Face the State

Capitalism panned for failing to provide for "collective needs"
Face The State Staff Report

FTS' Brad Jones discusses this story
on 600 KCOL's "The James Gang" [Streaming Audio]

In an era of rising costs for Colorado’s college students, a University of Colorado feminist center recently received a funding increase, largely paid through a pool of mandatory student fee dollars. At a Friday workshop hosted by the center, student participants received a 34-page manual and additional handouts proclaiming that only whites can be racist.

CU student protestersFTS File Photo

A university Web site claims that Women’s Resource Center “works to create an environment in which women will thrive by promoting the interests of women on campus and in the community, working for social justice and providing students in particular a chance to exercise leadership.”

On the Web site, Andee Coco, a student employee at the center, promotes its “Open Hours, in which students confer with experts in women's health and with representatives from the Office of Discrimination and Harassment, the Office of Victim Assistance and more."

But a Face The State investigation reveals that the center’s primary focus is not on helping victims, but rather on promoting radical concepts relating to race and gender. The center describes its “theme” as “defining my womanhood, embracing our liberation.” At Friday’s “White on White: Working to Dismantle Racism” workshop, 22 CU students and staff came together to hear that white students must acknowledge their racial privilege.

At the beginning of the afternoon workshop, all participants were handed a flyer reading, “underlying assumptions for this workshop.” Eight assumptions were listed, including “White privilege exists and exists on our campus.” In the manual distributed to students, “white privilege” was defined as “an unacknowledged system of favoritism and advantage granted to white people as the beneficiaries of historical conquest. Benefits include preferential treatment, exemption from group oppression and immunity from perpetuating social inequity.”

Additional workshop assumptions included “’Reverse racism’ is impossible” and “Racism is part of a system of interlocking oppressions, including, sexism, heterosexism, economic oppression and able-body-ism.”

According to the “Anti-Racism Definitions From a Human Rights Framework,” reverse racism was defined as “A disputed concept. Discrimination (a denial of opportunity) by subordinates against dominants).”

Capitalism was defined as “an economic system based on private ownership and control. Produces profits for individual rather than collective needs.”

Rachel Azark, a CU alumnus and former chair of the Women's Resource Center advisory board, believes the workshop strays from the center's stated goal of aiding women. "I can't imagine myself having agreed with it," she said.

The center is funded almost exclusively through student fees, with student representatives voting last month to increase its budget for the upcoming year to $267,785. Student government leaders approved an even larger budget than center staff had requested, earmarking the additional money for student travel and speakers fees.

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said the University did not have a role in the workshop since the student union, which funds the Women's Resource Center, is responsible for its operations. Training materials distributed to attendees listed the school's Student Academic Services Center as a co-sponsor. That program is funded by the university's general budget, not student fees.

"The notion of educating white people about their privileges was part of the mainstream civil rights movement," Hilliard said.

Other events sponsored by the center include “Sexpressions,” a “fun night of food and entertainment. It is a talent showcase celebrating positive expressions of female sexuality.” Every month, the center hosts a “kitchen table,” a free meal promoted as a “casual, networking, social gathering for women of color and multi-racial women.”

The student union, UCSU, has long boasted of having “the largest budget of any student government in the nation,” with students maintaining significant control over thirteen cost centers that include a student center and on-campus health center. Currently, student fees account for $18 million of the union’s total budget of more than $32 million.

Under a funding formula currently being debated in the state legislature, CU's liberal arts students could see their tuition rise by more than $500 a year, up to $5,933 in the upcoming school year from $5,418 this year. Various fees for administrative and student programs, which are mandated on top of tuition, account for an additional $1,127 in expenses, an increase of nearly $400 per student since 1998.