The Feather Circle

The diversity movement in higher education has focused on the positive educational and social ramifications of exposing students to undergraduates of different backgrounds. It’s rather difficult to square this justification, however, with the celebration of self-segregation by these same diversity advocates. The AAC&U, for instance, has recently published a study arguing that colleges should seek to create interracial friendships among the student body while simultaneously championing social structures that exclude on the basis of race or ethnicity, since minority students are culturally vulnerable and need a “safe space.” A case could be made that neither of these goals are appropriate for higher education, but it’s difficult to see how both could be accomplished at once. Nor is it hard to miss the paternalism inherent in the “safe space” argument.

This same mindset appeared at Arizona State, which FIRE recently took to task for sponsoring introductory English classes that excluded on the basis of race. (Only Native American students were admitted to the class.) The basic message of these courses, which promised a “non-threatening atmosphere” based on the “Feather Circle” approach to writing: American Indian students can’t handle a regular writing class. As Jacob Gershman observes in today’s Sun, Professor Lynn Nelson’s typical assignment was,

“Tell me a story - and then tell me another - and I will tell you mine - and we will sit in the feather circle and listen carefully to each other. And then we will write thank-you notes to each other for gifts given in these stories. And then we will do it again, anew. And we will continue doing this - until we heal ourselves, until everything begins to become properly precious, until we stop killing each other and destroying the Earth, until we care for it all so much that we ache, until we and the world are changed.”

This might be a bit of amateur psychology, but it’s hard to see how students would learn to write based on such an experience.

In response to FIRE’s pressure, ASU ordered Nelson to end his policy of excluding admissions to his classes on the basis of race and ethnicity. The university spokesperson dismissed the course as an anomaly, and claimed that Nelson’s approach was previously unknown to the administration: “We don't review every single of their Web sites unless there is a complaint."

That’s hard to believe. As seen in a flyer for the course reproduced by FIRE, Nelson’s course was promoted by ASU’s diversity office. It also was written up in a university newsletter and the student newspaper.

Nelson’s chief offense seems to be that he got caught being too overt in his bias. Tellingly, ASU officials say they will rebuke neither Nelson nor the “diversity” administrators who encouraged Native Americans to take the course. FIRE would do well to monitor the situation.