Rutgers students earn credit for learning 'resistance'
The school made headlines in November after it reversed its decision to sanction a professor who stated "I now hate white people."
Rutgers University offers a course, titled “Practicing Social Justice," which teaches “nonviolent confrontational organizing” and “resistance strategies.”
Students at Rutgers University can earn academic credit in spring 2019 by learning social justice “resistance strategies” and grassroots organizing strategies.
“Practicing Social Justice” is a course offered by the New Jersey school’s Women’s and Gender Studies Department and seeks to examine the history and “new strategies and new challenges” of “social justice practice.”
Students enrolled will explore political action strategies such as “grassroots organizing,” “identity-based organizing,” social media tactics for “political change and narrative change,” “nonviolent confrontational organizing,” and “resistance strategies.”
The stated purpose of the three-credit course is, in part, to compel students to “explore the current debates about the strategies and contexts for social justice practice in response to a variety of current social justice problems.”
[RELATED: OWU offers ‘social justice’ major with mandatory ‘activism’ work]
Practicing Social Justice is a required course for those wishing to obtain a minor in Social Justice from Rutgers. Other requirements include taking either a Social Justice or Women’s and Gender Studies internship or seminar. Approved electives for the minor include courses such as “Marxist Literary Theory,” “Women on the Fringe,” “Culture of US Imperialism,” “Gendered Geographies,” and “Producing Identities.”
Campus Reform reached out to the university for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Rutgers made headlines in November after rescinding its punishment of James Livingston, a history professor who posted “I now hate white people” on Facebook.
[RELATED: Rutgers reverses punishment for ‘I now hate white people’ prof]
The school had ruled that Livingston had violated its Discrimination and Harassment policy after the professor complained about kids he saw playing at a restaurant, calling them “little Caucasian assholes” “slid[ing] around the floor.” Rutgers reasoned that, given Livingston’s remarks, “a reasonable student may have concerns that he or she would be stigmatized in [Livingston’s] classes because of his or her race,” but reversed its decision to sanction the professor a few months later.
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