Texas Tech University canceled a controversial training, but only after an organization of conservatives brought attention to the situation.
Young America’s Foundation (YAF) exposed Texas Tech hosting an “anti-racism” training that segrated students into two groups: Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) affinity space and a white person affinity space.
“After blowback from YAF’s reporting through our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Texas Tech has announced they have now canceled the training,” Kara Zupkus, YAF spokeswoman, said.
“Upon reviewing materials from the “Deeply Rooted Conversations” discussion series, we learned that some of the content does not align with our university values, and we have discontinued this program,” Matt Dewey, the university’s chief marketing and communication officer, told ToddStarnes.com.
“The program was not part of the sanctioned academic curriculum at Texas Tech University,” Dewey added. “It was a series of strictly voluntary, optional discussions offered as part of a pilot program to students who were interested in participating through the Division of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.”
Zupkus says this kind of thing is happening on other campuses.
“We’ve uncovered many instances of these segregated anti-racism trainings through our FOIA program and we’re continuing to expose even more,” Zupkus said. “Some of the recent ones that come to mind are at the University of Kentucky where resident advisors were segregated by their race as well as at Elon University and the University of Florida where white people were actually banned from attending certain programs, so, this is very much a troubling trend that we’re seeing around the country.”
Zupkus said YAF was really surprised to hear that this was happening at Texas Tech.
“When you think of Texas, you think of it being an awesome conservative state,” she explained. “So, we reached out to our allies as soon as we heard about this in the state of Texas, we made sure that they had this on their radar, and we’re glad to see that had an impact and that the school quickly reversed their decision.”
If you are a student or the parent of a student and you know about something happening on campus, YAF invites you to share details with the organization.
“Go to YAF.org/tips to see all of the stories that we’ve already covered,” says Zupkus. “It’s broken down by school and if your school is not on the list but you know something that is going on you can submit a tip to us anonymous or not and we will help you potentially expose the story or remedy it through other methods.”