Oklahoma’s largest university may be defying the state’s governor by requiring future teachers to take racially charged coursework, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
In December 2023, Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order declaring that the institutions of higher education cannot “mandate any person to participate in, listen to, or receive any education, training, activities, procedures or programming to the extent such education … grants preference based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity or national origin over another’s.” The University of Oklahoma requires undergraduates studying education to take a course that portrays white people as complicit in institutional racism and instructs them to give special treatment to minority students, according to a class syllabus obtained by the DCNF.
“Our universities need to be preparing students for the workforce, not indoctrinating them with liberal ideology,” a spokesperson for the governor’s office told the DCNF. “It’s insane that this is a required course. It’s time to look at the accreditation entities that are pushing courses like this and bring common sense back to the classroom.”
The course, which has the innocuous title “Schools and American Culture,” assigns roughly one-third of students’ total grade for the development of a “social justice curriculum” and encourages them to consider how they can work toward “centering the needs, histories and realities of marginalized and minority populations,” according to the syllabus.
During the fourth week of the class, students are required to learn about “critical whiteness in education” as well as critical race theory. Critical whiteness is a field of study that aims to “reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege” and “examines the meaning of white privilege and white privilege pedagogy, as well as how white privilege is connected to complicity in racism,” according to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia.
The “Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education,” which students are required to read for class that week, states that “white people will seek racial justice only to the extent that there is something in it for them.”
In addition to Stitt’s order, Oklahoma state law also prohibits colleges from imposing “any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping.”
In the fifth week of the class, students are taught how to apply critical race theory in the classroom. To aid in this, they are assigned to read a 2017 academic paper titled “Critical Race Theory and the Whiteness of Teacher Education,” which argues against “color blindness” by stating that “neutral” structures, like teacher testing, “reinforce whiteness and white interests.”
Public school teachers in Oklahoma are prohibited under state law from teaching that “members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex.” In other words, teachers can’t tell their students that raceblind policies are bad if they wish to comply with the law.
The course syllabus does tell teachers-in-training that they need to comply with “state-mandated content standards” but encourages them to work toward “centering” the needs of minority students over white students.
One of the textbooks assigned for the class, “Teaching When the World is on Fire,” also contains material that potentially violates Oklahoma law on required coursework, according to a copy obtained by the DCNF.
The book, a collection of essays on how to incorporate themes of race and sexuality into teaching, includes one selection titled “Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools.” The specific section of the text used in the compilations criticizes “Little House on the Prairie” for portraying white people positively and encourages prospective teachers to consider how they can teach history not in a neutral way but in a way that prioritizes the perspectives of Native Americans.
Another piece in the textbook, dubbed “Teaching Politics in the Age of Trump,” doesn’t seem to flout state law, though it does instruct future teachers to instruct their students to be critical of the president-elect’s rhetoric.
“The University of Oklahoma is committed to ensuring its courses meet and follow applicable laws,” a university spokesperson told the DCNF. “OU never shies away from complex or difficult topics. We are committed to the presentation of materials that are viewpoint-neutral and non-discriminatory and we continue to be dedicated to teaching our students how to think, not what to think. The rich history of the United States is complicated and unique, and it’s appropriate that coursework reflects that.”
“This course on education studies is designed for professional educators and teacher candidates and offers a comprehensive overview of the complex history of American education, including key court cases and educational theories,” the spokesperson continued. “It is specifically constructed to prepare educators for the public school classroom in both rural and urban settings with students who reflect Oklahoma’s citizenry. That includes preparing these teachers with primary sources, facts, a broad analysis of perspectives and experiences, and the context to help them respond to challenging ideas with all the tools and resources they need to be effective in future classrooms”
The University of Oklahoma signaled its discomfort with Stitt’s order when it was first put in place, sending an email to staff and faculty saying that it “evokes deep concern and uncertainty about the future.”
“Please be assured that key to our ongoing successes as the state’s flagship university — now and forever — are the foundational values that have served as our constant north star: access and opportunity for all of those with the talent and tenacity to succeed; being a place of belonging for all who attend; dedication to free speech and inquiry; and civility in our treatment of each other,” the email reads. “These values transcend political ideology, and in them, we are unwavering.”
Stitt defended his executive order at the time by stating that “Oklahomans deserve a merit-based system that ensures equal opportunities for everyone.”
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