An online health sciences course offered at Ohio State University in the Fall 2023 semester required students to “confront” their heterosexual, able-bodied, or White privilege, newly released documents reveal. According to the group that first reviewed the course details, the grant-funded course, titled “Individual Differences in Patient/Client Populations,” serves as the latest example of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) standards being used to push identity politics in higher education.
As first reported by Fox News, information about “Individual Differences in Patient/Client Populations” was first obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request from Do No Harm, a group of healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers who “protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology.”
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According to the group’s findings, the program was offered through OSU’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and received the university’s Affordable Learning Exchange grant. The course offered “an examination of individual differences in patient/client populations from multiple perspectives of disability, chronic disease, healthcare disparity, culture, and the impact on health and wellness,” per the online description.
While enrolled, students were given a number of activities and discussion assignments to explore these topics — many of which singled out straight White people as more privileged.
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One such assignment was referred to as “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” a reference to a 1989 essay of the same title by feminist scholar and racial activist Peggy McIntosh. The course relied heavily on McIntosh’s writings to prove the existence and extent of “White privilege,” including one paper stating “Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.”
In this particular activity, students were tasked with selecting the “White Privilege Knapsack,” “Heterosexual Privilege Knapsack,” or “Able-Bodied Knapsack” to reflect on and write about.
While the heterosexuality and able-bodied “knapsacks” could be substituted for other similar topics, White Privilege was a mandatory subject for students of that race.
“Consider how this differs or does not differ from how you’ve framed your relative privilege before, what you can do with the amount of privilege you DO have, how things would be different if you had more privilege, etc,” the assignment description read.
Criteria for the White Privilege and Able-Bodied portions of the assignment could not be publicly accessed, but the Heterosexuality portion did not require a university login to view.
OSU-Invisible-Knapsack-HeterosexualityDownload
Other course activities involved watching and discussing a documentary called White People, which explains how to “navigate race” and examines “why the statement ‘Black Lives Matter’ triggers some White Americans.”
The assigned reading material also included literature explaining that “race is a modern idea, race has no genetic basics, and race is not biological, but racism is real.”
“The curriculum within Ohio State University’s Health Sciences Program highlights a broader trend found in many universities nationwide — the adoption of divisive and political ideologies aimed at indoctrinating students,” said Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. “They theorize that interactions between groups must be viewed through the lens of critical race theory and the oppressor/oppressed dyad. This is pure identity politics and can only lead to divisiveness and intergroup hostility.”
As Goldfarb observed, this trend is not isolated to Ohio State University. DEI programs and related agendas are widespread at institutions of higher learning across the country — almost all of them singling out Whites as an “oppressor” class.
Many of these curricula stem from the teachings of race scholar and activist Ibram X. Kendi, author of illuminating texts like How to Be an Antiracist and Antiracist Baby. Kendi — whose Center for Antiracist Research is currently under investigation by Boston University after losing more than $43 MILLION — most recently denounced White people as being “disconnected from humanity” while promoting his new Netflix series.
Ohio State University representatives did not directly address the course’s problematic content, stating instead that “Ohio State believes in academic freedom and freedom of expression, including the free exchange of ideas by students and instructors. The university seeks to foster and maintain a campus environment where all viewpoints are welcome and respected.”
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