One Lone Star College student was in disbelief when he saw an assignment in a required class he was taking – he was asked to quite literally check his “white” privilege on a worksheet. “There was a white privileges handout and a white privileges checklist and a white privileges quiz to see how privileged you are as a white person,” the student told local news KPRC.
Students were asked to put checkmarks next to all of the 20 statements in the worksheet which applied to them.
An example of the statements: “[i]f a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race,” KPRC reported.
"I was shocked, I thought it was a joke," the student told Local 2. “Basically the way I felt was I was supposed to feel alienated and that I was supposed to feel bad.”
He did not want to show his face or have his name revealed by the station because he fears backlash from his professor.
The student said he would have been fine with this assignment in a sociology class, but this was part of the curriculum in the class, “Learning Framework: 1st Year Experience” which is required of all freshmen and is supposed to teach “strategies and tenacity necessary to succeed in mathematics, in other college coursework, and within their future careers.”
Seems the first lesson of this course is: blame whitey.
Local 2 interviewed other Lone Star College students, who seemed equally puzzled.
"I don't think people should be judged based on their color or anything," said student Giovanni Hernandez. "I would probably be offended."
"I would find it uncomfortable," said student Brady Adams. "I don't think it's a good idea."
“If it’s an assignment, then I would be like, 'I’ll take a zero' because that’s kind of racist,” said student Brandy Adams.
Here’s what the college had to say about the controversy:
“Diversity is an important topic covered in the Lone Star College Student Success Course. In addition to its importance, it can also be a very difficult topic to teach, facilitate, and even discuss with students. The structure of the Student Success Course allows individual faculty members to create their own lesson that helps to illustrate the various elements of diversity. Some of the topics addressed can include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, and religious beliefs, just to name a few. The purpose of this lesson is encourage students to not only explore the rich dimensions of diversity that are contained within each person, but to also take time to reflect on the aspects of diversity that make up who they are as individuals. The assignment you inquired about was a supplement exercise with no point value assigned to it.”
But teaching students that they’re “privileged” because they’re white is not the same thing as reflecting on the “diversity that makes up who they are.” The college didn’t address that contradiction in its statement, but it’s good to hear this “supplement exercise” has “no point value.” There’s some other ways it doesn’t have value, too.