Michigan Catholic college has federal grant for diversity course

A private Catholic university is funneling federal money into a program addressing transphobia, racism, and other workplace issues — despite findings such training isn’t the social cure-all proponents claim.

Siena Heights University in Adrian, Mich., will launch “Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” this fall, The College Fix reported.

Led by professor Leland Harper, the initiative was fueled by a $34,905 planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to “design a new, coherent D&I certificate program…that is qualitatively distinct from the D&I certificates offered at other institutions,” records show.

Students at SHU can qualify for the certificate after completing 12 credit hours of training on issues including “racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia,” according to the university course catalog.

The program will include readings and conversations drawing on philosophy, English, history, gender studies, and business.

The certificate also has a practical application in which “students will be placed at an external organization in their field to work with an on-site supervisor for approximately ten weeks to identify and address one or more organizational issues related to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion,” Harper told The College Fix.

“[The course] allows our students to put theory into practice and gain real hands-on experience applying their knowledge in the workplace.”

Harper is an assistant professor of philosophy at SHU, his education, teaching and research background show.

He also runs a private consulting firm, Leland Harper Consulting, that touts “diversity, equity and inclusion solutions for the modern hospitality industry.”

Earlier this month, Harper’s firm partnered with SHU to offer “implicit bias training” for nursing professionals.

“While many of [other DEI programs] provide useful information, each of them focuses primarily on compliance,” Harper told The College Fix about what makes SHU’s new certificate different from those at comparable institutions.

“To me, this is the bare minimum that we should be doing – we should not just be trying to comply, and there is more that needs to be said about how and why we can foster ideas of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in our society.

“Simply put, the education programs that are out there, by and large, weren’t doing a good enough job of providing learners with the information they need.”

Despite the early promise of SHU’s effort, the certificate training has been criticized by those who say DEI programming is ineffective at best – and “indoctrination” at worst.

“DEI certificates aren’t needed, because they aren’t about Diversity. Their purpose is to funnel noxious ideology into the university under a false flag,” Stanley Ridgley, a professor of management at Drexel University and the author of “Brutal Minds: The Dark World of Left-Wing Brainwashing in Our Universities” told The College Fix.

“‘Learning about race’ and ‘Learning about cultural differences’ and ‘difficult dialogues’ are intentionally vague topics that provide wide latitude for the indoctrinations, whose purpose is to inculcate a doctrinal orthodoxy in students,” he asserted.

“A waste of valuable resources.”

Ridgley’s criticism is at the extreme end of a growing backlash against DEI initiatives, including some research indicating such conversations may actually aggravate feelings of intolerance by certain individuals.

One disheartening 2019 study found one-hour diversity training at a large global corporation increased feelings of bias among male and white employees, or those who already had an upper hand in the workplace.

Institutions that want to incorporate DEI work and bias training have to tread a very thin line between reactive and ineffective programming and more proactive initiatives, Entrepreneur.com stated.

Backlash against DEI efforts has already seeped into other US universities.

In February, the University of North Carolina’s board of governors voted to ban DEI statements from hiring and tenure decisions.

The university medical school’s guidelines for appointment, promotion and tenure had previously declared “a statement for each area is required as part of the [Curriculum Vitae]” and “should outline depth and breadth of efforts in each area, including but not limited to impact of work, philosophy and style, team-based projects, and [learners] interactions.”

The push to abolish the DEI requirement was spearheaded by conservative activist Kenny Xu, president of the non-profit Color Us United.

Xu’s effort was backed by Harvard-education cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Nche Zama, who spoke at a Color Us United event in February.

“The most important issue should be educational excellence but it’s the one thing missing in all these DEI policies,” Zama told The Post earlier this month. “I’m all for diversity and inclusion but I believe these issues should be grounded in excellence in education.”