Texas A&M is offering a sociology course at its College Station campus this fall that promotes a racialized worldview. The university is already under fire after undercover recordings exposed an instructor encouraging the promotion of the LGBT agenda to children.
The class, Introduction to Race and Ethnicity, is part of the university’s core curriculum. Its syllabus outlines key topics, including “European colonization and its racial implications,” “racialized systems in modern American society,” race and wealth inequality, and immigration.
The course textbook is “Racial and Ethnic Groups” by R.T. Schaefer. While a preview of the required textbook was not available, chapter titles and topics from the 15th edition are available.
“White Privilege,” “Intersectionality,” “Racial Groups,” “Gender Groups,” “Black Power and #BlackLivesMatter,” and “Being Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender in the United States” are among the book’s chapter titles.
Students are expected to analyze how society shapes race and ethnicity, study data on racial groups and racism, and apply insights to address organizational challenges, emphasizing clear communication, cultural awareness, and social responsibility.
Multiple additional readings are required or recommended, some of which contain a leftist bias.
A Racialized Lens
One assigned reading is a December 2018 article by former Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi, author of the controversial book “How to Be an Antiracist.”
In the article, Kendi frames the 2016 election of President Donald Trump as a period in which “racist progress” surpassed antiracist efforts and compares early 1900s poll taxes to modern voter ID laws. He also implored readers to see opportunity in “the daily news of white nationalists terrorizing Americans with their cop calls and guns, inspired by their president.”
Kendi was later criticized by Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo as “another American guru who failed to deliver.”
Readings for September 30 cover the now-discredited Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization.
A 2018 paper by University of Louisville professor Dewey Clayton describes BLM as a grassroots organization using nonviolent direct action to highlight police violence against African Americans.
Critics noted BLM’s Marxist founders, and accusations followed that its leader misappropriated over $10 million in donations.
For September 30, students will read an article from The Conversation about a study framing the 2020 riots as social justice advocacy and claiming that cities with black women police chiefs had significantly less police and protester related violence. The article emphasizes diversity in leadership.
The racial focus in class readings doesn’t stop there.
A November 2015 Bloomberg article assigned for the week of August 28 reviews the history of race categories in the U.S. Census over 220 years. It alleges that “for much of our history, the process of becoming American has meant becoming white.”
Environment, Economics, and Immigration
A September 16 reading features a Scientific American interview with Texas Southern University professor Robert Bullard, known as the “father of environmental justice.”
Bullard views education, citizenship, and the oil industry through a racial lens, stating, “Racism is deeply ingrained in America’s DNA. Race has always played a significant part in who’s free, who gets educated, and who is a citizen.” He emphasizes repairing communities damaged by the fossil fuel industry.
Economics is also presented through a racial lens. Students are assigned to read “Black Debt, White Debt” by Louise Seamster, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Iowa. “White debt is key to racial capitalism; as an enabling force, it has often been created from Black wealth,” Seamster wrote. “Mortgages, after all, were first created to subsidize the slave trade.”
Immigration is another topic the class explores.
Students will read Chapter 2 of Douglas Massey’s “New Faces in New Places: The Changing Geography of American Immigration.” Massey, a Princeton sociology professor, uses the terms “undocumented migration” and “undocumented workers” over “illegal immigration” and “illegal aliens.” The chapter includes a table tracking immigration flows using a “Diversity Index.”
Massey criticizes former California Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1994 border security reelection platform as “anti-immigrant hysteria” and negatively frames Proposition 187 as having sent “a strong symbolic message to potential migrants that they were most unwelcome and could expect a decidedly chilly reception upon arrival.”
Course Projects
According to the syllabus, 50 percent of students’ grades come from two group research projects.
One project, an “Empirical Analysis of Racial and Ethnic Issues,” requires students to analyze a dataset to investigate a racial or ethnic issue. They must form a research question or hypothesis, then create a dataset by combining publicly available racial and ethnic data with socioeconomic, environmental, health, or other relevant data.
Introduction to Race and Ethnicity is offered by the Texas A&M Sociology Department, housed within the College of Arts & Sciences. It is taught by Dr. Liangfei Ye. His university bio page lists his pronouns.
Texas A&M did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
After revelations of a Texas A&M instructor throwing a student out of class for objecting to promoting transgenderism to minors, on September 9, the Texas A&M University System’s board of regents stated that it asked Chancellor Glenn Hegar “to audit every course and ensure full compliance with all applicable laws.”
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