Privilege Checking Will Be Part of the Orientation Process At Harvard University.

Harvard Privilege Checking, Affirmative Action


Large institutions are no stranger to racially-charged controversies, sadly, but at least student organizations are making efforts to push back and also to educate. New York Magazine reports that,

In response to growing demand from student activists, administrators committed Friday to adding a class in power and privilege to its orientation program for incoming first-year students.

In the past few weeks, privilege has become to now hot topic, thanks to an infamous essay. We won’t link it here, but have fun searching. If you haven’t read it or watched the author of the piece in question on television, consider yourself fortunate.

According to Salon,

Reetu Mody, a first year masters student in public policy, organized the movement that eventually led to the course addition (which is so far unnamed). Mody recently told the Crimson that she started HKS Speak Out in response to the disappointment that her courses “didn’t really address race at all” when examining policy issues. The group’s first session attracted about 80 students last fall, and a recent petition attracted more than 300 signatures — about a fourth of the school’s student population — to push the administration to offer “mandatory privilege and power training.”

Mody does acknowledge that the concept of privilege and how it affects different people is largely misunderstood. She says of individuals like the infamous article writer,

“If what you’ve been told all your life is you’re really talented and you deserve what you have, it’s going to be really hard to find out Maybe I don’t deserve it, and all these other people equally deserve it but never even had a shot,” she says. “Schools are not giving students a space to manage that loss of identity.”

The content of the program, conceived by HKS Speak Out and the university’s administration, has not been finalized.