The University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development is under fire after researchers launched a website declaring that the United States is suffering from a so-called “Whiteness Pandemic” — a taxpayer-funded project critics say is yet another example of extremist DEI ideology targeting American families.
The website, created by the institute’s Culture and Family Lab, is titled “Whiteness Pandemic Resources for Parents, Educators, and Other Caregivers.” It claims racism is an “epidemic” and argues that behind it lies an even more dangerous force — “the Whiteness Pandemic.”
According to the site:
“Whiteness refers to culture not biology: the centuries-old culture of Whiteness features colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility… 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.”
The site further asserts that anyone born or raised in the United States has “grown up in the Whiteness Pandemic.”
Parents and Watchdog Groups Slam “Far-Left Indoctrination”
Parents Defending Education — a national watchdog organization monitoring political activism in schools — blasted the project as “far-left programming” embedded in publicly funded universities.
“This is DEI’s mission creep on full display,” PDE research director Rhyen Staley told Fox News. “It shows just how deeply embedded this ideology remains inside taxpayer-funded institutions.”
The “Whiteness Pandemic” concept stems from a 2021 paper authored by Dr. Gail Ferguson, director of the Culture and Family Lab. The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, meaning federal tax dollars helped underwrite the research.
In its abstract, the paper claims:
“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 even concluded that parents who do not make public statements on high-profile racial events — such as the death of George Floyd — demonstrate “lower progress” in so-called “antiracism identity development.”
Critics Say the Research Is Politically Driven, Not Scientific
Beyond ideological objections, experts and parents say the study’s methods are deeply flawed. The sample consisted primarily of liberal, highly educated, upper-middle-class white mothers in Minnesota — a group hardly representative of the nation’s demographics.
To make sweeping claims about “all white families” from such a narrow population, critics argue, is intellectually dishonest.
The underlying premise — that “Whiteness” as a culture is inherently harmful, and that white children are “socialized into racism” from birth — effectively assigns collective guilt based solely on skin color. Critics say this is the very definition of racial essentialism, something DEI activists claim to oppose.
They also point out the irony: behaviors like “colorblindness” and “passivity” — once widely promoted as anti-racist — are now being pathologized as evidence of “fragility” and systemic oppression.
A Glimpse Into Academia’s DEI Problem
The controversy highlights how entrenched DEI ideology has become within major universities — and how aggressively it is being pushed into parenting, education, and child-development research.
For many parents and taxpayers, the idea that America is suffering from a “Whiteness Pandemic” is not just offensive, but proof that ideological activism continues to dominate academic institutions long after the public has grown weary of it.
The University of Minnesota did not comment on the backlash.
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