WATCH: Giordano: SUNY public colleges are ‘brainwashing’ students

Campus Reform Higher Education Fellow Nicholas Giordano appeared on Fox Business yesterday to discuss how students at the State University System of New York (SUNY) will be required to take diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice (DEISJ) courses to graduate. 

SUNY announced the requirements last week, stating that all students across the 64 public institutions will begin the courses starting in Fall 2023. 

“It’s not just one course you need to be taking, it may be several courses,” Giordano said about the SUNY requirements.  

The biggest problem Giordano has with the courses is “[t]her’s no pushback.”

[RELATED: WATCH: ‘Self-inflicted wounds’: SUNY introduces new DEI requirements]

“We all know that they’re not going to promote sane and legal immigration policies… or limited government or fiscal responsibility. It’s about promoting a political agenda as opposed to thinking critically and getting students to think for themselves,” he said. “It’s brainwashing.”

Giordano goes on to discuss how the issue of DEISJ is not isolated to SUNY or just higher education. 

“We’re seeing it all throughout the country… we also see it in the K-12 system.”

The Fox Business anchor played a viral video clip of Bill Maher, in which he draws a comparison between communist movements, including ones in the former Soviet Union and China, and the modern leftist movements of today. 

“The problem with Communism and with some recent ideologies [in the United States] is that they think you can change reality by screaming at it,” Maher said. 

“I think [Maher] is spot on,” Giordano said in response. 

Watch the full video interview here.

Follow Nicholas Giordano and Gabrielle M. Etzel on Twitter.