Stanford will offer a course this fall that addresses abolition — no, not that abolition

Stanford will offer a course this fall that addresses abolition — no, not that abolition
Maybe students who enroll for the course could wear robes and hoods like the ones shown and hold marches and rallies to stamp out the evil of whiteness. (Image: Library of Congress)

When Americans hear the term abolition, their minds turn to the move to end slavery in the United States. But a fall 2017 course to be offered by Stanford University will embrace a different type of abolition: the “abolition of whiteness.”

Stanford professor John Patrick Moran will teach the fall 2017 course, ironically titled “White Identity Politics,” in which students will study concepts like “whiteness,” “white privilege,” and “white supremacy,” reported The College Fix.

“We will survey the field of whiteness studies, scholarship on the intersection of race, class, and geography, and writings on whiteness in the United States by contemporary public thinkers, to critically interrogate the terms used to describe whiteness and white identities,” the course description reads.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

“Students will consider the perils and possibilities of different political practices, including abolishing whiteness or coming to terms with white identity,” Moran writes. “What is the future of whiteness?”

Moran also associates an alleged surge in “white identity politics” with the 2016 presidential election.

“‘Abolishing whiteness’ is a concept put forward in the 1990s by a number of white historians,” Stanford spokesman Ernest Miranda told The College Fix. “Their belief was that if other white people would, like them, stop identifying politically as white, it would help end inequalities.”

Miranda doesn’t elaborate on how these white historians identify themselves when, say, approached by Census Bureau, but it would certainly prove instructive to know. Do they just list themselves as “Other” or “Unimportant” or do those who loathe whites prefer a less polite replacement? And, if so, is it repeatable in public?

Miranda refused to provide a copy of the course syllabus to The College Fix.

“Just about any social category and subcategory has a ‘…ness’ to it,” Tomás Jiménez, a Stanford professor who has previously taught about “whiteness” told The College Fix. “So, liberals and conservatives; men and women; Wisconsinites and New Yorkers are all social categories, and adding ‘ness’ to any of them is shorthand for the behaviors and outlooks associated with that category.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Moran and Stanford for further comment, but received none in time for press.

This report, by Rob Shimshock, was cross posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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