Christian Colleges
Grove City College
- https://americanreformer.org/wide-awoke-at-grove-city-college/ "Wide Awoke at Grove City College?"], American Reformer, Josh Abbotoy on November 29, 2021.
On November 10, 2021, concerned GCC parents and alumni initiated a “Save GCC from CRT” petition. Six days later, the petition closed after receiving 481 signatures from parents, alumni, former faculty, and current students. The specific allegations of the petition can be roughly distilled to the following:
- That a couple of recent chapel speakers, including, crucially, GCC’s Chaplain Dr. Donald Opitz, had promulgated CRT from the chapel pulpit, in a setting and venue that bears GCC’s imprimatur (GCC students are required to attend a certain number of chapel events every semester). [Note: Following the petition response from GCC’s President Paul McNulty, GCC removed Opitz’s chapel speech dated 10.12.21 entitled “Mercy,” which was referenced in the petition.]
- That GCC’s training for resident assistants (RAs) included a segment by Justin Jose, a member of GCC’s newly-established Diversity Council and the Director of the Office of Multicultural Education and Initiatives, in which Mr. Jose instructed RAs on the concepts of inner racism, white privilege and white guilt.
- That Mr. Jose had been observed wearing an LGBT rainbow mask. [Note: McNulty’s response to the petition states that “the facemask in question is not a rainbow flag.”]
- That an education class (EDUC 290) required students to read Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Anti-Racist.
- That GCC’s Diversity Council sponsored a number of reading groups – advertised across campus – that favorably featured books pushing elements of CRT (e.g., Reading While Black). [Note: McNulty’s response to the petition labels this characterization of the diversity council’s activities as “misinformed.”]
- That the education department requested applicants to provide preferred pronouns. [Note: GCC has since responded that this incident is under ongoing review.]
- That GCC’s Academic Resource Center (ARC) requested applicants to provide preferred pronouns. [Note: GCC has since addressed this issue and attributed the request for preferred pronouns to a third-party service provider’s default settings.]
