Brown caves to student activism, creates ‘Critical Native American and Indigenous Studies’ concentration
Brown has only committed to special investments, memorials, and education opportunities for Native Americans but has made no move to return any of the land it would characterize as unjustly taken.
The course explores 'critical theory, studies and pedagogy, and with topics of social justice, inequality, power structure, and structural violence,' according to Brown’s University Bulletin.
Brown University announced its new “Critical Native American and Indigenous Studies” concentration, after students advocated for its creation for several years.
A Brown Daily Herald op-ed published in 2015 that advocated for the celebration of Columbus Day by all, including Native American students, sparked the campaign for the concentration. An update to the op-ed states it was quickly removed for allegedly being “racist” and is currently unavailable for public consumption, rendering such claims unverifiable.
In response, students and faculty protested for “a more robust institutional commitment” to education and research regarding Indigenous and Native American peoples. These protests and meetings eventually led to action and the concentration was approved.
The course focuses on “research, teaching and engagement with the social, cultural, artistic, ancestral, heritage, legal and political aspects of Native American and Indigenous peoples in the historical and contemporary periods,” according to Brown’s University Bulletin.
The course explores “critical theory, studies and pedagogy, and with topics of social justice, inequality, power structure, and structural violence.” Critical theory frames relationships in terms of power, and it’s the same generalized intellectual framework that spawned critical race theory (CRT) and critical gender theory (CGT).
The new course also focuses on “critiques of racial capitalism and extractive economies; issues of policing, incarceration, criminalization and violence against women; environmental justice and global environmental change; health and economic disparities; structural racism,” Brown’s University Bulletin says.
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However, despite all its rhetoric about the injustice of the situation, Brown has only committed to special investments, memorials, and education opportunities for Native Americans and has made no move to return any of the land it would characterize as unjustly taken.
For example, Brown recently adopted a land acknowledgment to better “recognize, honor and create a meaningful acknowledgment of the Narragansett Indian Tribe and their connection to the land on College Hill.”
”We acknowledge that beginning with colonization and continuing for centuries, the Narragansett Indian Tribe have been dispossessed of most of their ancestral lands in Rhode Island by the actions of individuals and institutions,” the acknowledgment reads. The statement goes on to say Brown recognizes its “responsibility to understand and respond to those actions,” of colonialism and that, “The Narragansett Indian Tribe, whose ancestors stewarded these lands with great care, continues as a sovereign nation today.”
Campus Reform has reported on the spread of CRT in university curriculum. One report included stories about mandatory “anti-racist” teachings for college students, “deconstructing whiteness” classes for white students, implications of Christianity’s role in racial hierarchy, and “racial capitalism.”
Campus Reform has also interviewed experts who confirm that CRT and critical theory share DNA with Marxism and postmodernism because they share the same fundamental idea that power, whether it’s class oppression or racial oppression, is responsible for virtually all modern and historical events, and by extension, the current world order.
Campus Reform contacted the Brown Media Relations Department and The Brown Daily Herald for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
