the same race or ethnicity; transformative justice calls for an individual to bear responsibility for actions committed by other members of the same race, ethnic group or sex; and dominant identities (whites or heterosexuals) are treated morally or intellectually superior to other races, ethnic groups or sexes.”
As justification for its call of decolonization, the ASU training also challenged the validity and goodness of the American founding.
In a press release, Anderson said that his employment shouldn’t hinge on his submitting to ideas that conflict with his beliefs.
“This ‘training’ is simply racism under the guise of DEI. It goes against my conscience, and I want no part of it,” said Anderson.
The contents of this training were obtained last May through a public records request by the Goldwater Institute. Prior to filing the lawsuit earlier this month, the organization sent a letter to the Arizona Board of Regents last fall asking ASU to cease and desist spending on the inclusivity training and others like it that allegedly run afoul of state antidiscrimination law.
The university requires faculty to repeat the inclusivity training every two years.
The case, Anderson v. Arizona Board of Regents, is in the Maricopa County Superior Court.
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by Corinne Murdock | Mar 20, 2024 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
A coalition of Arizona State University (ASU) students, Students Against Apartheid at ASU (SAGA), plan to protest the suspension of a pro-Palestine student group, MECHA de ASU.
The planned protest to reinstate MECHA de ASU is scheduled to occur on Thursday at 11:30 am on the student services building lawn. ASU suspended the group for a since-deleted Instagram post calling for the death of certain groups in February. The university’s Student Rights and Responsibilities Office and police force are investigating the incident.
“Mecha believes in revolution. Not reform. We do not condemn the Al Aqsa flood. We do not condemn Hamas. We do not condemn resistance. Death to boer. Death to the Pilgrim. Death to the zionist. Death to the settler. Glory to the Martyrs! Freedom to the prisoners! Victory to the resistance!”
“Al-Aqsa Flood” was the formal operation name for the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel last October. “Death to boer” is a reference to a traditional chant calling for the genocide of white South African farmers, famously sang last fall by Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) at a political rally. Based on the inclusion of the “boer” reference, then, “death to the Pilgrim” could be referring to those who make their pilgrimage to Israel to worship, or it could be referring to America’s first English settlers.
In a press release issued on Sunday, SAGA said that MECHA de ASU’s post was mainly about comparing police brutality in Arizona to the violence of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
SAGA also took issue with the amount of time ASU has taken to conduct its investigation into the incident, specifically its delay in responding to MECHA de ASU’s appeal of their suspension. ASU reportedly promised to respond within five business days of the appeal, but had yet to do so as of SAGA’s press release.
“The university is using this fraudulent investigation process to silence and surveil MECHA for protesting an ongoing genocide ASU is complicit in,” said SAGA.
SAGA has the explicit goal of stopping “ASU’s investment in the settler colonial state known as ‘Israel’.” In a more recent statement, the coalition accused ASU of being complicit in “the zionist occupation and genocide of Palestinians.” SAGA demanded that the university cease all partnerships and investments with companies and institutions supportive of Israel, as well as cease its investigation and suspension of MECHA de ASU.
Masks will be required for Thursday’s protest, as a means to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and other communicable airborne diseases.
In addition to advocating for MECHA de ASU’s return, SAGA has been coordinating in a boycott of Starbucks for its support of Israel. Like with Thursday’s protest, SAGA meetings and events have required masking.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Mar 20, 2024 | Education, News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
Arizona State University’s journalism school teaches students “cultural sensitivities, civil discourse, bias awareness and diversity initiatives.”
The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication requires students in at least three of the undergraduate degree programs to take a course called “Diversity and Civility at Cronkite,” the Goldwater Institute uncovered.
ASU’s online course catalog says the class “emphasizes the importance of diversity, inclusion, equity and civility to ensure all Cronkite students feel represented, valued and supported.”
The course “Offers training and awareness on cultural sensitivities, civil discourse, bias awareness and diversity initiatives at the Cronkite School and ASU” and “Empowers students to approach reporting and communication projects with a multicultural perspective and inspire mutual respect among students from various backgrounds and beliefs within different Cronkite professional paths,” the catalog says.
The “Learning Outcomes” on the course syllabus lay out identity categories: “By the end of this course, students will be able to … understand the value of their own and other people’s identities in terms of the work and study at Cronkite.”
The course’s seven units affirm the theme of identity. Units include “Race & Ethnicity,” “Geography and Income,” “Language & Citizenship,” “Sexuality and Gender Identity,” “(Dis)ability,” and “Differences and Conflict.”
The “Race & Ethnicity” unit includes the learning objective “Learn what microaggressions are and why they matter.” The instructor asks students to review a list of “typical microaggressions” published on a University of Minnesota webpage.
Examples of microaggressions include “America is a melting pot,” a statement that demands that people “assimilate/acculturate to the dominant culture;” “There is only one race, the human race,” a statement “denying the individual as a racial/cultural being;” “I believe the most qualified person should get the job,” a statement communicating that “people of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race;” and “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough,” a statement communicating that “people of color are lazy and/or incompetent and need to work harder.”
A week of the course is dedicated to discussing “sexuality and gender identity” to make students:
- Understand the difference between sexuality and gender identity and why it matters.
- Recognize privileges related to sexuality and gender identity.
- Know how to ask for and why to use a person’s pronouns and the benefits of gender-neutral language.
The unit includes an assignment to read an article which defines nonbinary as “a term that can be used by people who do not describe themselves or their genders as fitting into the categories of man or woman,” and Agender as “an adjective that can describe a person who does not identify as any gender.”
