The University of Minnesota is reportedly investigating accounts that an education professor ran an “ICE drill” in class. According to Alpha News, Professor Blanca Caldas used her “Culture, Power, and Education” class to have students practice shielding other students from ICE.
The fact that it is a required course for those seeking a degree in elementary education only magnifies the concerns about a professor pressuring students into such a politically charged demonstration.
According to a student, Caldas had students stand up and move to a corner of the room as she acted out the trauma of ICE appearing in the classroom. She allegedly pretended to confront an ICE agent and then joined the students to tell them that they had to use their bodies to shield other students being sought by ICE. Then, “she ended the drill by having us look around our peers and our fellow students within the classroom and identify specifically the people that would appear to be the targets.”
The student objected to the racial element of the drill and said that many felt “uncomfortable,” but “essentially went along,” with Caldas’ instructions, she added.
Caldas’s bio page appears to have been locked from public view. However, College Fix was able to review the page and reported that “her PhD dissertation ‘Performing the Advocate Bilingual Teacher: Drama-based Interventions for Future Story-making’ was given the Activist Research Grant Initiative Award sponsored in part by the Social Justice Institute and the U. Texas at Austin Center for Gender and Women’s Studies.”
If the account is accurate, I would view the demonstration as entirely inappropriate, particularly for a required course. If a professor had held a demonstration in helping ICE agents, there would have been mass demonstrations at the University of Minnesota.
Even if this course is designed for such political demonstrations, the question remains: why was it approved by the department as a required course?
I hope this teacher is also going to teach these student how to put their hands behind their backs as they get arrested for interfering with Federal law enforcement activities
As for making this required, shame on the professor and the school for allowing this activity. I can only imagine if there was a class forcing students to point out to ICE officials “here they are”.
The part that makes me shake my head is that the message is mistreating because fully half the country does not agree with this activism, yet they double down.
I don’t understand this. If a person is in the country illegally, they need to be removed from the country. If you don’t want to be deported, then don’t illegally travel to another country. If ICE is coming for a student, then they are also in the process of deporting the parent, and they should be deported together. This professor’s policy is literally to separate children from their parents.
There is no racial element to this. I don’t care if the person illegally entered from Canada or Mexico, China or Somalia. If you don’t have citizenship or some form of visa, you need to leave. As an example, we have many legal Indian immigrants that do extremely well in this country. But we’re also finding Indians who entered illegally and somehow obtained truck driver licenses and are now killing people on our highways. The people that came here illegally need to leave. The people that came legally are welcome to stay.