diversity Archives - The Minnesota Sun

Arizona State University Debuts New Degree in Social Justice Activism

July 6, 2021July 5, 2021 Corinne Murdock

Arizona State University (ASU) debuted a new undergraduate degree geared toward social justice activism, called community development. The course description describes education on the basics of activism, citing concepts like diversity, inclusivity, sustainability, equity, and social and environmental justice. If students enjoy studying community development, they may also earn a graduate degree in it.

“The BA program in community development equips students with tools to collaborate with, empower and educate diverse community constituents by drawing on grassroots and inclusive frameworks such as sustainable development, social and environmental justice, participatory democracy, social and economic equity and social accounting,” reads the course description.

Commentary: Fighting Back in a Woke World of Cancel Culture

June 8, 2021June 7, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

By now there are enough “cancel culture” stories to fill volumes. After my own story about standing up to a woke mob – and succeeding – went viral on Twitter, I decided to speak out, because I am convinced that Americans need more encouraging stories about standing up to cancel culture, and information on how they can do it themselves.

In order to withstand attacks, you’ll need to be armed with an understanding of the ideas in play, and the courage to stand up to bullies. I hope my story can help give you both.

My story began in 2010, when my husband and I founded a nonprofit organization that trains people around the world who are providing care for survivors of trauma. We were pleased with the success of our organization for the first several years, but around 2016, we noticed a change.

Minneapolis Council President: Critical Race Theory Should Be ‘Baked into Our Systems’

June 8, 2021June 7, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Minneapolis City Council Member Lisa Bender

Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said at a recent meeting that employees of color in Minneapolis have “been carrying the burden of white supremacy.”

In a May 28 meeting, Bender referred to an open letter which all city employees are invited to sign — anyone who signs the letter is acknowledging racism as a public health crisis, accepting responsibility for the “pain” they have caused as “stewards of the City of Minneapolis’s policies,” and recognizing that Minneapolis has been and continues to be harmful to the BIPOC community.

The letter was filed into the official city record and will be published on June 11 with the signatures of all who choose to sign, making it easy to know which employees decide not to sign the letter.

BLM Cofounder Patrisse Cullors Called for End to Israel in Newly-Unearthed Video

June 2, 2021June 1, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Patrisse Cullors, one of the three original founders of the national Black Lives Matter organization, is revealed to have called for the total destruction of the state of Israel in a recently unearthed video from 2015, as reported by Fox News.

The video is from a panel at Harvard Law School seven years ago, featuring Cullors and other far-left activists. The panel was titled “Globalizing Ferguson: Radicalized Policing and International Resistance,” and was hosted by Harvard’s Human Rights Program. During the panel, Cullors recounted her experience visiting Gaza and the West Bank, and described alleged “violence” and “terror” carried out against Palestinians by the Israeli government, despite offering no evidence to back up any of these assertions.

She then went on to describe Palestine as “our generation’s South Africa,” and said that “if we don’t step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project that’s called Israel, we’re doomed.” To this end, she voiced her support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a far-left and jihadi-sympathizing movement that seeks to force American companies and government entities to condemn and boycott Israel.

Joint Special Operations Command Personnel Requested to Attend Conference on ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’

May 30, 2021May 29, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Both civilian and military personnel with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) are being asked by the Pentagon to attend virtual conferences focusing on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” in order to boost their “professional development,” according to a Breitbart exclusive.

The emails making the requests were sent in April and May by JSOC’s Civilian Training Office, claiming that the conferences that would normally cost “$500 a session per person” are now available “at no cost” to personnel, and would both be virtual and broadcast at JSOC’s compound in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

There were three different conferences promoted by the email: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” “Change & Transformation,” and “Emotional Well-Being.” The diversity conference would include four different panels: “Inclusive leadership for building equitable organizations,” “psychological safety and belonging,” “restorative justice, community trauma, and the partisan divide,” and “racism, white supremacy, and anti-racism.”

