The College Fix

‘Deadlines’ and grades can be harmful to minorities, North Dakota State U. page says

Minorities do best without “rigid rules,” “deadlines for assignments and exams,” and graded homework according to a since-deleted “diversity” page for North Dakota State University’s engineering department.

The “supporting diversity” page for the engineering department draws from several resources on “grading for equity” and “culturally responsive teaching.” However, the page has since been removed following College Fix inquiries and executive orders from President Donald Trump relating to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

It now returns an “Error 404 page.” The page appears to have disappeared around late January or the first week of February, according to a College Fix review. Prior to that, President Donald Trump had issued executive orders targeting DEI within the federal government and in education. The Fix viewed the page in January when it was still live.

Interim Dean Alan Kallmeyer did not respond to an email on Monday morning that asked similar questions and if the removal of the diversity page was due to President Donald Trump’s directives on DEI in higher education.

The public university’s page, which highlighted of the college’s “Bronze Award from the American Society for Engineering Education Diversity Recognition Program” provided “Seven Best Teaching Practices to Support Minority Students.”

Some suggestions included reading more about diversity in the engineering field or creating “open-ended assignments,” but others urged professors not to let wrong answers on homework affect a student’s grade.

“Allow your students to fail in the class without failing the class,” the third suggestion states. “By allowing students to make mistakes on their homework without having it negatively impact their final grade, you are creating a positive environment while still preparing students for the final summative assessments.”

This is related to another suggestion, to “provide” “flexibility,” since “[s]tudents from underrepresented groups are more likely to be affected by classes that grade attendance or have rigid rules and deadlines for assignments and exams.”

The College Fix reached out to engineering Professor Trung Le, the college’s executive committee chair, for comment on the standards and how they might affect the training of future engineers. The Fix asked about the potential consequences of not using deadlines since engineers will have to abide by them in the future jobs. He did not respond to two emails and a phone call in the last month.

The College Fix emailed Dilvin Habib, the senior director of access and opportunity, for NDSU’s “Center for Community and Belonging. She did not respond to an email in the past week.

However, a senior research fellow in education policy at the Heritage Foundation criticized the diversity rules.

“No, colleges should not be setting standards such as this,” Jonathan Butcher told The Fix via an emailed media statement, specifically in reference to letting students do poorly on homework without failing a class.

He said such a rule “is an example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Butcher said professors should be “holding students to high standards by making them accountable for their work.”

He also criticized the idea of “open-ended assignments” for engineering students. “Students should have specific instructions” so that they “understand the consequences if they cut corners or if their work is inaccurate,” Butcher said.

“It is not a school’s job to protect students from ideas with which they disagree in the same way that it is not a school’s job to protect students from grades they do not like,” he said.

“A likely negative outcome is that students will not learn the material they need to know to be successful in school or the workplace,” he said, commenting on the standards.

Other professors have argued that “traditional grading” harms racial minorities.

For example, Alex Jennings at the University of Pittsburgh uses “contract grading.” The idea allows students to set their own standards for grades.

“Traditional grading systems don’t typically have much room for alternative ways of knowing or learning styles, so they only really prioritize a white dominant and ableist, neurotypical standard of knowledge and language,” Jennings told The Pitt News. “If you aren’t a white, cisgendered, able bodied and minded person, things are going to look different for you.”

MORE: NDSU pledge warns against ‘violence in language’

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