Students are asked to demonstrate what they learned about gender ideology by responding to the following prompt:
“Imagine you’re working at a PR firm and you have a client whose first album is about to drop. Your client’s gender identity is nonbinary and they use they/them pronouns. They have a massive press tour planned.
How do you prepare journalists to talk with your client?”
Diversity initiatives at ASU are not limited to the journalism school. Goldwater identified more than 100 classes offered in ASU’s Spring 2024 course catalog that include terms like “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion,” or that fulfill the university’s general education requirement in “diversity.”
“To return Arizona’s public universities to their educational missions, it is imperative that the institutions themselves—or the bodies who oversee them—adopt a change in policy to eliminate politicized ‘diversity’ based course requirements such as DCC,” said Timothy K. Minella, senior fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Feb 29, 2024 | Education, News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
Arizona State University requires employees to complete inclusiveness training every two years.
This includes three modules: Inclusive Communities, preventing harassment and discrimination, and Title IX duty to report.
Mandatory training videos include “Fighting Gender Bias at Work,” and “Understanding Intersectionality.”
“The view here is actually an expansive view of inclusion, not a very narrow one,” said Bryan Brayboy, vice president of social advancement at ASU in an introduction video.
The stated goal of training on inclusive communities is to “help create awareness, develop skills to meet the needs of diverse students and develop teams of people capable of working together to advance the ASU mission,” according to the webpage with the training modules.
Other available trainings at ASU include:
- Affirmative action
- Age discrimination
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Diversity in the workplace
- How to strategically address social justice matters in the workplace
- Implicit bias and microaggressions
- Implicit bias in recruitment
- Tackling implicit bias and microaggressions
The webpage says ASU has more than 80,000 students on its campuses and more than 90,000 learners online. ASU is home to students from all 50 states and nearly 150 different countries.
“That creates a rich blend of backgrounds, making ASU highly inclusive and socioeconomically diverse,” the site says.
Arizona’s three public universities all promote diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, according to a Goldwater Institute report.
In the fall of 2022, ASU began requiring diversity statements from approximately 81% of job applicants.
Northern Arizona University required diversity statements from almost 73% of job applicants, and the University of Arizona required diversity statements from almost one third of job applicants.
The universities also encouraged applicants to incorporate critical race theory in written portions of their applications.
In August 2023, all three universities eliminated the use of diversity statements for job applicants after the Goldwater Institute’s report.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Feb 21, 2024 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
An Arizona State University (ASU) professor is among the 38 law professors petitioning the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
ASU law professor Gregg Leslie and 37 other professors submitted their petition days ahead of Tuesday’s hearing on Assange’s extradition from the U.K. Should the court deny his request to block his extradition, Assange will be taken to the U.S. to face 17 espionage charges over his 2010 publication of classified materials.
Among the leaked materials were footage of a 2007 airstrike in Baghdad revealing that soldiers shot 18 civilians from a helicopter, including a Reuters journalist and his assistant; nearly 391,900 Iraq War logs spanning 2004 to 2009; and the “Cablegate” files consisting of diplomatic cables revealing U.S. espionage against the United Nations and other world leaders, tensions with allies, and corruption in other countries.
The DOJ accused Assange of working with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain classified information. The DOJ charged Assange with espionage in 2019, alleging that he used Manning to secure certain sets of classified Secret documents: about 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 State Department cables.
In 2020, the DOJ issued a second superseding indictment broadening the scope of the charges to include allegations that Assange recruited computer hackers to benefit Wikileaks. The indictment cited an alleged unauthorized access to a government computer system of a NATO country in 2010, and a contract with a hacking group to obtain materials from the CIA, NSA, or New York Times.
Last week’s letter from the 38 law professors made the case that Assange qualified as a journalist and, therefore, the First Amendment protected Assange’s actions. The law professors countered that Wikileaks’ openness to receiving information didn’t qualify as Assange recruiting sources or soliciting confidential documents
“Award-winning journalists everywhere also regularly ‘recruit’ and speak with sources, use encrypted or anonymous communications channels, receive and accept confidential information, ask questions to sources about it, and publish it,” said the professors. “That is not a crime — it’s investigative journalism. As long as they don’t participate in their source’s illegality, their conduct is entitled to the full protection of the First Amendment.”
The law professors further warned that Assange’s prosecution served as an “existential threat” to the First Amendment and would, in time, enable the prosecution of other reporters. They cited the police raid of a local Kansas newspaper that occurred last August based on verbal allegations of identity theft.
“It could enable prosecution of routine newsgathering under any number of ambiguous laws and untested legal theories,” said the professors.
In that case, a disgruntled local restaurant owner had told the city council and the county attorney — the brother-in-law of the hotel owner housing her restaurant — that the local newspaper had illegally obtained documentation of an unresolved DUI charge that proved she had been driving without a valid license for over a decade. At the time, the newspaper had also been investigating claims of sexual misconduct by the police chief. Within days, the police conducted their unlawful raid. The newspaper had obtained the documentation legally through public records.
Similarly, editors and publishers of a number of news outlets, including The New York Times and The Guardian, argued that Assange engaged in journalism by obtaining and disclosing sensitive information for the public interest.
In a 2019 press release announcing Assange’s charges, the DOJ dismissed the claim that Assange qualified as a journalist.
“Julian Assange is no journalist. This is made plain by the totality of his conduct as alleged in the indictment — i.e., his conspiring with and assisting a security clearance holder to acquire classified information, and his publishing the names of human sources,” stated the DOJ.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
