The College Fix

Enrollees need just a few weeks and $525 to learn about ‘dismantling oppression’

A “Certificate in Dismantling Oppression” is available through the University of Michigan for any individual, student or not, interested in learning more.

The certificate, which costs $525 and takes just 12 hours to complete, is offered through the College of Social Work.

“Kink” therapist and UMich graduate Alec “Moss” Herberholz is one of the instructors. “I’m passionate about providing care around experiences often neglected in mainstream therapeutic services,” according to Herberholz’ bio at the Radical Well-Being Center.

These “experiences” “includ[e] ethical non-monogamy, kink, queerness, neurodiversity, systems of structural oppression, spirituality, and intergenerational trauma.” The instructor used to run a pro-psychedelic group while a student at the University of Michigan.

The counselor declined to provide further comment on the content of the course and past experience teaching it at other universities.

Herberholz directed The College Fix to Social Work Dean Beth Angell, who has not responded to multiple emailed requests for comment in the past five weeks. The Fix asked how the certificate fit in with the general mission of the university and the college of social work.

Enrollees will learn about “personal privileged and oppressed identities,” “tools of oppression,” “implicit and explicit bias,” and “methods to address conflicts and oppressive actions within an organization,” according to the objectives section.

The certificate program states further:

Individuals and organizations that have a commitment to challenging social injustices will apply core concepts and strategies to disrupt oppression at interpersonal and institutional levels. Participants will learn how oppression interferes with achieving social justice within the United States, increase knowledge of anti-oppressive practices, and obtain tools to dismantle oppression using common agreements.

Young America’s Foundation, which first spotted the certificate, noted the university also runs a “Campus Abolition Research Lab” and said the school is a “breeding ground for leftism.”

Certificate good for training ‘DEI’ administrators, conservative group says

A spokesperson for a higher education reform group criticized the growth of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in universities.

“This program is a fantastic priority for the University of Michigan, if its new mission is to produce more DEI and social justice-oriented administrators who drain the productivity of the educational enterprise,” Chance Layton with the National Association of Scholars told The Fix via email.

Layton cited a 2021 report from Heritage Foundation which found “Michigan had the highest number of DEI administrators of the 65 schools surveyed.”

“It’s little to no surprise to us at NAS that the ‘School of Social Work’ would turn into a degree mill for such individuals,” the spokesman said.

“The university should focus on providing its students with an education that pursues truth, enriches culture, shapes character, and prepares students for a practical vocation,” he said.

Layton said that “anti-racism” and “equity” programs can make “political polarization” worse, citing an essay that reviewed research on DEI training. “Where students may have treated their colleagues equally, but they now treat them with suspicion,” he said.

He also said the “self-assessment of personal biases” portion of the program may rely on “pseudoscience,” such as the Implicit Association Test.

He said the test “has been proven time and time again to provide hilariously false conclusions.”

“Such pseudoscience should be found nearer to astrology, not the social sciences.”

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