A San Diego State University professor told a group of students that the president was racist after they took part in a series of controversial ‘sensory experiences’ designed to make them less oppressive.
The experiences include students acting out being arrested by ICE and include reference to the alt-right Charlottesville riots in the summer. The event is titled Journey to a Shared Humanity.
What it includes is kept vague in descriptions of it but a video, taken by one student who took part, has revealed some of its components. The footage was shared with The College Fix, a conservative website, on Tuesday.
One sees a young Hispanic woman talking on the phone with her mother as she receives a knock on the door from ICE.
In another portion, the words ‘Jews will not replace us!’ are played repeatedly through a speaker as images of from the Charlottesville riot in August are compared to Nazi propaganda on a wall.
A student filmed inside the Journey to a Shared Humanity event at San Diego State University which included a recording of a group of men chanting ‘Jews will not replace us!’ in a reenactment of the Charlottesville riots
Another vignette was a student on the phone to her mother as ICE agents arrived to deport her
Another sees a student complaining about her Muslim roommate and telling a university official: ‘I don’t feel comfortable sharing a room with someone who could be related to a terrorist.’
The students said history professor Pablo Ben called the president ‘racist’
After the series of vignettes, students are taken into a room and spoken to by professors including Professor Pablo Ben.
According to The Fix, he told them President Trump was ‘a racist’ and urged them to fight against the oppression’. The event happens every year.
According to the students, the history professor said: ‘Sometimes we also assume that because someone voted for Trump, some people voted for Trump despite the fact that Trump is a racist, not because he is a racist.
‘Certainly there’s a lot of people who voted for [Trump] because they’re, there’s certainly a phenomenon there that points towards racism.’
Neither the university nor the professor has not commented on his alleged comments.
The event takes place every year and does not make reference to the president in public descriptions.
In another vignette, a student acted out telling a counselor that she did not want to share a room with a Muslim classmate in case she was ‘related to a terrorist’
‘Each year, San Diego State University challenges its community to step outside their comfort zone and into the shoes of those who are struggling with oppressive circumstances,’ a description on the university’s website reads.
One organizer told The Fix the vignettes ‘may be disturbing’ but that they were ‘an effective tool used to teach people about how it really feels to be in oppressive situations.’
But internet users questioned the strong rhetoric and accused the university of ‘brainwashing’ its students into a left-wing stance.
‘I cant believe this brainwashing propaganda is funded by the university,’ said one person after viewing the footage.
‘That’s straight up propaganda used to indoctrinate students.
‘That’s not theater or some learning exercise. That’s thought control and indoctrination,’ said another.
Many of the university’s students protested last year after Donald Trump’s election win.
San Diego State University has not responded to the student’s description of the event