Boise State students are speaking out about how they are silenced and demoralized by activists on campus. The university's response raises a question: How extensive is the social justice rot?
Our report on social justice ideology shows that Boise State is building a social justice university. This ideology asserts that all whites and especially males as oppressors, and that racial minorities are permanent victims. Social Justice institutions like Boise State then construct an environment that seeks to shame and vent hatred on the oppressors and elevate and insulate the oppressed from any kind of criticism.
What apparently happened perfectly exemplifies the social justice ideology. According to a tweet from a BSU professor, one student recorded an instructor propagandizing students with the concept of “white skin privilege” in the general education course University Foundations 200: Foundations of Ethics and Diversity (UF 200). The student sent the video to members of the Legislature.
Apparently the problems with UF 200 ran deep. BSU has repeatedly received similar complaints from students, according to Mike Sharp, BSU’s director of media relations. In fact, UF 200 courses are specifically designed to bully, propagandize and humiliate students.
As a result of these complaints, BSU has temporarily suspended all UF 200 sections. “Students have been humiliated and degraded in class on our campus for their beliefs and values,” writes the BSU president and provost. The problem is the propagandizing and indoctrinating of students in a false and pernicious ideology, not their humiliation. What beliefs were promoted and in which classrooms? How many incidents have occured prompting administrative concern before action took place?
By cancelling all UF 200 sections, rather than a single rogue class where an isolated incident occurred, BSU concedes that its University Foundation classes have a systemic problem.
The suspension of all sections raises many troubling questions. Was an indoctrination course affecting more than 1,200 students per semester developed without the BSU administration’s knowledge? Did the university fund the development of these courses? Was this course approved as it is delivered? Have assessments of the course shown it to be infused with such a one-sided ideology? An affirmative answer to these questions should not be surprising given how pervasive social justice ideology is in other parts of the university.
Evidence suggests that the administration has been building UF 200 as a social justice indoctrination course for years. These courses are “where commitment to diversity and inclusion lives,” as UF 200 subcommittee member and administrator Francisco Salinas has previously bragged.
All UF 200 sections are infused with social justice ideology, according to our report; every student must take this course to graduate.
The suspension raises other questions too: How many other courses are indoctrinating toward social justice ideology? Why is BSU’s suddenly-concerned leadership exempting those courses from investigation?
At least six departments — Gender Studies, Sociology, Global Studies, Social Work, History, and Criminal Justice — are based on social justice ideology. There are nine more departments which our research has judged to be “social justice in training.” Do students in these departments have similar experiences? Are teachers in these classes indoctrinating students in anti-white, anti-male ideology?
“We will not tolerate this behavior,” said President Marlene Tromp and Interim Provost Tony Roark in a university-wide email Tuesday, Mar. 16. Why has she tolerated this for so long, or does she not know what’s going on on her own campus?
Roark and Tromp promise a full investigation. Why should we trust the administrators to conduct an “in depth review” of their own university? We don’t allow criminals to investigate themselves. The same people who ran the Boise police department off of campus cannot be trusted to objectively evaluate their own political biases. Governor Little and the legislature should appoint an independent commission to investigate the social justice rot at Boise State.
Only after a brave student shared the truth with Idaho’s Legislature (it seems) did BSU’s administrators take action to suspend these indoctrination courses. Acquiescing to the social justice status quo on campus may have been a reasonable survival strategy for students in recent years. No longer. Students who want to change the campus climate need to follow the lead of this brave student and share their stories and make their voices heard.
And legislators must defend those students by recognizing that a professor intentionally creating hatred against students based on their race is not a fluke. It's what happens when administrators build a social justice university.
Idaho Freedom Foundation has requested copies of the UF 200 video recording and student complaints. This story will be updated as we receive more information.
