A private liberal arts women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, is offering a course called, “White Supremacy in the Age of Trump” in the spring, as President-elect Trump returns to the White House.
“This course analyzes the history, prevalence and current manifestations of the white supremacist movement by examining ideological components, tactics and strategies, and its relationship to mainstream politics,” the course description says.
“Students research and discuss the relationship between white supremacy and white privilege, and explore how to build a human rights movement to counter the white supremacist movement in the U.S. Students develop analytical writing and research skills while engaging in multiple cultural perspectives. The overall goal is to develop the capacity to understand the range of possible responses to white supremacy, both its legal and extralegal forms,” it continues.
The four-credit course, offered by the college since 2019, is also available to students at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst through Massachusetts’ Five College Consortium program.
In previous years, the course syllabus included required readings from “antiracist” academics, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Robin DiAngelo.
One paper assignment asked students to answer the question, “How did the ideology of white supremacy help elect Donald Trump and what did the 2016 election teach us?” and “Why is liberal democracy jeopardized by white supremacy?”
The course has been taught since 2019 by Loretta J. Ross, a visiting associate professor at Smith College.
Ross, a social justice activist who was once the school’s “Activist-in-Residence,” has “dedicated many years to advocating for women’s rights and reproductive justice,” and is credited with helping coin the phrase, “reproductive justice,” according to the National Women’s History Museum.
Ross has previously blamed Trump’s 2016 election on backlash to the civil rights movement.
“What we are witnessing is what happened after the success of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The people who felt they had lost control of this democracy and their determination to protect white privilege and white supremacy developed a multi-decade plan to regain power,” she wrote in a 2017 post on her website.
“To implement this plan, they pulled together not only people who had been resistant to the civil rights movement, the diehard segregationists, but they also thought that they needed to foment culture wars against LGBT rights, women’s rights, abortion rights, immigrants, workers’ rights, environmental justice. They just perfected the politics of white grievance against modernity,” the post continued.
Smith College and Professor Ross did not respond to a request for comment.
When asked what prompted the college to offer the course by Campus Reform, a spokesperson for the school cited its Statement on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression, stating that “The faculty of Smith College may pursue freely any subject of intellectual or artistic inquiry and shall not be subject to censorship, discipline or intimidation.”
“Faculty are entitled to full freedom in creative work and research, and in sharing the results through publication, performance and exhibition. In the classroom, faculty are similarly free to determine the relevant content and manner of learning for the subject matter of their expertise, consistent with professional standards,” the statement read.
The spokesperson also told Campus Reform that “faculty propose courses based on their own initiatives and interests, and courses are approved for addition to the catalog by the Committee on Academic Priorities.”
