education

Theta Tau Expulsion Causing Campus Convulsion

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On April 18th, Syracuse University decided to permanently expel the Theta Tau fraternity after footage emerged of its members participating in a racist and anti-Semitic skit. The Chancellor of the University, Kent Syverud, emailed a statement to students, faculty, and staff affirming that the video included, “words and behaviors that are extremely racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist, and hostile to people with disabilities”. He continued: “The conduct is deeply harmful and contrary to the values and community standards we expect of …

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Stereotype Threat, Not just a Threat

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Think about the word “stereotype”, what first come up to your mind? For many people they may recall some stuff like “blacks have lower intelligence”, “females are not good at math” and so on. It’s not a surprise to find many stereotypes are related to race and gender, which are also major sources of lots of social contradictions. People know that stereotype sometimes can cause intense emotional reaction and defensive behaviors, but their understanding of it may just stop there. …

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Affirmative Action… Not Gaining Traction

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On April 6th, 2018, The U.S. Justice Department announced that it might formally enter a lawsuit accusing Harvard University of discriminating against Asian American applicants as the agency probes its admissions policies for potential civil rights violations. On April 10th, the case moved a step further as a U.S. district judge proposed a tentative October trial date and suggested ground rules for admissions records to be made public in upcoming months. Harvard denies the allegations and is seeking to prevent …

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Aren’t Sports Supposed to be Fun?

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Earlier this year an Ohio basketball team was banished from their recreational league for wearing racist jerseys during a game. The members of both basketball teams were high school students from West Clermont High School and Kings High, but they were not affiliated with the school districts other than renting the space hand having players that were students. The members of one of the basketball teams showed up for the game wearing jerseys that read “Wet Dream Team” on the …

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“The history of America is too big for one building.”

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“The history of America is too big for one building.” – Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Recently, I had a conversation about the variety of museums in my hometown of Capitol Hill and about the wonderful exhibits surrounding the Washington Mall. The person I spoke with had recently visited, they shared, and they loved it. But they didn’t visit the African American museum because they didn’t like the idea. Why? Because, “I …

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Civil What?

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Our high schools just aren’t pulling their weight when it comes to teaching about the Civil War and the role of slavery in shaping American society. A report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center on February 1st found that only 8 percent of high school seniors can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War. Not only that, but two-thirds of high school seniors were unaware that it took a constitutional amendment to formally end slavery, and …

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Mythbusters: Christopher Columbus

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“History is written by the victors,” Winston Churchill said. Another way to understand this power to define reality is through the construction of master narratives. A master narrative is majority-constructed script that specifies and controls how social processes are contextualized. An example of a master narrative that is perpetuated by our education system is one about the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus. When the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria landed on Plymouth Rock in 1492, America was …

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