Administration officials at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University have reached an agreement with student activists to force “mandatory power and privilege training” on incoming students during orientation.
The group, which calls itself “HKS Speaks Out,” will have a meeting this week with the dean of the Kennedy School, David T. Ellwood, to discuss the funding for the compulsory training and to “make sure this training is institutionalized” throughout the school, reports Campus Reform.
“We have exciting news to share,” states a recent post on the group’s Tumblr page. “[T]he administration has officially expressed its desire to collaborate with us on designing a privilege training component for Orientation week for every HKS degree program!”
The rationale for forcing every news student to sit through a session on power and privilege training is that training in “structural power dynamics” is critical for would-be Harvard graduates who hope to obtain leadership positions in politics and public policy.
As The Harvard Crimson reported last month, the HKS Speaks Out movement started in October because a few students said they had “really negative classroom experiences.”
So, since a few students at Harvard’s Kennedy School had bad experiences, all student at Harvard’s Kennedy School will now be herded into sessions on power and privilege as seen through a particular leftist identity prism.
The “HKS Speaks Out” group’s vision of enforced power and privilege training will involve a hefty helping of skin color, of course, as well as a host of other social and individual characteristics.
“A mandatory power and privilege training that examines components of race, gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, ability, religion, international status, and power differentials for every incoming HKS student starting August 2014,” the group has envisioned on Tumblr.
“We just can’t learn when we are only hearing from one side,” Michelle A. Millar, a first year student at the Kennedy School, told the Crimson. “It’s hard to get that perspective if our professors aren’t trained to…make [classrooms] a safe place.”
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