The College Fix

‘You probably don’t even know you have biases’

Diversity training at a prominent Christian university seems to suggest that merely being alive is enough to qualify one as biased.

Baylor University’s Equity Office recently offered a training session called “If You’re Breathing, You’re Biased.” The event, which was held last Wednesday, was styled as an “introductory workshop to Building an Inclusive Community.”

“You probably don’t even know you have biases. The problem is that biases are unconscious,” the event listing reads:

As a result, you may be unaware of some of the reasons underlying your actions and reactions. According to Howard J. Ross, author of “Everyday Bias,” bias is “far from simply being malicious prejudgments of others and situations.” It influences the core of decision making abilities in how we interact within our very own communities.

The workshop promised to “take a look at defining bias, identifying personal and potential biases, and consider the effects of biases in the workplace as well as within the Baylor community.”

https://twitter.com/_ZacharyMiller/status/1196655554107760640

Earlier in the semester, reporting on another offering of the same workshop, the Baylor Lariat cited several approving responses from the student body. “I tend to think that a lot of people here are not as open to other ideas and thinking in different ways as people might be on other campuses,” one student said, with another adding: “I feel like we’re a very set-in-our-ways university; we all could benefit from opening our minds to different groups of people.”

MORE: University provides 87 different programs to fight bias on campus

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