Pennsylvania State Representative Stephenie Scialabba (R-Cranberry Township) this week proposed legislation banning compulsory diversity courses at state-funded universities.
The Bulter County-based lawmaker mentioned in a memorandum describing her emerging bill that she was impelled to draft it after learning that undergraduates at the University of Pittsburgh are required to “complete one course that is designated as a Diversity course.”
Pitt’s Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences divides its general-education requirements (GERs) into six areas where students must receive some instruction. Those include writing, mathematics, language, global awareness and cultural understanding, humanities and arts, social sciences and natural sciences, and diversity.
“Diversity courses focus centrally and intensively on issues of diversity, and do so in a manner that promotes understanding of difference,” according to Pitt’s written description of its GERs. “They provide students with analytical skills with which to understand structural inequities and the knowledge to be able to participate more effectively in our increasingly diverse and multicultural society. The courses may address, though not be limited to, such issues as race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religious difference, ability difference, and/or economic disparity.”
Scialabba characterized forcing students to take such courses as “compulsory indoctrination.” Her measure stipulating that all classes of this nature must be optional would apply to Pitt and the commonwealth’s three other state-related universities as well as its 14 fully public universities and 15 community colleges.
“It is my firm belief that these courses ought to be offered as electives and should not be forced upon students,” Scialabba wrote, “especially where the pedagogy is unbalanced with a mandatory course of counterthought.”
An attorney who herself earned bachelor’s degrees in political science and history from Pitt in 2012 as well as a juris doctorate from that institution in 2016, Scialabba is serving her first term in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly. She succeeds conservative Republican Daryl Metcalfe, who retired from representing the 12th Legislative District last year and was a strong critic of political correctness in education. Scialabba will not have an easy time getting her legislation passed or even considered in the House of Representatives, given Republicans’ minority status in the chamber.
The movement against the infusion of left-wing ideology into primary and secondary curriculums as well as higher education has been amplified nationwide in the wake of reforms Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has pursued. Last month, DeSantis unveiled a legislative proposal to nix higher-education programs based on politicized notions like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or Critical Race Theory (CRT). The Sunshine State governor is also pushing for more stringent requirements that students take core courses in traditional academic disciplines.
“The core curriculum must be grounded in actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped western civilization,” DeSantis told reporters as he announced his proposed measure. “Our institutions will be graduating students, I think, with degrees that are going to be meaningful. We don’t want students to go through at taxpayer expense and graduate with a degree in zombie studies, so this is going to make a difference.”
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
