The College Fix

At a time when concern about higher education’s embrace of critical race theory is at an all-time high, Johns Hopkins University is doubling down.

Officials recently announced that the new Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism will replace its program formerly called Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship.

“The shift in the center’s title from ‘citizenship’ to ‘colonialism’ will allow it to explore some topics it doesn’t currently cover, such as Indigenous studies, while continuing to research how people enact belonging and challenge power structures both individually and collectively,” officials stated in a Feb. 8 news release from the university.

The center will also offer a new major, Critical Diaspora Studies, “which has been approved by the university but must still earn approval from the Maryland Higher Education Commission,” it stated.

The RIC program is 18-years-old and has always focused on “injustice,” but the name change and new major gives it an expansion, it stated.

Today is the day that we answer the question "Who's Chloe?" as we launch the new Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism at @JHUArtsSciences, formerly the Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship https://t.co/bSQvQY4fVj

— The Chloe Center (@RicJhu) February 9, 2024

The university describes the Chloe Center as “an interdisciplinary forum focusing on the intersections of empire, migration, and racial hierarchy.”

To that end, the center on Feb. 1 hosted a lecture titled “Theorizing Racial Capitalism.”

Records show the center’s new namesake, Chloe, “was a Black woman who worked for the university’s namesake and founder, Johns Hopkins, from 1850 to 1873. She may have been the daughter of a migrant from the Virgin Islands, and her last name is unclear. Hopkins left her a bequest of $1,000 in his will,” according to the university.

Colonialism is a topic frequently studied among humanities departments, as The College Fix has previously reported.

MORE: Johns Hopkins rescinds DEI memo calling white, Christian, English-speaking people privileged

IMAGE: Johns Hopkins University

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