Harvard Adds 'Privilege Check' to Orientation : Bradford Thomas

Harvard Adds 'Privilege Check' to Orientation : Bradford Thomas

Harvard's Kennedy School of Government is adding a new requirement for all students in orientation, a new class/race/gender "privilege check." The new program comes in response to demands from students activists and administrators who insist that it's time for the university to require students to "critically examine power and privilege."

As New York Magazine's Kat Stoeffel explains, privilege is "a catchall term for the perks an individual enjoys in society because of his race, gender, or class" and is being increasingly used in universities to analyze social inequality. The term is often directed at white males to call into question the legitimacy of their achievements.

Stoeffel quotes one pro-privilege check Harvard master's student, Reetu Mody, who explains that the required course would help those privileged (white male) students manage their "loss of identity":

"If what you've been told all your life is you're really talented and you deserve what you have, it's going to be really hard to find out Maybe I don't deserve it, and all these other people equally deserve it but never even had a shot," she says. "Schools are not giving students a space to manage that loss of identity."

She says most of the resistance to discussing privilege comes from those who (mistakenly) believe it's about making individuals feel guilty. That's why Mody thinks Kennedy School of Government makes a good pilot program for institutionalized privilege-checking. For them, examining the world and your position in it isn't just a feel-good liberal intellectual exercise; it's a practical tool for people who hope to be leaders.

Last month, Mody and other student activists held a "privilege walk" in which 77 students took over the school's courtyard and led a "privilege visualization exercise." That protest helped put pressure on administrators to concede to the new required privilege curriculum. While administrators announced Friday that they would add the privilege check, the specifics of the orientation program have not yet been decided:                                                                                                      http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/harvard-adds-privilege-check-orientation

Re: Harvard Adds 'Privilege Check' to Orientation : Bradford Thomas

Well that's just stupid.