by James A. Bacon
Borrowing a methodology from a Harvard computer science prof, Jay Greene and Mike Gonzales with The Heritage Foundation have calculated a wokeness ranking for Virginia’s public universities: the number of times “social justice” appears in a university’s course catalog.
Measured by the absolute number of “social justice” mentions, James Madison University is the most woke (72 references), followed by George Mason University (59), and Virginia Commonwealth University (53).
Some universities offer far more courses than others, however, so Greene and Gonzalez introduce another measure: a ratio of courses that mention “social justice” versus courses that mention “Constitution.”
In The Daily Signal they write:
The term “social justice” appears in the James Madison University catalog 4.5 times as often as the term “Constitution.” For Virginia Commonwealth University, “social justice” is 3.1 times as common as “Constitution.” At George Mason University, it is 2.6 times as common.
For the historically black institutions, Norfolk State and Virginia State, their catalogs mention “Constitution” more often than they do “social justice.” The same is true for the flagship University of Virginia, as well as at Old Dominion University, Christopher Newport University, Longwood University, and Virginia Military Institute.
Judging by the verbiage in its curriculum, Virginia Military Institute is the least woke of all, the Heritage fellows say. It does not have a single course or program that includes the terms “social justice, “decolonization,” “liberation,” “white supremacy,” or “intersectionality” in its title or description, but it does have 13 courses with “Constitution” in the title. At the College of William & Mary, by contrast, the ratio is 17 to 3.
Longwood University and Old Dominion University course catalogs suggest little interest in wokeness either, they say.
Greene and Gonzales acknowledge that the key word searches are a rough measure that give only a “flavor” of wokeness. From my perusal of the UVA course catalog, many descriptions use language that imply an intersectional oppressor/oppressed paradigm without using easily identifiable woke buzzwords. But the Heritage writers’ first cut represents a good starting point for discussion.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.