Students attending James Madison University will soon study “black rage” and “media dismissal of Black Lives Matter” as part of a Special Topics in Women’s and Gender Studies class.
Students at the Virginia institution, which is named after the fourth U.S. president, will learn this spring about “black joy in the face of oppression” and “human rights in the era of a New Jim Crow.”
The Black Lives Matter movement that began after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012 — along with similar high-profile deaths in the years that followed — will be examined.
Beth Hinderliter, an associate professor of Cross Disciplinary Studies at JMU, will proctor the class, the Washington Examiner reported Monday.
“The course examines the radical resistance of the Black Lives Matter movement to state sanctioned violence against black and brown communities,” a course description on JMU’s website reads. “What strategies has the Black Lives Matter movement devised to defend human rights in the era of a New Jim Crow?”
Other topics covered will include intersectional queer-led politics and “the relationship between the Black Lives Matter movement and the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s-1970s.”
“I would encourage people who are interested in engaging with activism on the ground as well as thinking about how we can spend lots of time being reflective in pursuing strategies to combat racism, to come up with justice reform in the United States,” Ms. Hinderliter told the school’s newspaper, the Examiner reported.
JMU was founded in 1908. Out-of-state students spend up to $27,000 per year on tuition, not including room and board.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.