A San Diego-area community college committed to pre-screening all job applicants — including professors, staff and administrators — to ensure they are committed to being “anti-racist,” according to a post from the college’s website.
Palomar Community College in California adopted a new policy that will “require all interviews for admin and staff to require an antiracist question pre-interview to assess new applicants’ dedication to antiracism,” the Young America’s Foundation (YAF) reported. The policy is part of the community college’s commitment to building an “antiracist culture” on campus.
YAF also uncovered a video of Palomar professors discussing the importance of “antiracism” and the alleged systemic inequities that take place on campus. Staff members used words such as “safe spaces” and “healing circles” to describe an ideal campus culture. The video’s cover photo included the black fist typically used by the Black Lives Matter movement.
EXPOSED: A public college in CA announced its plan to pre-screen all job applicants to ensure that they are “dedicated” to anti-racism.
“If you are not an anti-racist, then you are complicit…[America] is a country that was founded on racism.” pic.twitter.com/4yKsoi8r9N
— YAF (@yaf) November 18, 2021
An assistant professor at Palomar College reiterated the words of antiracist scholar and author Ibram X. Kendi and said, “if you are not an anti-racist, then you are complicit.” The professor reiterated the ideas of “The 1619 Project” creator Nikole Hannah-Jones by claiming that America “is a country that was founded on racism.”
Staff members held up signs with statements such as “White silence is violence” and “Mathematicians need to be antiracist.”
A spokesperson for Palomar College told YAF that the university cannot explicitly endorse any organization, including Black Lives Matter, because it is publicly funded. The spokesperson reiterated that the college is dedicated to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts and an “antiracist framework.”
“Palomar College is respectful and responsible to the diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns of faculty and staff and through its antiracist framework, the College is working collaboratively with students, staff, and faculty to address any concerns that may arise,” the spokesperson said.
Palomar College is not the only San Diego institution requiring staff to uphold antiracist values. The University of California San Diego posted job applications to the university’s website attempting to hire science, technology, engineering and mathematics professors who want to address issues of “race and racism.” (RELATED: REPORT: America’s Top 25 Private Schools Are Pushing ‘Anti-Racism,’ ‘Equity’ Initiatives)
Hired faculty must engage with scholars across disciplines to “address issues of race and racism, access and equity, and social and political influences focused on STEM/Public Health/Health Sciences.”