This past spring, I had the pure joy of co-teaching a course with Sumi Pendakur at Harvey Mudd College entitled “Social Justice and Equity: STEM and Beyond”. Even though we create the course one week before the start of the semester, we got over 50 students to sign up to take it! It was so uplifting to see students grappling deeply with these issues.

In case others are interested, here are the topics for each of the class meetings, and the readings that we assigned. There are some that we would definitely switch up the next time we do this, but I hope this is a helpful list for anyone thinking about teaching a similar course.

Link to our course description:

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Class 1 (Jan 25, 2016): Patterns of Underrepresentation and Bias in STEM

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Class 2 (Feb 1): The Importance of Diversity in Higher Education

• HMC’s “Why Diversity” and “What is Diversity” documents
• Chapters 1 and 2 of “Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education: Making it Work” by Daryl Smith
• 1-page article “Diversity Challenge” in Nature, Sep 2014 (optional: read the other articles included in that first article)

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Class 3 (Feb 8): Meritocracy in STEM and Affirmative Action

• “The Tyranny of Meritocracy” (Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan 2015)
• “Factors that Influence Success among Racial and Ethnic Minority College Students in the STEM Circuit” in “Racial and Ethnic Minority Student Success in STEM” by Museus, Palmer, Davis, Maramba
• “A Critical Race Counterstory of Race, Racism, and Affirmative Action” by Solórzano & Yosso

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Class 4 (Feb 15): Racism, Prejudice, Bias, Stereotypes

• Chapter 1 “Defining Racism” in “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” by Beverly Tatum
• “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh
• “The Ideology of Racism: Misusing Science to Justify Racial Discrimination” by William Tucker
• “The neuroscience of prejudice and stereotyping” by David Amodio
• Take a test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html (we recommend “Gender-Science IAT” and reading their FAQs)
• “Social Dominance Theory and the Dynamics of Intergroup Relations” by Pratto, Sidanius, and Levin
• Section 1: Conceptual Frameworks by Maurianne Adams in “Readings for Diversity and Social Justice“

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Class 5 (Feb 22): Slavery, Jim Crow, and Racism Post-Jim-Crow

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
• https://www.aclu.org/files/VRATimeline.html
• http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/12/perry.browne.civil.war/
• Listen to This American Life Episode 512 “House Rules“
• Chapter 3 of “Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence” by Erika N. Walker
• “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander (Mother Jones)
• (optional) Explore PBS’s web site on Jim Crow:
  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/index.html (lots of personal accounts)

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Class 6 (Feb 29): Immigration, Segregation, Desegregation, Resegregation

• “Segregation, Desegregation, and Integration of Chicano Students” by Valencia, Menchaca, and Donato Chapter 3 from “Chicano School Failure and Success: Past, Present and Future” 2nd ed, 2002
• “Leaving Black Males Behind: Debunking the Myths of Meritocratic Education” by Hughes & Bonner II
• “From Coolie to Model Minority: U.S. Immigration Policy and the Construction of Racial Identity” by Junn
• (optional, but highly recommended) Listen to This American Life Episodes 562 & 563 to hear a modern-day school integration and resegregation
  (optional) Play with http://ncase.me/polygons/ “The Parable of the Polygons”

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We cancelled our Mar 7 class to hear Keith Knight‘s talk.

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Class 7 (Mar 21): Critical Race Theory and the “Others” Claim to Higher Education

1. “Just What is Critical Race Theory and What’s It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education” Gloria Ladson-Billings
2. “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Chicana and Chicano Education” Solorzano and Yosso
3. “Camouflaging Power and Privilege: A Critical Race Analysis of University Diversity Policies” Iverson
4. “From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action and Back Again: A Critical Race Discussion of Racialized Rationales and Access to Higher Education” Yosso, Parker, Solorzano, Lynn

Note: We did a jig-saw activity with these four readings that turned out well. These two were additional optional readings.

• “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education” by Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995 TC Record)
• “Critical Race Theory and Education: History, Theory, and Implications” William Tate IV

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Class 8 (Mar 28): Marxism and Higher Education

• Chapter 2 “Five Faces of Oppression” by Young in “Justice and the Politics of Difference“
• “Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals” by Labaree
• “The Rising Cost of Higher Education: Whose Fault Is It?” by Poupore

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Class 9 (Apr 4): Social Capital Theory and the Hidden Curriculum

• “A Social Capital Framework for Understanding the Socialization of Racial Minority Children and Youths” Stanton-Salazar
• “Persisting Barriers” Blossfeld & Shavit Chapter 23 of “The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education” 2010
• “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon

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Class 10 (Apr 11): Feminism

• http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/05/biased-biology-the-case-of-the-missing-vaginas.html
• “Hypatia’s Heritage” Chapter 1 of “Has Feminism Changed Science?” by Londa Schiebinger
• “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” by Donna Haraway

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Class 11 (Apr 18): Queer Theory & Disability Justice

• “Diversity: Pride in Science”: http://www.nature.com/news/diversity-pride-in-science-1.15924
• “Body? What Body? Considering Ability and Disability in STEM Disciplines” by Slaton
• “Why Is Science So Straight?” By Suri: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/opinion/manil-suri-why-is-science-so-straight.html
• “Universal Design for Learning in Postsecondary Education–Reflections on Principles and their Applications” by Harbour et al
  http://www.udlcenter.org/sites/udlcenter.org/files/UDLinPostsecondary.pdf

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Class 12 (Apr 25): Campus Climate

• “Nine Themes in Campus Racial Climates and Implications for Institutional Transformation” by Harper and Hurtado