English Professor Defends Indiana University’s Segregated Classes and Slams White Students Who Oppose It

A white professor at Anderson University, a Christian college in Indiana, defended the school’s decision to racially segregate its diversity and inclusion discussion sessions, claiming opposition to the move was just about ‘white people’s feelings.’

English professor Elizabeth Boltz Ranfield took to TikTok to explain that opposition to dividing the races is hypocritical: White people create their own default ‘white spaces’ but then become upset when black, indigenous and people of color have their own groups.

The school’s Racial Equity Taskforce, which was set up ‘to explore ways for [the school] to apply our values to areas of identity, race, and social inclusion,’ recently decided to hold racially divided ‘listening groups’ to increase candor in talks about race and equality.

The sessions, scheduled for today and April 19, are separated into ‘White Students’ and ‘Students of Color.’

The measure seems to go against many Christian tenets of equality as well as the philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., called segregation ‘rationally inexplicable and morally unjustifiable’ in a 1965 speech.

But Ranfield said on her April 9th social media post that white people are guilty of ‘default’ segregation, so these sessions are justified.

‘White people do this thing where we create spaces and are a part of spaces that are white only not by statute, but by default – so circumstances allow a space to continue to be white only even though there’s no rule that says white only.’

She said that whites try to rationalize the segregation by making excuses like, ‘this is just a white (geographical) area.’

Anderson University’s segregation of the discussion sessions is a corrective measure, Rainfield argues.

She said that people of color are forced to accept these spaces, though they are not explicitly excluded. However, Ranfield, who is white, said that when white people see people of color do the same they get upset.

‘If people of color begin to organize and create spaces that are for them, white people, we get all, ‘Well, isn’t that segregation,’ she said, speaking for the entire race of white people.

She said that whites become offended when they’re kept out.

‘”Aren’t you trying to divide us?”,’ she says, mimicking a generic white person. “‘Why aren’t I allowed to go there.’

‘Then you end up with these protests over segregation that are really about white people’s feelings of getting, one, excluded from a space and, two, worrying that people are going to say mean things about them in that space and they’re not going to get to defend themselves.’

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Anderson University’s racial taskforce conducted a student survey on racial inclusion, and determined that holding different sessions for white students and students of color so that everyone could speak freely.

‘After compiling the responses, the task force decided to welcome students into respective listening groups based on race and ethnicity,’ university President John Pistole, who is white, wrote defending the decision. ‘This evidence-based method was selected for listening groups based on research models that demonstrate it as being highly effective for receiving candid feedback.’

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