Coca-Cola Faces Challenge to Race-Based Hiring Quota

April 30, 2021April 29, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

The massive soda company Coca-Cola is facing a challenge to its internal efforts to force diversity on law firms that are contracted to work for it, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

In January, Coca-Cola announced an initiative that would target law firms contracted to work on behalf of the company, wherein all firms would be hit with a 30 percent reduction in their overall payment unless 30 percent of that firm’s workforce was “diverse.” Of those 30 percent, 15 percent had to be black.

Commentary: Put the Woke Corporations to Sleep

April 3, 2021April 2, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Georgia finally enacted some laws to protect ethical voting. My American Spectator colleague, David Catron, refers to these laws as “election integrity laws” — and that is what they are.

“Jim Crow”? What on G-d’s Earth are the leftist Crazies talking about? What are the Leftists saying?

… that Blacks and Hispanics do not want election integrity?

… that Blacks and Hispanics, 158 years after slavery ended, do not have access to a photo ID?

… that Blacks and Hispanics, 158 years after slavery ended, cannot figure out how to vote honestly and need vote harvesters?

… that Blacks and Hispanics, 158 years after slavery ended, do not want integrity at the voting booth?

Minnesota Theater Cancels Cinderella Production Because Cast Was ‘Too White’

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

A suburban Minneapolis theater company has cancelled a production of “Cinderella” because its cast was “too white.”

Chanhassen Dinner Theatres was scheduled to stage Roger & Hammerstein’s classic play later this year before its artistic director stepped in to criticise its lack of racial diversity, twincities.com reported.

“It was 98 percent white,” Michael Brindisi, the theater’s artistic director, told the Twin Cities Pioneer Press on Wednesday after looking at the actors who had been cast. “That doesn’t work with what we’re saying we’re going to do.”

Intellectual Magazine Removes Professor’s Column Critiquing Critical Race Theory

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

A lengthy column by a professor that critiques critical race theory and the concept of “whiteness” and “blackness” was removed by an online intellectual magazine after it generated controversy.

Alaric Naudé, a linguistics professor at Suwon Science College in South Korea and head professor of its English Department, said his essay “Blackness, Whiteness and Other Mythological Creatures” was removed by the UK-based online magazine Res Publica.

The publication bills itself as providing “an academic platform where ideas and concepts can be praised and challenged.” It did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking comment on the matter.

Disney to Launch a New ‘National Treasure’ TV Series Starring an Illegal Immigrant

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Disney has announced that the beloved “National Treasure” film franchise will be rebooted into a TV series that will feature a young female DREAMer as its main character, as reported by Breitbart.

The new series will premiere on Disney’s exclusive streaming platform Disney+, with the show’s description declaring that the story will be told “from the point of view of Jess Morales, a twenty-year-old DREAMer who, with her diverse group of friends, sets off on the adventure of a lifetime to uncover her mysterious family history and recover lost treasure.”

“DREAMer” refers to the failed amnesty bill known as the DREAM Act, which Barack Obama tried to get passed through Congress while he was in office. When the bill could not garner bipartisan support to pass, he took the highly unconstitutional action of implementing most of the DREAM Act via executive order, which came to be known as the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” or DACA order. This order pledged to give blanket amnesty to illegal aliens who arrived in the United States as minors, and since the signing of the executive order, has become a legal and political football that has bounced from one court to another trying to determine its legality.

University of Florida Spends $38k on ‘Anti-Racist’ Training that Discourages ‘All Lives Matter’

March 15, 2021March 14, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

The University of Florida spent $38,000 on a new diversity, equity, and inclusion training for students that is “not a requirement,” but has a due date.

The training is similar to those that students take relating to alcohol, drug usage, and sexual harassment. Within the diversity training, students are prompted to take quizzes, watch videos, and read about different issues relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This new course is part of the university’s wider anti-racism initiative that includes removing its “gator bait” chant, and reviewing name changes for various buildings as well as monuments across campus, according to The Alligator.

Parents, Educators and Activists Fight Back Against Radical School Curriculums: Trend

January 26, 2021January 25, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Parents, educators and activists are taking on left-leaning school curriculums in a variety of ways, from speaking out and filing lawsuits to crowdsourcing solutions and creating alternative educational resources.

