Stanford University's own Program in Writing and Rhetoric reportedly features courses like "Language, Identity, and Power," "Writing Mixed Race Identity," and a required course this semester that teaches students about "biracial and bicultural identity."
Topics like how ICE raids "destabilize communities" and an all-male drag ballet are designed to meet a university requirement.
"When we look at writing and rhetoric courses, especially in the Ivy League and places with Ivy envy like Stanford, we find that the writing courses have a lot of the most politicization of all the courses on campus," submits Adam Kissel of The Heritage Foundation.
He describes them as the most "biased."
"They're the most indulgent of students' interests and values rather than what universities should be teaching and writing in graduate courses," Kissel says.
In their book "Slacking," he and his colleagues reveal that the core curriculum at most institutions is no longer focused on "the best that has been thought and said in the world." Instead, it is giving every department and discipline a piece of the action in getting student enrollments.
Kissel says that competition goes to a "lowest common denominator," and these writing classes are often diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) courses in disguise; they focus on identity groups and "intentionally breed anger and resentment."
Republican lawmakers at both state and federal levels are pushing to roll back or ban DEI initiatives in higher education by passing laws that restrict funding, prohibit DEI offices, and eliminate DEI coursework and requirements at public institutions. Several states have enacted laws that bar DEI-based hiring, enrollment practices, or spending and can strip funding from institutions that do not comply. More than 30 anti-DEI bills have been introduced nationwide.
At the federal level, bills like the Eliminate DEI in Colleges Act have been introduced to deny federal funds to colleges that maintain DEI programs, and the U.S. Department of Education has taken action to remove DEI references and personnel from its operations.
These efforts have prompted legal challenges from professors and civil rights groups that argue the restrictions violate academic freedom and free speech rights.
Meanwhile, Kissel submits that American colleges simply need to refocus their writing and rhetoric requirements on the academic mission of a university instead of an activist politicization of subject matter.
