Wheaton To Offer Course On Creating An 'Anti-Racist Society'

NORTON, MA — Wheaton College will offer a course in building an "anti-racist society" this fall that will be open to all students, faculty and staff.

Saying that "learning to be an anti-racist is a process," course organizers plan for the course to promote interdisciplinary, community-wide conversations on building an anti-racist society.

Professor of Sociology Karen McCormick said the course — titled "Race and Racism: Building an Anti-Racist Society" —will be a collaboration of about 20 faculty members in Wheaton's social sciences departments.

"Many of us chose our fields and the work that we do precisely because we are invested in questions of social justice," McCormack said. "The protests about police brutality and rising calls for anti-racism led us to initiate efforts to collaborate on this work as we also consider the challenges created by COVID-19."

The course will be taught in remote lectures to allow for as much participation as possible — there is no cap on enrollment — with opportunities to reflect on curriculum in small discussion groups with a trained discussion leader.

"My hope is that this class can contribute to the ongoing efforts to confront and dismantle racism," McCormack said. "We all have work to do in examining our own practices, and while the social sciences can't provide the answers, they can offer us a way to think beyond the individual to the structures — economic, social and political — that create vastly unequal outcomes in health, economic opportunity, education, safety and much more.

"If we truly want to build an anti-racist society, a society that is more equal and more just, our work must include the self, but it also must include work in our institutions."