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Why it is counterintuitive to force everyone to pick a side.
A recent statement put out by the University of Chicago’s English department in July informed all candidates that they will only accept graduate school applicants that are “interested in Black Studies” for the 2020-2021 admissions cycle.
The school later clarified the statement by explaining that “Black Studies” referred to “encompassing African diaspora literature and media, as well as … the histories of political struggle, collective action, and protest that Black, Indigenous and other racialized peoples have pursued.”
The university, however, did not stop there. They continued by suggesting that “English as a discipline has a long history of providing aesthetic rationalization for colonization, exploitation, extraction, and anti-Blackness.”
Currently, there are just under 80 PhD students, studying a wide range of topics, and there is only room for five more students in the discipline. With that being the case, the school decided there was a need to focus on Black Studies.
The school received many mixed emotions for the decision. Some applauded them for taking the necessary steps towards creating a more diverse campus, while others attacked them for their lack of regard for freedom of expression. What is of particular interest is that the University of Chicago has what many have deemed the “Chicago Principles,” or a dedication of the university to the principles of free speech — a principle many would say this move goes against.
Let me state this at the outset: I have no problem with anyone who wants to study Black Studies whatsoever. I have an issue with the fact that the school is creating a space in which diversity of thought is not being welcomed, but a certain range of thought is instead being forced upon students.
This is not the first of this kind of action, and it is surely not going to be the last. A couple of weeks ago a University of Iowa professor announced that she would not be allowing students to write on a certain group of topics, including speaking out against gay marriage, abortion or Black Lives Matter.
So what is the problem with this new requirement? If you don’t want to study Black Studies, simply don’t apply. If you don’t agree with the professor, just don’t take the class. Right?
Well, yes. But it is more complicated than that. This is more symbolic of where we are headed as a nation, than it is speaking out against racism.
When institutions, or individuals, are committed to only teaching one set of ideals, the students drawn to those programs will either already agree and have their bias confirmed, or be turned away because they don’t agree.
This leaves an opening in the market for a whole group of students who do not subscribe to those ideas. Of course, this means that another school, or individual, with differing viewpoints will need to step up and fill in the gap.
The buck never stops there. While this is now occurring in schools and classrooms, nothing is stopping it from affecting everything under the sun.
In the midst of cancel culture, this divisive ideal begins to take place in every area of life, and it is not a plague on only one side of the aisle.
While the left cancels Beethoven for his “classism,” the Republican leader in the White House is cancelling tires over a disputed MAGA ban.
So eventually, if your thrift store, coffee shop and favorite music artists do not agree with you, you either pressure them into it, or abandon them. Where do you go? To the coffee chain that vocally supports Black Lives Matter, or the espresso bean company that supports the second amendment.
Everything inevitably becomes political. We pick our sides, and we hunker down. There will be a conservative shop and a liberal one. The school for Black studies, and the school for White studies.
When we force everyone to pick a side on every issue, we end up alienating everyone who may disagree with us, and force the world into becoming a place we cannot all inhabit.
So no, it is not that I care whether you study Fredrick Douglas or Shakespeare. It is that sure enough, if you force students to study what you want, the same will happen on the other side of the aisle.
We will all pick our sides. We only serve to alienate one another with these tactics. Every business, person and entity will choose, and there will soon be no place for politics or unbias. Every move you make will be a declaration of acceptance or denial.
Diversity is our strength, but it can also be our Achilles heel. It is our strength when we choose to love, not when we are forced into it. You cannot manufacture diversity, but you can create irreconcilable division. Proceed with caution.