A pre-medical student at Harvard University published an op-ed “resigning” and calling the major a vector of “white supremacy” after an educator allegedly failed to discuss the results of the Breonna Taylor case before an inorganic chemistry exam.
Sophomore Kyla Golding, an opinion writer for The Harvard Crimson, published an article on Oct. 22 “resigning” from Harvard’s elite pre-med track. She called her major change a “great act of resistance” and stated that “white supremacy lives and breathes in each of our bodies, spreading between each of us — body to body — like contagion.”
The catalyst for Golding’s major change came after she took an inorganic chemistry exam “the same day that a grand jury failed to charge two police officers with the murder of Breonna Taylor,” according to the article. Golding claims that she was “mourning” the loss of Taylor, a black woman shot by a Louisville police officer during a botched raid, and was upset that “white America was not [mourning].”
“That day, my body inhaled molecules of white supremacy as they seeped out of my computer from that proctored Zoom room,” Golding wrote. “They entered my bloodstream and catalyzed a metabolism that would allow for the invasion of my body by a violently infectious life form.”
The Harvard student insinuated that her inorganic chemistry teacher should have mentioned the results of the police officer’s trial before the exam. “Silence and avoidance between myself and my educators when it comes to Black women’s lives” made it allegedly difficult for Golding to focus.
“And still, I showed up to my exam — in all my Black womanness — despite the heartache that would be ignored, unseen, and unacknowledged,” the article reads. “The presence of the germ of white supremacy would cause a steric hindrance within me, slowing down and even preventing the reactions of learning and healing that I desperately needed for myself and from others in that moment.”
This chick is resigning pre-med at Harvard because she chose to take an inorganic chemistry test on the day no indictments were handed down in the Breonna Taylor case and now she is traumatized by inorganic chemistry Zoom classes. Yes really.https://t.co/hsjsZQR4ex pic.twitter.com/1wNSZhC0d3
— Noam “MF Blum” (@neontaster) October 25, 2021
The author further states that Harvard University holds “a stake in patriarchy and institutionalized racism,” despite the prestigious medical school’s commitment to prioritize “anti-racism.”
In September 2020, faculty dean George Daley affirmed that the department would “become an institution that is committed to anti-racism.” The medical school also created a task force to review admissions practices, faculty development, and academic curricula through an “anti-racist lens,” the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Reporting from journalist Katie Herzog showcases how college students have become increasingly sensitive to subjects such as race and gender ideology, including in the medical field. According to Herzog, a University of California system medical professor was forced to apologize for using the term “pregnant women,” which sparked outrage from young, soon-to-be medical professionals. (RELATED: Professor Sues UCLA After Refusing To Grade Black Students’ Work Differently)
“I said ‘when a woman is pregnant,’ which implies that only women can get pregnant and I most sincerely apologize to you all,” the professor said.