Students required to complete 'Privilege Checklist' in mandatory first year course
In a mandatory course at the University of Delaware titled 'UNIV 101: First Year Experience,' students have been asked to assess their levels of privilege by completing a 'Privilege Checklist.'
Sub-sections include 'White Race, Ethnicity, and Culture Privilege,' 'Cisgender Privilege,' 'Sexuality Privilege,' and 'Male/Masculine Privilege.'
In a mandatory course for freshmen at the University of Delaware titled “UNIV 101: First Year Experience,” students have been asked to assess their levels of privilege by completing a “Privilege Checklist.”
Originally composed by the Boise State Writing Center, the Privilege Checklist states that the points presented encourage “consultants to get started thinking about their privileges.”
The Privilege Checklist consists of a series of statements students ask themselves whether they agree with or not. Sub-sections include “White Race, Ethnicity, and Culture Privilege,” “Cisgender Privilege,” “Sexuality Privilege,” and “Male/Masculine Privilege.”
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Statements used to assess students’ relative levels of privilege include, “I know that the police and other state authorities are there to protect me,” “I do not have to worry that my gender expression will make people around me uncomfortable,” and “I can assume that everyone I encounter will understand my [gender] identity, and not think I’m confused or hell-bound when I reveal it to them.”
This first year course is “designed to help students adjust to college life” and highlights the “commitment at UD to being a community that recognizes and appreciates diversity and difference,” according to the University of Delaware course catalog.
The course utilizes a “pass/fail” grading system.
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When asked for comment, one of the course instructors stated that the Privilege Checklist is a “tool used as part of class discussion on diversity, equity and inclusion and the workshop was designed by Honors students in PACCT (People of All Colors and Communities Together).”
She explained that “[a]fter the death of George Floyd, students challenged the Honors College to do more to be inclusive and help students understand the importance of diversity and equity, and having a discussion in [their] First Year Seminar courses is one way [they] are trying to do more.”
Campus Reform reached out to all relevant parties for comment and will update accordingly.
