BY KENDALL TIETZ
Students at the University of South Carolina (USC) College of Social Work were invited to attend a “White Student Accountability Group” meeting on April 26, according to emails obtained by conservative student organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA).
The purpose of the reported “White Student Accountability Group” is to help social work students recognize “their contribution to and responsibility to dismantle racism” in their everyday lives, according to the event description obtained by TPUSA. Students were also reportedly taught how to encourage their peers “to use their voice, power, and privilege to enact change in their classrooms, community, and practice” and “support students in developing skills to host similar groups among peers or colleagues to expand the community dedicated to racial equity and justice.”
“The very suggestion that certain students should be subject to a higher level of scrutiny on the basis of skin color is not only wrong but counterproductive and anti-American,” the TPUSA Executive Board wrote in a statement. “Notions such as white privilege and white guilt do not combat racism and division, they reinforce it.”
The group meeting was a student project and not an official event
sponsored by the College of Social Work, a USC spokesperson told Fox
News.
Other universities, such as Loyola University Maryland and the
University of North Texas also have their own version of “White
Accountability Groups.”
TPUSA said it respects “the dignity of all people regardless of their
racial or ethnic background,” but that unfortunately “the same can not
be said of [USC’s] College of Social Work.”
“We condemn the College of Social Work and call on them and the
University of South Carolina to reevaluate what we are promoting to our
students,” the statement concluded. “We firmly believe that America’s
youth should not be taught to resent one another.”
