Harvard University is set to introduce a “Gender 101” course for its freshman students that will discuss gender-related topics.
The Undergraduate Council at Harvard University approved an initiative that provides a budget for a new “Gender 101” training session that will be available to freshman students in the upcoming semester. According to a report from the Crimson, the sessions, which will be led by the Harvard Women’s Center, will focus on “establishing shared knowledge and language around” gender-related issues.
The training will take place in residential halls during study breaks. The training course will operate on a small $1,000 budget, which allots approximately $4 per each of the students that will likely participate.
“This is giving people a common set of language they can use to discuss often unknown issues,” Sonya Kalara, a co-sponsor of the legislation that introduced the training course, said.
Some students at Harvard hope that the decision by the Undergraduate Council is the first step towards making such a program mandatory for all first-year students.
According to the Crimson, all but one of the representatives that participated voted in favor of the new legislation. However, not every student on campus is happy about the new training course.
“If they’re afraid of students saying something outside of the liberal norm they should actually expose students to differing opinions, not indoctrinate them into acceptable dogma,” Harvard Freshman Malcolm Reid argued. “In the real world you can’t throw a fit and cry murder because someone didn’t call you ‘ze’ instead of ‘he.’”
“Colleges face a truly difficult choice in our polarized political state,” he continued. “Are they going to be safe spaces or debate spaces? Will their students be the best and brightest, or will they pump out mindless drones?”
