Two students from a St. Paul Christian university recently appeared on “Fox & Friends” to discuss their petition against critical race theory being taught at their school.
University of Northwestern-St. Paul student Joshua Feland and recent alumna Hayley Tschetter are calling on their peers to protest the teaching of critical race theory and to “turn away from falsehood.”
“Our beloved university is at a turning point,” the students write in their petition, which has garnered 2,400 signatures. For a school with an undergraduate population of about 3,500, that could be over half of the student body if all signatures are from current students.
This petition follows several private letters to the school from concerned students, parents, and community members, but the school has done nothing about the matter, Tschetter said.
“As Christians, we believe that our primary call is to share the gospel, and we firmly believe that critical race theory is unbiblical, and that it preaches a different gospel,” Tschetter told Fox News.
UNW has “endorsed ideologies” like critical race theory, social justice theory, and intersectionality in recent changes to curriculum and training, Feland and Tschetter say. The school mandates racial-bias training for students and staff, uses affirmative action hiring processes, recently added a diversity and inclusion office, and has made changes to core curriculum.
“It’s been very discouraging to see … I’ve been part of some of these classes where ideas like white supremacy and white guilt and implicit bias have been taught and propagated as biblical truth,” Feland said. “[The university is] succumbing to those pressures of culture.”
The petition explains that the biblical meaning of justice “has only to do with impartiality in judgement.” Justice as seen in the Bible “has nothing to do with righting socio-economic disparities, validating feelings, or overthrowing power structures,” the petition reads.
Ideologies like Marxism, postmodernism, and critical race theory are “anti-biblical worldviews,” the authors say, so these should not be endorsed by a Christian university.
The president of UNW said he does “not agree” with how the petition characterizes “diversity and inclusion efforts” at the school, but he respects the students’ rights to express their opinions.
Feland and Tschetter have been called racists and white supremacists by other students because of the petition.
They also shared on “Fox & Friends” that some staff have reached out to say they agree with the petition, but they don’t want to speak out in fear of losing their jobs.
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