"This for-credit education requirement will apply to all Cornell students in every [sic] field of study," said a draft proposal issued by Working Group S, a committee comprising of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and administrative officials. "It will be the first critical and necessary step our students will take as they help to build an equitable community of belonging at Cornell, and beyond."
The proposed "antiracism" course would have two components, Part A and Part B, centered on the themes of "race, ethnicity, and indigeneity."
Both, said the committee, "aim to affect behavior."
Part A will make students learn the "historical formation, current manifestations, and structural basis of racism, colonialism, bias, and injustice." Part B will require students and faculty to "bring these issues into their departments and fields of study."
Working Group S recommended developing Part A in cooperation with faculty selected from Cornell’s identity-based academic departments including, Africana Studies, American and Indigenous Studies, Asian American Studies, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality, Studies, and Latino/a Studies. But Part B, it said, would be "key" for taking the step of using the identity-studies departments for "embedding antiracist content into the disciplines."