A college in the New York City area has opened up a Critical Race and Ethnic Studies major for students for the fall semester.
St. John’s University, a professed Catholic school on Long Island, will offer a Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) discipline through its liberal-arts college. The major’s introduction will come out of the school’s new Institute for CRES, launched in October 2021, according to the Torch, St. John’s student newspaper.
On the school’s website, St. John’s says it is a Catholic and Vincentian institution, meaning it is devoted to the teachings and mission of St. Vincent de Paul.
The new CRES institute says it is committed to “addressing the problems caused by systemic racism and the intersecting forms of oppression that accompany it locally, regionally, nationally, and globally,” according to its website.
It aims to instruct students on subjects including class, gender, race, and sexuality through an interdisciplinary curriculum.
Those who earn the degree will “graduate with a skill set focused on enacting social change on the local and global scale.”
The major was reportedly created in response to student pressure.
“What made CRES possible was students essentially expressing demand for a more inclusive curriculum,” Natalie Byfield, founding director of the CRES program and director of the CRES institute, told the Torch.
Students studying CRES will be given the opportunity to apply their learning to the real world via a capstone project and a required internship. Byfield expressed the hope that CRES will be enveloped into the St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences eventually.
The school’s CRES track is likely to incorporate many elements of critical race theory, which teaches that slavery and white supremacy are intrinsic to America’s national character. Its major proponents, such as professor and author Ibram X. Kendi, argue that positive discrimination, through reparations or other means, must be sought as redress for the country’s past sins against minorities and other identity groups.