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Fall class builds ‘a foundation for anti-racist reflection,’ according to dance department
Ohio State University is offering a course this fall that teaches students to examine how racism operates in the performing arts and consider how their own identities and biases may contribute to “oppression.”
The “Introduction to Anti-Racism in the Performing Arts” class through the Department of Dance is taught by Professor of Afro-Contemporary Dance Charles Anderson.
The three-credit course builds “a foundation for anti-racist reflection and practice” among “artists, educators, audiences,” and others who “participate in creating and maintaining cultural values,” according to the public university’s course catalog.
The course examines how racism operates “systemically, institutionally, and interpersonally” in live and digital performing arts. Students are also asked to consider “personal biases / identities” and the relationship between culture and society in either “perpetrating or interrupting oppression.”
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and author of “The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics is Dividing the Land of the Free” and “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution,” questioned whether courses built around “anti-racism” belong at public universities.
“So-called ‘anti-racism’ is not a personal choice to not being racist, but a commitment to take up constant action to fight racism through adherence to a number of leftist stipulations—such as racial preferences, applying the principle of disparate impact to every action, or restorative justice, etc.,” Gonzalez told The College Fix in a recent interview.
“None of these things actually fight racism, and they are unconstitutional to boot, thus have no place in taxpayer-funded university,” he said.
More details about the course recently became publicly available as a result of a state law. Ohio Senate Bill 1, which went into effect over the summer, requires public universities to post syllabi for undergraduate courses publicly online.
According to the online syllabus for the “anti-racism” class, readings include “Of Fish and Water: Perspectives on Racism and Privilege,” which is a part of the book “Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society.”
Alongside classics such as Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” one of Frederick Douglass’s speeches, and sections of American founding documents, students also will read “Defining Racism: ‘Can We Talk?’” from the book, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”
Discussion topics include “Race, Racism & the Making of Categories” and “Creative Practice, Anti-Racism & Imagining the Future,” according to the syllabus.
The course is approved as a general education course under the “Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity” foundation. It can also satisfy the “Literary, Visual and Performing Arts” requirement. The Department of Dance also lists it as one of the options to fulfill its dance minor.
University spokesperson Chris Booker declined to answer The Fix’s questions about how OSU defines “anti-racism” and distinguishes between scholarship and political advocacy.
“Please note this is an elective course and one of thousands of courses offered to students,” Booker stated via email.
The course instructor, Professor Anderson, also did not respond to The College Fix’s request for comment.
The course is not new. Ohio State’s dance school announced it in 2023, and public course listings indicate it has been taught several times since then, including spring 2024, fall 2024, and fall 2025.
In 2023, the department also announced an “Anti-Racism and Social Justice Education through the Performing Arts” certificate program intended to train artists, educators, and community leaders to “dismantle racial inequities in the field.”
“This course builds a foundation for anti-racist reflection,” Alesondra Christmas, a former instructor, said in a 2023 university news article. “Interdisciplinary course materials address how racism operates systemically, institutionally and interpersonally in live and digital performing arts. Students will consider their own biases and intersectional identities.”
“What power do the performing arts have in perpetuating or interrupting systems of oppression?” Christmas asked.
That same year, the public university welcomed an “anti-racist dance” instructor as its “artist laureate,” The Fix reported at the time.
Gonzalez with the Heritage Foundation believes that an ideological focus on anti-racism can detract from the traditional educational mission of universities.
When asked how approaches to history and art that are rooted in identity politics could undermine the purpose of education, he told The Fix, “Because they take up the time and space that should be devoted to learning.”
Gonzalez said he has also observed a broader trend in higher education in which diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives become “political pledges and litmus tests that have no place in hiring decisions.”
MORE: Ohio State University names ‘anti-racist dance’ instructor ‘artist laureate’
