A deeper understanding of how slavery and colonialism fundamentally shaped the system of higher education in the United States has led colleges and universities to reexamine their histories and acknowledge harms committed and the need for repair. Campuses are experimenting with how to address racial justice and healing for faculty, staff, and…

American colleges and universities are failing at civic education. Too many graduates are ignorant of basic facts about American history and institutions. According to its most recent report on what colleges and universities teach students, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) found that only 214 institutions out of 1,135 (about 19…

Over the past several decades, higher education in the United States has been shaped by marketization and privatization. Efforts to critique these developments often rely on a contrast between a bleak present and a romanticized past. In "Unsettling the University," Sharon Stein offers a different entry point--one informed by decolonial…

This paper makes the case for why anti-racism pedagogy should be included and identified as anti-racism in political science courses and provides and evaluates an example of anti-racism pedagogy in an American Political Thought course. In addition, I address critics of anti-racism and ways of addressing those critics in the classroom. In…

White Christian supremacy, by definition an intersectional system of oppression, has influenced all aspects of American society since the time before the country's founding, as it was used to justify the stealing of native lands through colonization and the enslavement of African peoples. White Christian supremacist influences persist today, even…

In 2021, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) implemented its recognition standard on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), identifying their combined importance in assuring quality in higher education, and recognizing their essentiality in realizing the vision of higher education as a public good. Recent Supreme Court decisions…

Public education reflects the ideas that various stakeholders hold about relationships between schooling and society and the forms of knowledge that are deemed most socially valuable (Kliebard, 2004; Spring, 2016). Public education can be used to support human flourishing and the cultivation of skills needed for civic participation in democratic…

U.S. higher education was built on slavery and land theft. It has historically and contemporarily excluded communities of color from full participation systematically. Therefore, an educational debt is owed and needs to be repaid by Predominantly White Institutions of higher education.

The world is experiencing a democratic recession, and in the United States, core democratic beliefs are under attack. As a key social organization, academic institutions have a central role in the protection of democracy. Boards, presidents, faculty, and students have the ability--and responsibility--to protect and advance democracy. A course in…

The rich mosaic of U.S. demographics contains multiple languages, cultures, and belief systems. Yet, the historical legacy of an old, white supremacist "master narrative" continues to dominate our political, social, and educational systems. The authors of this paper are educators who teach in either K-12 classrooms or at the university…

The story of Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl (D-Q) University is rooted firmly in the land and peoples of California, but also in other Native nations and nationals who have recently relocated. There are many versions of where and how D-Q began. D-Q's articles of incorporation, which were based on the "brief proposal" of June and August 1970,…

In the middle of the 20th century, trustees, elected officials, and others in the southern United States required black and white institutions to forfeit academic freedom protections when faculty research and teaching threatened to undermine white supremacy. In the early 21st century, faculty who critique white supremacy are facing similar attacks…

The humanities continue to witness a decolonial turn. The decolonial project is radical and dangerous because it is an epistemic, political, and ethical project that marches toward a vision of humanity-in-difference. The exhaustion of the episteme, border, and oppositional consciousness politics, though, exposes limitations and indicates the…

Why do we teach U.S. history and government to students? The answer is simple: to prepare students for engaged and informed citizenry, the essential ingredient for preserving the American republic. Unfortunately, ACTA's most recent "What Will They Learn?"® survey of the core curricula at over 1,100 colleges and universities found that…

Since its inception, Title IX, which celebrated its 48th anniversary in June 2020, has promoted gender equity in schools, colleges, and universities across the nation. Title IX not only has helped girls and women throughout the country level the playing field in educational programs such as sports--a frequently cited contribution, especially at…