Article written by Chrissy Clark in "The Washington Free Beacon"
The English department at a public university declared that proper English grammar is racist.
Rutgers University's English department will change its
standards of English instruction in an effort to "stand with and
respond" to the Black Lives Matter movement. In an email written by
department chairwoman Rebecca Walkowitz, the Graduate Writing Program
will emphasize "social justice" and "critical grammar."
Walkowitz said the department would respond to recent
events with "workshops on social justice and writing," "increasing focus
on graduate student life," and "incorporating ‘critical grammar' into
our pedagogy." The "critical grammar" approach challenges the standard
academic form of the English language in favor of a more inclusive
writing experience. The curriculum puts an emphasis on the variability
of the English language instead of accuracy.
"This approach challenges the familiar dogma that writing
instruction should limit emphasis on grammar/sentence-level issues so as
to not put students from multilingual, non-standard ‘academic' English
backgrounds at a disadvantage," Walkowitz said. "Instead, it encourages
students to develop a critical awareness of the variety of choices
available to them [with] regard to micro-level issues in order to
empower them and equip them to push against biases based on ‘written'
accents."
Additionally, the department said it will provide more
reading to upper-level writing classes on the subjects of racism,
sexism, homophobia, and related forms of "systemic discrimination."
Leonydus Johnson, a speech pathologist and libertarian
activist, said the school's change makes the racist assumption that
minorities cannot comprehend traditional English. Johnson called the
change "insulting, patronizing, and in itself, extremely racist."
"The idea that expecting a student to write in
grammatically correct sentences is indicative of racial bias is
asinine," Johnson told the Washington Free Beacon. "It's like
these people believe that being non-white is an inherent handicap or
learning disability…. That's racism. It has become very clear to me that
those who claim to be ‘anti-racist' are often the most racist people in
this country."
Rutgers's new anti-racist language standard comes
alongside a litany of changes at other universities. Princeton
University's board of trustees voted to remove
Woodrow Wilson's name from its public policy school and one of its
residential colleges to denounce the former president's "racist thinking
and policies." The James Madison residential college at Michigan State
University is considering making a similar change. Activists at the University of Pittsburgh have called for the firing of any employee deemed racist or discriminatory by students, and the school said it will give the demands "serious consideration."
The Rutgers English department created a Committee on Bias
Awareness and Prevention in 2012. In light of Black Lives Matter
protests, the school has moved past bias awareness and prevention and
into a focus on "decolonization." Walkowitz's email talks of
"decolonizing the writing center." The department offers a specific
internship titled "Decolonizing the Writing Center" to "make the writing
centers more linguistically diverse."
The university and Walkowitz did not respond to requests for comment.
