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Students are required to complete ‘anti-racism’ project outside classroom
Monmouth University’s Educational Counseling Program trains all students to be “social justice advocates,” according to a recent report by watchdog group Legal Insurrection.
The program’s 2025-26 manual, which was recently removed from the university website, stated that students will focus on racial diversity by participating in various “anti-racism” courses and activities, Legal Insurrection reported.
“The program is committed to training each counseling student to become a social justice advocate through self-awareness, understanding, knowledge, and advocacy skills,” the manual states.
Like hundreds of other university counseling programs, Monmouth’s Education Counseling Program is accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. CACREP accreditation explicitly requires diversity, equity, and inclusion as “integral to counselor preparation,” and requires programs to document DEI coverage.
To fulfill these standards, the New Jersey-based university’s most recent 2025-26 program implemented all parts of the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies framework.
Endorsed by the American Counseling Association, MSJCC consists of four components of the “multicultural and social justice praxis”: counselor self-awareness, client worldview, the counseling relationship, and advocacy interventions. Each is examined through the lens of a counselor or client’s “privileged” or “marginalized” status.
Each course is designed to facilitate “multicultural perspectives, highlighting awareness, understanding, and knowledge of diversity and social justice issues,” the manual states.
One course, called “Advanced Race & Racism,” requires students to complete an “anti-racism” project outside the classroom.
“Social justice advocacy” and immersive experiences are also woven throughout the curriculum’s mandatory 700-hour internship.
Further, the program works “implicit bias assessments, immersive bias-disruption experiences, and additional social justice activities” into all its courses.
On top of educating for social justice, the Education Counseling Program is committed to increasing racial diversity. The manual lists five guidelines outlining the ways in which the program’s faculty are striving to “recruit a more diverse student body.”
Meanwhile, colleges and universities are facing mounting legal pressure and federal restrictions targeting DEI initiatives and tying compliance to federal funding and contracts.
Tara Peters, associate vice president of Monmouth University, told The Fix that the school is “fully committed to complying with federal and state civil rights laws, and to maintaining a safe and supportive campus free from discrimination.”
“Our faculty develop and maintain academic curricula consistent with the professional standards applicable to their disciplines, including those established by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP),” Peters said.
She explained that “the ability to work effectively with people whose experiences differ from one’s own is a basic professional competency” in education counseling. The courses and requirements are “regularly reviewed” by faculty to ensure the program remains up to date with accreditation standards, Peters said.
The counseling curriculum isn’t the only program centered around advocacy and inclusion at Monmouth. The university also hosted its own “Social Justice Academy,” designed for K-12 educators who will introduce the learned advocacy skills into the classroom “to create a more equitable experience for their students.”
Peters told The Fix that “The Social Justice Academy was a separate, grant-funded professional-development program for K–12 educators that operated for a defined term and concluded in spring 2026.”
With seminars led by “experts in diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the two-week summer workshop program was completely free to participants, and the academy even offered to send coaches and help fund implementation in schools.
However, Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Fix that social justice agendas can have detrimental effects on the quality of students’ education.
“There’s no evidence that it’s beneficial,” he said. “If anything, there’s reason to be concerned that dubious practices pursued in the name of ‘social justice ‘- like lax discipline or race-conscious assignments– can harm students.”
Hess was not familiar with Monmouth’s specific programming in relation to MSJCC, but he did warn that such agendas can be harmful.
“There’s certainly plenty of evidence that ‘anti-bias’ training gives rise to ideological proselytizing and that ‘restorative justice’ discipline has led to breakdowns in school discipline,” he said.
The College Fix reached out to contacts both specifically in Monmouth’s education department and in the Social Justice Academy for more information about the programs, but neither responded.
