Jordan Peterson, the famed psychology professor, recently pointed out that his institution, the University of Toronto, is offering a “Liberating Mathematics” class.
Liberating mathematics pic.twitter.com/K7w4e9lIz5
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) November 2, 2021
The course description argues that “progress” in the discipline has been “led in large part by women mathematicians, in particular Black women, Indigenous women, and women from visible minorities” who offer “a daring critique of traditional mathematics, re-imagining of mathematics culture, and more.”
The description clarifies that the class is “restricted to first-year students.”
As Campus Reform spokeswoman Angela Morabito observed, several schools across the United States are now infusing mathematics courses with a “social justice” agenda.
Central Washington University’s “Mathematics for Social Justice” class, for example, desires that students “develop the ability and inclination to use mathematics to understand, and improve, the world around us, exploring social, political, and economic justice.”
Swarthmore College’s course will examine “the roles that mathematics and mathematicians play in society, particularly through the lenses of equity and social justice,” while Bates College’s course will “use mathematics as a powerful analytic framework for understanding and developing realistic solutions to issues of social, political, and economic justice.”
Beyond the examples listed by Morabito, Kettering University offers a class that teaches how math and communications “can work together to address topics including climate change, human trafficking, elections and voting, and racial justice.”
Likewise, a Fresno Pacific University course contains mathematics infused with social justice issues, “such as healthy eating, living wages around the world, access to clean water or fair trade.”
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