Arizona State Dean: Grading Writing Based on Quality Is ‘Racist’

An Arizona State University Associate Dean penned a 358-page book detailing how grading student’s writing is a form of racism and white supremacy.

In a book titled “Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom,” professor Asao Inoue encourages teachers to ditch grading for a “labor-based” grading system wherein students earn grades based on their effort. The quality of a student’s writing would not help or hinder their course grade.

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Near the beginning of the document, the author admits that the theory of “labor-based” grading is rooted in critical race theory. Critical race theory is the idea that America is rooted in racism as are the systems of modern American society.

Critical race theory contributed to Inoue’s idea that ranking things is a system rooted in racism. {snip} In his book, Inoue dubbed grading and the education system writ large “racist” for their connections to ranking.

“Ranking is a part of a much longer racist, and White supremacist, tradition in Western intellectual history,” Inoue writes. “Ranking has been deeply embedded in racist thinking, discourses, and logics, mainly because it has been deployed as a way to justify a number of racist, empirical, and colonial projects over the last four hundred years.”

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“Grading literacy performances by a single standard for so-called quality is racist and promotes white language supremacy,” the author writes. “Because all grading and assessment exist within systems that uphold singular, dominant standards that are racist, and White supremacist when used uniformly. This problem is present in any grading system that incorporates a standard, no matter who is judging, no matter the particulars of the standard.”

{snip} Nearly every U.S. school requires children to speak and write in proper English during English and literacy classes. According to the author, holding students to that standard is racist.

“The traditional purposes and methods used for grading writing turn out to be de facto racist and White supremacist,” Inoue writes. “Grading by a standard, thus, is how White language supremacy is perpetuated in schools.”

Teachers who use regular grading systems and ask all of their students to use proper English in English class are also deemed racist to the author. The author does not dub them “bad people,” just people who directly contribute to society’s alleged “racist status quo.”

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The author justifies this claim with the example that white students get ahead in English class because they allegedly have an “unearned privilege” of speaking proper English.

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In an anecdote, Inoue claims that he lived in an “explicitly racist world” because he got a B in an English class while getting A’s in other, more advanced, classes. He claims that his racial composition attributed to his average grade in a high school English class.

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