Metropolitan State University's (MSU) Writing Center briefly encouraged its faculty to rethink assignments and grading practices that promote racism in their curricula. A page titled "Linguistic White Supremacy" reportedly offered guidance for creating "anti-racist" assignments and described "Standard American English" as a "social construct that privileges white communities and maintains social and racial hierarchies."
Shortly after Campus Reform reported it, the webpage was deleted, with school officials saying the content did not align with the university's mission or academic standards.
"The university has removed that content and is working with the Writing Center to review it to ensure alignment with the institution's mission, values, and academic best practices," a university spokesman told National Review on Dec. 22.
Priscilla Rahn of Project 21 Black Leadership Network says the Writing Center team, which is overseen by Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Ph.D., was misguided.
"If you are saying that someone that is black or Hispanic should not use good grammar, that's actually racist," Rahn asserts. "If you're not expecting someone who's non-white to use good grammar, that's actually the antithesis of the expectation."
Other universities still promote "anti-racist" initiatives in English and writing. New Mexico State University's Department of English, for example, has adopted an "Anti-Oppression Statement" that advocates for a curriculum that "critically examines the racist history of the subdisciplines of English studies."
Rahn says schools have to get away from this "woke" ideology.
"If we really want to be equitable and we really want to be anti-racist and all of these things that the Left is saying that they want to be, then it starts with not looking at everything from a race lens," she submits.
