Will they call the awards Excellence in White Privilege? Grand Valley State University (GVSU) is so keen on its students attending next year’s “white privilege” conference that it is even offering students scholarships for going, Campus Reform reports.
The Grand Rapids, Michigan 19th Annual White Privilege Conference is scheduled for April 2018, and GVSU is wasting no time or effort to get a full slate of students for the event, even saying there will be “opportunities for scholarships” for those in attendance.
“There will be opportunities for members of the GVSU community to get involved by helping to spread the word, recruiting attendees, and volunteering during the conference,” said the GVSU website. “In addition, opportunities for scholarships to attend the conference will be made available as part of the Division of Inclusion and Equity’s strategic goal of providing educational and professional development opportunities related to social justice for faculty, staff, and students.”
The “white privilege” conference attracts about 1,500 people annually, including a lot of students, professors and social activists. It no longer focuses exclusively on “white privilege” and has expanded its leftist appeal by also including other forms of “privilege” based on “gender, sexuality, class, disability, etc.”
Organizers of the White Privilege Conference boast that the annual event now draws more than 1,500 annual attendees, including high school and college students, higher education professionals, and activists.
“The WPC is a conference that examines the challenging concepts of privilege and oppression,” the GVSU maintains through the dissemination of a FAQ brochure from The Privilege Institute. “It is not a conference designated to attack, degrade, or beat up on white folks. It is not a conference designed to rally white supremacist groups.”
Campus Reform found a GVSU spokeswoman who told them that “the Division of Inclusion and Equity is the primary unit working with the conference organizers,” that “planning efforts are still very early” and that there is “no formal partnership” between the university and the conference organizers.
However, when asked what relationship does exist between the conference and GVSU, the school quickly removed its website page that was promoting the conference, apparently because the conference could not be considered a university event.
GVSU declined to offer any further assistance in responding to additional queries from Campus Reform regarding the scholarship offer and the conference media coordinator did not provide any answers either.