A historic college has come out of the closet.

Southern Illinois University — founded in 1869 and boasting over 250,000 graduates — recently made an enormous announcement.

As it turns out, the entire school is “antiracist.”

On October 20th, officials shared a virtual “Conversation of Understanding.”

During the discussion, leaders revealed how the components of Ibram X. Kendi’s preferred ideology apply to SIU.

As noted by Campus Reform, one conference participant holds a title of which you may not have previously heard.

Sheila Caldwell is the institution’s Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President for Antiracism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

“Antiracism,” critically, isn’t simply the absence of racism.

Rather, it’s a point of view which considers white people as distinctly different than all others.

According to UCLA Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, it’s “the active dismantling of systems, privileges, and everyday practices that reinforce and normalize the contemporary dimensions of white dominance. This, of course, also involves a critical understanding of the history of whiteness in America.”

As laid out by Vox, “The focus (of evolving antiracism) is on white people looking inward and grappling with their own complicity in a racist society.”

And from Emory University’s Diversity & Inclusion Subcommittee:

Antiracism requires continued commitment to dismantling white supremacy within oneself, families, workplaces, communities, and culture. We must take the lead from Black voices, past and present, decentering ourselves from the conversation, and taking educated action at all levels. … It is also important to acknowledge the pain and doubt our antiracism advocacy can activate in Black Americans, as the violence against Black life and systemic oppression has been ever present in America since the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Emory’s “antiracism action guide” includes “a series of action items for White people committed to change.”

For more on the subject, see Not Racist Is Not Enough: Actionable Antiracism for White People.

Might an entire state-funded college — a government entity tasked with inculcating facts, teaching students how to think, and preparing young adults for prosperous careers — adopt a highly debatable belief system which views Americans according to race?

It seems so.

In the meeting, Sheila made clear, “It’s not enough to just not be a racist, but to be an antiracist.”

At the conclusion, SIU System President Dan Mahony confirmed the college’s antiracial identity.

And here’s something monumentally newsworthy — Dan knowingly works for a school that employs “racist policies”:

“The SIU System will be an antiracist university system, an antiracist organization. That is our commitment… It doesn’t mean we’re there. It doesn’t mean we’ve addressed all of the racist policies, curriculum issues… It means we’re committed to being on that antiracism journey.”

It’s a curious thing: The president is confidently aware of specific racism, yet such policies aren’t being immediately exposed and forever ended.

Added to the conscious inaction, Southern Illinois at large is already trailing behind its School of Medicine.

From SIUMed.edu:

In 2019, Dean Jerry Kruse, MD, MSPH, declared that SIU School of Medicine would become an anti-racist institution. OEDI has been at the forefront of implementing this commitment across the entire organization.

Furthermore, the School of Law’s April 23, 2021 “Public Antiracism Statement” can be seen here.

We’re living in strange times: While talk of — and separation by — race exceeds by orders of magnitude that of 20 years ago, we’re also being told racism’s being reduced.

Simultaneously, institutions claiming to have pinpointed racism refuse to expose those discoveries and simply remove the mechanisms.

So goes the evolution of discrimination.

And if there’s one thing evolving as much as racism…it’s education.

-ALEX

See more content from me:

Virginia Public School District Asks 13-Year-Olds About Oral Sex, IUDs and Smoking Crack

Nearly a Dozen Medical Schools Undergo an ‘Antiracist Transformation’

University Wrecks Racism, Redrafts Architecture With Nonwhite Wokeness

Find all my RedState work here.

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