Who needs English, math, science or civics when you can go woke?
Beginning in the fall of 2023, The State University of New York System (SUNY) is implementing a new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (DEISJ) requirement for all incoming students.
SUNY is the largest comprehensive public university system in the US encompassing 64 colleges and universities in the state.
The General Education (GE) guidelines were passed by the SUNY Board of Trustees in November 2021, and will now be required for associate and baccalaureate degree seekers enrolling in fall 2023.
The SUNY GE framework includes ten “knowledge and skills areas” intended to ensure students are capable of making “reasoned judgements outside as well as inside their academic field, and [enable] them to develop diverse perspectives and global understanding.”
Although each institution has the ability to tailor its DEISJ requirements to “include additional aspects of diversity,” there are set guidelines to which each course must adhere.
For example, a rubric drafted by SUNY faculty and administrators states that students in DEISJ classes are expected to “describe the historical and contemporary societal factors that shape the development of individual and group identity involving race, class, and gender.”
Students who earn excellent marks ought to be able to use “evidence-based logical argumentation to critically analyze manifestations of power dynamics in social structures, and the interplay of variables such as power, privilege, oppression, and opportunity,” according to the rubric.
The DEISJ courses will also require students to “apply the principles of rights, access, equity, and autonomous participation to past, current, or future social justice action.”
State documents reveal, “In keeping with established practice, as well as expectations from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), a course must clearly address and assess the learning outcomes of the target category for it to be approved. The same applies to the knowledge and skills category of DEISJ.”
The requirement has the support of newly appointed SUNY Chancellor John King. King, a proponent of Common Core curriculum, served as US secretary of education under former President Obama.
King defended the requirements stating, “Exposure to, and understanding of, diversity is essential to success in our modern society and economy. As a leader in preparing the future workforce and citizenry, SUNY is committed to embedding diversity into the foundation of all it does – from academics to campus life and everything in between.”
“By recognizing and celebrating our diversity and fostering respectful dialogue and debate, SUNY provides students with the world-class education they deserve.”