Phoenix, AZ: One Arizona State University professor filed a lawsuit against the school on Tuesday, claiming that the DEI course that all faculty members are required to take contradicts Arizona statute.
An Arizona State University professor named Owen Anderson is suing the university alongside a conservative think tank called the Goldwater Institute. Anderson claims that the school is breaking a state law that has been in place for two years that prohibits public agencies from forcing their employees to participate in training that promotes “blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex.”
The Goldwater Institute sent a news release stating that Anderson might be subject to disciplinary action from his superiors if he declines to take part in the DEI training. The complaint contends that the training discriminates by “compelling the speech of public employees by requiring faculty and staff to take an examination following a training that presents forms of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex, and answer with Arizona State University’s ‘correct’ answers, in violation of the Arizona Constitution.”
Just one day prior to launching the legal action, a fresh research from the Goldwater Institute claimed that the Cronkite School of Arizona State University was “forcing political indoctrination” on its undergraduates through the mandatory “Diversity and Civility at Cronkite” course, which taught them about “racial microaggressions” and “cisgender privilege.”.
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Goldwater claims that this course was not the only one at Arizona State University that promoted DEI doctrine. During the Spring 2024 semester, over a hundred additional classes were identified as either meeting their undergraduate diversity criteria or including DEI terminology, according to the report.