Ohio Wesleyan U Offers ‘Social Justice’ Major with Required Activism Component

Ohio Wesleyan University now offers a “social justice” major that requires students to participate in progressive activism.

According to a report from Campus Reform, Ohio Wesleyan University now offers a “social justice” major to students looking to enact “positive social change.” The degree has a mandatory progressive activism component.

“Through this interdisciplinary major, students will develop the knowledge and skills to reflect critically on the meaning of social justice at both the local and global levels, examine the dynamics of societal conflicts and struggles for social justice within and among various groups and institutions, and apply interdisciplinary perspectives at multiple levels of analysis,” the university website reads.

The program includes a slate of required courses, such as Contemporary Feminist Theory. The description for the course states that students will learn about feminist from a variety of angles including unusual ones like “ecofeminism.”

This course will provide an overview of some of the major strains, issues, and debates within contemporary U.S. feminist thought. Often U.S. contemporary feminist theory is characterized as a typology of theories (sometimes assumed to be distinct and separate from each other) that follows a linear chronology such as: liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, socialist feminism, radical feminist, ecofeminism, queer feminism, postcolonial/ global feminism, postmodern/poststructuralist feminism, feminist ethnography, and critical race or “woman of color” feminism (or as first, second, and third wave feminisms).

It is unclear, at this time, how exactly graduates from these types of programs will succeed in the real world after college. The required courses for this degree do not lend themselves to real-world professions with the exceptions of perhaps social justice non-profit work.

The College of New Jersey’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies website lists the industries that its graduates have gone on to work in. Amongst those listed in flight instructor. It is absolutely unclear, however, how a Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies degree helps one become a flight instructor.