Far-Left Programming: University Of Minnesota Labels ‘Whiteness’ A ‘Pandemic’

Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development are facing criticism after launching a website claiming that America is suffering from a “Whiteness Pandemic.”

The website, created by the institute’s Culture and Family Lab, is titled, “Whiteness Pandemic Resources for Parents, Educators, and other Caregivers,” and states:

Racism is an epidemic that can also be considered a pandemic given its large cross-national proportion and spread (APA, 2020). However, there is another pandemic lurking behind and driving the racism pandemic – the Whiteness Pandemic. Whiteness refers to culture not biology: the centuries-old culture of Whiteness features colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility, which are all covert expressions of racism common in the United States. … At birth, young children growing up in White families begin to be socialized into the culture of Whiteness, making the family system one of the most powerful systems involved in systemic racism.

It continues, “If you were born or raised in the United States, you have grown up in the Whiteness Pandemic.”

The nonprofit group Parents Defending Education, which monitors political activism in schools, blasted the website as “far-left programming” reflective of a deeply entrenched diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda. Rhyen Staley, the group’s research director, told Fox News that the project shows how pervasive DEI remains in taxpayer-funded institutions.

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The “Whiteness Pandemic” initiative is based on a 2021 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and written by lab director Dr. Gail Ferguson. The abstract for the paper, which won an award from the Society for General Psychology, reads, “Family socialization into the centuries-old culture of Whiteness—involving colorblindness, passivity, and fragility—perpetrates and perpetuates U.S. racism, reflecting an insidious Whiteness pandemic.”

The study concluded that parents’ attitudes toward race correlated with their level of “racial identity development,” suggesting that silence on racial events like George Floyd’s death reflected lower progress in “antiracism.”

Critics argue that the framing is both unscientific and overtly accusatory. The study surveyed a highly specific demographic: predominantly liberal, educated, upper-middle-class white mothers in Minnesota, raising serious questions about the generalizability of the conclusions. By defining an entire race’s culture as inherently problematic and framing all white people as contributors to systemic racism, the university is effectively assigning collective guilt based on skin color.