Texas A&M may be preparing to create a mandatory “racism awareness class” for students, if one student group gets its way.
The group goes by the name TAMU Anti-Racism and is seeking to force the school to teach racism awareness to students. The group has staged numerous protests on campus to bring attention to what they see as racist acts and attitudes on campus. They plan to continue protesting, but their latest goal is to subjectively teach students about racism. “As Aggies of color, we pay too much tuition to put up with racism on our campus,” said Emilio Bernal, a sociology senior and member of TAMU Anti-Racism. “Racial justice is just as important as mathematics, English and science, and needs to be treated as such.”
A&M President Michael Young met with the students earlier this year to discuss the plan for the course, which the group believes should be a mandatory 3-credit-hour course. While Young disagreed that the course should be taught that way, he does still want to further the aims of the TAMU Anti-Racism group. “It’s not just one and done,” Young said. “It would entail more than just a history of racism. That doesn’t necessarily put [students] in the context of [their] current situation.”
The group, however, is not so confident that TAMU will put their money where their mouth is. “They don’t want to rock the boat,” Bernal said. “I wish they were as good at creating real and lasting change on our campus as they are at sending out emails superficially apologizing for our school’s racism and sexism, emails pretending that we’re all one big happy Aggie family, emails lying and attempting to pacify Aggies of color.”
Not every student on campus sees it the same was as Bernal and the rest of TAMU Anti-Racism. Josh Widger, an applied exercise physiology Junior, believes there is no reason to create the class. “I don’t think it’s necessary; it could actually be detrimental in some cases,” Widger said. “It would be a waste of time to make it a semester-long course. If anything, do a seminar during the New Student Conference over it, but even then it doesn’t feel totally necessary. Most people don’t harbor these attitudes, and we don’t need to tell people how to think.” He went on to say that, in his experience, “Aggies are very welcoming and friendly to everyone, regardless of race, religion or background.”
While the students may be divided, TAMU Anti-Racism is simply waiting on the school to approve the course and fund it. With teachers set to teach the curriculum, it is possible that this class could be on campus as early as Spring 2017.