Berkeley Students Teach Selves

If a lawyer who represents himself has, as an old adage went, “a fool for a client,” what can you say about students who teach themselves? “This fall, University of California, Berkeley students can learn about ‘white comfort/coddling,’ ‘decolonizing Palestine,’ and making research less ‘isolating’ for ‘marginalized’ students,” Celine Ryan reports on the Campus Reform blog maintained by the Leadership Institute. “The courses in question are offered through UC Berkeley’s DeCal program, which the university describes as ‘legitimate university courses run by students’ that qualify for academic credit and can even fulfill graduation requirements.”

“In one course, titled Deconstructing Whiteness, students will ‘confront uncomfortable conversations about privilege and positionality’ in order to ‘understand where white bodies have the responsibility to be in movements against white supremacy and in solidarity with marginalized peoples and groups of color.'”

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