In California, for example, a group called “Educators for Excellence in Ethnic Studies” has banded together to lobby for the removal of critical race theory from the state’s ethnic studies model curriculum.

Commentary: Citizenship and the Nation-State

November 21, 2020November 20, 2020 Minnesota Sun Staff

A prominent immigration scholar, David Jacobson, writes that “[t]ransnational migration is steadily eroding the traditional basis of nation-state membership, namely citizenship. As rights have come to be predicated on residency, not citizen status, the distinction between ‘citizen’ and ‘alien’ has eroded. The devaluation of citizenship has contributed to the increasing importance of international human rights codes, with its premise of universal ‘personhood’.”

Seeking Inclusion, Grammys Change Name of a Music Category

November 5, 2020November 4, 2020 The Associated Press

The Grammy Awards have changed the name of their best world music album category to the best global music album, an attempt to find “a more relevant, modern and inclusive term.”

The Recording Academy said in a statement that the new name “symbolizes a departure from the connotations of colonialism, folk and ‘non-American’ that the former term embodied.”

Carol Swain Commentary: Unity Training Should Replace Failed Diversity Training

September 13, 2020September 13, 2020 Minnesota Sun Staff

President Trump’s recent decision earlier this month to use his executive authority to end certain forms of diversity training in federal agencies was a bold and necessary action to bring about racial healing and reconciliation. In making his decision, the president was reacting to reports of federal training exercises that singled out white people with accusations that “virtually all whites contribute to racism,” or they benefit from it.

Target Pledges to Make Black Employees 20 Percent of Its Workforce

September 11, 2020September 11, 2020 Corinne Murdock

Target is pledging to ensure that Black employees make up at least 20 percent of its workforce. The Minneapolis-based corporation based their goal on a diversity report of 2019.

Target stated that the data indicated a need for more “equitable outcomes for Black team members.” For this ethnicity only, the corporation promises to broaden leadership pathways, develop hiring and retention programs, increase mentorship and sponsorship programs, tailor benefits.

Minnesotan Public University Grants $92K to ‘Decolonize Educators’

September 11, 2020September 10, 2020 Corinne Murdock

Bemidji State University will grant $92,000 for a “Decolonizing Educators” program. The university announced its decision to fund these scholarships in a press release last week.

The funds come from a Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) initiative called “Minnesota Indian Teaching Training Program” (MITTP). The state program administers scholarships to enrolled members of federally-recognized tribes, or first- or second-degree descendants. MITTP is currently available through six universities and colleges.

Census Report Shows Widespread Demographic Changes in the United States

June 28, 2020June 27, 2020 Minnesota Sun Staff

Minority populations are increasing and the white majority is on the decline, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Thursday.

Over the past decade, the white population grew by 10.5 million individuals, a 4.3% increase, while the Hispanic population grew by 10.1 million individuals, a 20% increase, the Census figures show. Among white people, there were 1.34 births for every death, whereas the Hispanic population had 5.81 births for every death, according to the report.

Universities Hire New Diversity Czars While Collecting Federal Bailout Dollars

April 29, 2020April 28, 2020 Minnesota Sun Staff

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple colleges are still committed to hiring administrators for diversity initiatives on campus. This comes as thousands of universities around the country collect billions of dollars in bailout money from American taxpayers.

Ole Miss Students Required to Complete ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ Training

April 13, 2020April 12, 2020 Admin

The University of Mississippi has introduced a new diversity and inclusion course requirement for students.

The main catalyst for Ole Miss implementing this course was an incident in which several students were photographed holding guns near a memorial for Emmett Till, resulting in an FBI investigation.

The online course, which is 45 minutes long, was due on April 1. The Daily Mississippian reports that it followed the same structure and method as alcohol and sexual assault online courses used at Ole Miss and schools across the country.

Commentary: American Schools Are Focusing on Diversity at History’s Expense

February 8, 2020February 11, 2020 Minnesota Sun Staff

The 1619 Project. By now many of us have either viewed ads about, seen references to, or read directly from this initiative of The New York Times, which marks four centuries since slaves first came to America.

