Kent State U. offers approximately 150 courses that address topics such as gender, sexuality or LGBTQ+

The original purpose of universities was “the pursuit of truth,” says the scholar

A course called “Queer Fiction Writing” is available at Kent State University this spring, one of approximately 150 courses that explore topics such as gender, sexuality and LGBTQ+.

A search for “LGBTQ” in the KSU 2024-25 course catalog returns 14 courses and a search for “gender” returns 98 courses. Searching for “sexuality” brings up 47 courses. Some of the courses overlapped between the three topics.

The public, Ohio-based institution’s offerings include: “Queer Theory,” “Introduction to Transgender Studies,” “Race, Gender, and Social Justice,” “Gender Role and Identity Development,” and “Feminist and Queer.” Art and culture theory.”

Students in the “Queer Fiction Writing” course “will write queer stories – and queer stories,” says a promotional flyer. “Students will read examples of LGBTQ+ books and interrogate the traditional fiction writing workshop. Can the workshop be ‘queered’?”

The course is taught by Associate Professor Lauren Vachon, who uses the pronouns “they/she,” according to the flyer, a copy of which was obtained The college fix.

The scholar is described on her LinkedIn page as a “queer activist” who is committed to researching “LGBTQ history, queer pedagogy, creative writing as pedagogy, the use of oral histories in the classroom, and collecting queer oral histories.” interested. Vachon didn’t answer The Fix’s Requests for an interview.

A request for a curriculum from KSU Curriculum Services was not returned. The LGBTQ+ club at KSU declined to comment, citing a busy semester.

When asked to comment on the queer writing course and the flood of others discussing gender, sexuality or LGBTQ+ issues at Kent State University, a Christian education official argued that such courses are often based on critical theory.

Corey Miller, president of Ratio Christi, said the purpose of such courses is to teach students “to revolt and disrupt society with its normative structure, including male and female, right and wrong.”

“Students learn new insights about themselves and the world in these courses and take them with them to the workplace, like a train carrying ideological cargo from campus to culture,” said Miller, author of the forthcoming book “The Third Revolution: From Campus to Culture and a Vision Forward.”

Miller said the original mission of all universities is the search for the truth.

Today, the university is “a hotbed of activism, driving an ideological revolution from the campus upstream to the culture downstream,” he said by email.

Miller added that many professors “in the social sciences and humanities today promote the postmodern idea that ‘knowledge is a social construction of reality’ and that all things—including the most basic things—that were once considered normal and good are nothing are further than repressive social constructs.”

At Kent State University, according to course descriptions, there are some courses that at first glance do not appear to contain LGBTQ or feminist ideas.

A course titled “Nations and Borders” will take a “historically informed and global approach to state production and displacement.” [through] critical texts – many of which are based on feminist and queer theories –[to] deal with different interpretations of borders, particularly national and physical ones.”

A course on “Histories and Theories of Photography and Visual Culture” will “explore critical approaches to art history, including ecocriticism, feminism, critical race studies, queer studies, and borderlands studies.”

“These courses are designed to teach students how to break free from the normal and normative aspects of life and Western civilization in order to queer, decolonize, or deconstruct every societal norm down to the basics,” Miller said, “these range from their own.” Their own sense of gender and sexuality, which is central to their personality, leads them to question God and Christianity.”

Miller pointed The college fix to a course at Yale Divinity School called Queer Theology, taught by lesbian theologian Linn Tonstad.

“Current DEI programs will pave the way for these woke concepts to take hold and impact the world of work, from corporate to K-12 education,” Miller said.

Teachers will prepare K-12 students to “think from a queer perspective and pursue their own sexuality and gender, disregarding and disregarding norms as socially oppressive constructs,” he said.

“It is high time for people of common sense to think about our own ideological revolution in universities. “We can’t continue to pour chlorine downstream when the problems are coming from science upstream,” Miller said.

MORE: Christian seminary hosts ‘Queering the Vote’ workshops to advocate for LGBTQ ‘justice’

IMAGE: Kent State University

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