BUZZ
A spring faculty book club selection at Portland State University has come under fire from one conservative professor at the institution for its frequent laments over white oppression.
“My institution, Portland State, is having faculty read a book in Spring quarter on the awful scourge of white people at the institution,” political science Professor Bruce Gilley recently posted on X.
The book in question is titled “Culture Clash: New Majority Students at PSU.”
“Drawing on nearly 100 student interviews, this book invites us to listen closely to how students describe their learning experiences at PSU—the strengths they bring, the challenges they navigate, and the kinds of teaching and support that helped them succeed,” the university stated in a news release.
The book was co-authored by PSU history Professor David Peterson del Mar and Alejandra Vazquez, who wrote the book while an undergrad there. It was published in November 2025.
Gilley compiled some of the grievances against white people from the book in his X thread:
“Those with the most job security in this system tend to be white males from comfortable backgrounds who were raised in highly individualistic families and cultures.”
“I was told by some white boy that I don’t fit the standard,” but she is now “glad I don’t fit the standard.”
“I can’t share with these white professors,” she explains, and often feels “like I’m a rubber duck in a pond of real [white] ducks.”
In her online classes “I was seeing a lot of white people . . . a lot of white men,” which exacerbated her “sense of vulnerability.”
Several young white men dominated the class discussions, and one used many words she was unfamiliar with.
The white faculty, as well, “have that pride of, hey, I’m white, what are you going to do about it” when she approached them for help.
She was just so “used to being around a lot of white people” that she got accustomed to “just putting on a face that I thought people would like” in her classes.
“It often felt like if I were white,” she concludes, “college would be a lot easier.”
“Some students,” mostly white, “are stingy and don’t want others to get ahead of them.”
“Some of the interviewees recalled struggling to understand how their white classmates could be so brash.”
The white students often took “the space away by talking so much . . . they just talk and talk about unnecessary things.”
“It’s just the white people talking.” “The students who tend to connect a lot with professors. . . . are white male. . . . students who are very confident in themselves.” After all, “the spaces have been built for them.”
“White professors commonly lack the resolution and life experiences needed to abide or walk with our New Majority students.”
“I had to coexist with racists, white supremacists, and dangerously ignorant people.”
“New Majority” in the book title refers to non-white people.
Gilley is no stranger to flagging concerns at his university or higher education in general.
Most famously, he caused outrage and campaigns against him for an “all men are created equal” tweet and for his 2017 “The Case for Colonialism” article.
MORE: ‘The Case for Colonialism’ lives on