Commentary: Rowling and King Slam Into the Woke Diversity Cult

January 18, 2020January 17, 2020 Admin

Nothing is more appetizing than watching the limbs of progressive icons mulch between the jaws of the Woke.

George Mason University Professor Calls College a ‘Racket,’ Blasts Diversity Hires

January 13, 2020January 12, 2020 Minnesota Sun Staff

An economics professor at George Mason University is speaking out about the “racket” that he says is college, and blaming it on the “diversity people” who he says have flooded the university system with unnecessary and perpetually increasing expenses tied to a seemingly endless need for more and more diversity initiatives and faculty.

Immigration Will Shift Electoral College in Favor of Democrats, Study Finds

December 26, 2019December 30, 2019 Minnesota Sun Staff

A new analysis finds that immigration will dramatically reshape the Electoral College map in favor of the Democratic Party after completion of the 2020 census.

As Colleges Move to Do Away With the SAT in the Name of Diversity, Detroit High School Valedictorian Struggles With Low-Level Math

December 5, 2019December 4, 2019 Minnesota Sun Staff

The valedictorian of a Detroit high school is reportedly struggling with basic math in college.

Commentary: What Public Schools Get Wrong About Diversity

September 6, 2019September 5, 2019 Minnesota Sun Staff

Diversity. It’s one of the buzzwords of this generation. Forget sameness, everyone must be different, while at the same time inclusive. It’s that simple.

Flowchart Tells Non-Minority Students They Could Be ‘Taking Up Space’

August 13, 2019August 12, 2019 Minnesota Sun Staff

A diversity orientation presentation for law students at the University of South Dakota encourages non “minitorized” voices to consider whether or not they are “taking up space” when they contribute to a discussion. This comes just weeks after the South Dakota Board of Regents announced an investigation into the existence of liberal bias in the diversity offices of state schools.

Commentary: Racist Purge Decimates Democrats’ Campaign Committee

August 2, 2019August 1, 2019 Minnesota Sun Staff

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairwoman Cheri Bustos (IL-17) has been facing growing criticism from Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus members who charged that the DCCC lacked diversity and was, in essence, a bastion of white privilege.

Commentary: A Lame Case for Diversity

May 5, 2019May 5, 2019 Minnesota Sun Staff

by Charles Geshekter Abigail Stewart and Virginia Valian are senior psychologists at the University of Michigan and Hunter College, respectively. As an opponent of group preferences and double standards to achieve diversity among university faculty, I read their book, An Inclusive Academy, hoping to learn something from people with whom…

Commentary: Is Diversity an Enemy of Excellence?

February 15, 2019February 14, 2019 Minnesota Sun Staff

by John Staddon The National Science Foundation (NSF) was created by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science….” Following a 2012 recommendation, NSF now has an Office of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). NSF was just following the crowd, for almost every academic and research institution now has a…

Campus Diversity Movement Takes Off in Surprising New Directions

December 16, 2018December 15, 2018 Minnesota Sun Staff

by John Rosenberg Ever since Justice Powell’s lone opinion in Bakke allowed the camel’s nose of “diversity” under the anti-discrimination tent, controversy has raged over preferential treatment awarded to college applicants of certain races. Just as hurricanes often change direction after landfall, the diversity movement has recently taken off…

Parents Sue Over De Blasio’s Plan to Diversify NYC’s Elite Schools

December 15, 2018December 15, 2018 Minnesota Sun Staff

by Neetu Chandak Asian-American parents and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against New York City officials Thursday over a plan that would increase admissions for black and Hispanic students to elite schools in the city. Black and Hispanic students make up 68 percent of the city’s population with…

REPORT: Trump Administration Will End Obama Era Race-Based University Admission Practices

July 4, 2018July 3, 2018 Admin

The Trump administration is preparing to abolish policies that direct colleges and universities to increase diversity by considering race in college admissions, according to U.S. officials. Media reports say Trump administration officials intend to argue against guidelines issued by president Barack Obama’s administration that offered legal recommendations for schools seeking…