A California university is advising its students of color to report on their professors who cause “race-related stress,” such as not being consistently called on in class.
That advice, however, has drawn criticism from three Campus Reform correspondents, who are currently college students in Florida.
California State University Monterey Bay’s Personal Growth and Counseling Center offers a list of recommendations on its website, telling students how they cope with racism and discrimination in order to “maximize one’s academic potential.”
“It is important to understand that you can experience race-related stress even if you were mistaken that a racist act occurred,” the center writes. “Race-related stress reactions only require that a person believes that they were the target of racism.”
To deal with such stress, the website, under a subsection titled “Become Involved in Social Action,” advises students to document “acts of racism or intolerance.”
“Don’t ignore or minimize your experiences, and think broadly about what could be an act of racism,” the center writes. “It doesn’t have to be an overt act (e.g., professor consistently not calling on you or minimizing your contributions, curriculum racially biased, etc).
“Talk to someone you trust and report it.”
Race-related stress can cause intense emotional reactions, such as anxiety, depression, paranoia, resentment, sadness, self-blame, and self-doubt, according to the website. Associated health concerns include heart disease, hypertension, and muscle tension.
“These psychological and physical effects can have a significant effect on your daily life. For example, if you feel isolated due to experiences of racism, you may be reluctant to interact with students from different racial/ethnic backgrounds or participate in campus activities such as student organizations, intramural sports, classroom discussions, and study groups,” the website says.
Aside from reporting on professors, the website recommends students build support networks, have a belief system, practice good self-care, and take on a political or activist cause.
Campus Reform is a conservative watchdog that focuses on higher education. On Sunday, three of its correspondents—Courtney McLain, Emily Sturge, and Darryl Boyer—spoke to “Fox & Friends Weekend,” said the advice urging students to report on professors was part of the broader issues of the far left’s effort of injecting the “woke agenda” into college classrooms.
“I believe when Francis Bellamy wrote One Nation under God, Indivisible, we oftentimes overlook that word indivisible,” Boyer said. “We must stop dividing our nation and come together as one.”
Boyer, who earned his undergraduate degree at the University of North Florida, is now a graduate student at Florida State University. He added that he has never felt discriminated against based on the color of his skin, during his time in higher education.
“And it just really makes me feel dehumanized when people can be able to tell on their professor for racism,” Boyer said. “That really takes away the credibility for when things like that may really be happening.”
McLain, a student at the University of Central Florida, said she has been seeing more of the conceptual framework of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) being enforced by her school.
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“I’m frustrated because I feel like I’m not learning as much academically as I could because we’re putting so much money into this,” McLain said. “We’re seeing this in more and more schools across the country, that these students are just being believed automatically.”
Sturge, a University of Florida student, said the advice offered from California State University Monterey Bay “is just another example of wokeism taking over college campuses.”
“We’re seeing the left inject this woke ideology into college classrooms because this is how the left is winning. They’re winning the culture war because they’re injecting it into our course curriculum,” Sturge said.
“These things are absolutely crazy, and we’re seeing these things happen in California, and so we feel like it’s far away off in a blue state,” Sturge added. “But here in Florida, we’re also seeing that, too. We’re Florida students, and we’re seeing these woke ideals in our classrooms.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to California State University Monterey Bay’s Personal Growth and Counseling Center for comment.
The three Campus Reform correspondents also applauded Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his efforts to counter indoctrination in the state’s classrooms, according to the news outlet.
On Jan. 31, DeSantis declared financial war on “woke” universities in his state, promising to eliminate all funding for DEI and Critical Race Theory (CRT).
“Our institutions will be graduating students with degrees that will actually be useful,” the governor said. “We will be eliminating all DEI and CRT bureaucracies in Florida. It will wither on the vine.”
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He proposed a number of legislative proposals, including allowing university presidents and the university board of trustees to conduct a post-tenure review of a faculty member at any time with cause. Another proposal would ban universities from using any funding to support DEI, CRT, and other discriminatory initiatives.
Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of the State University System of Florida, applauded the governor’s leadership, according to a statement.
“We applaud the Governor for his commitment to providing our students a high-quality education that focuses on academic excellence and is free from ideological agendas determining what they should learn,” Rodrigues said.