FAIR Files Civil Rights Complaint Over ‘Whitelash’ Study That Shamed White Students
The case exposes a growing problem in higher education: when ideology replaces ethics, students become the experiment.
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Originally published on Minding the Campus on 6 October 2025. It is cross-posted with permission, with minor edits to fit this format.
A pair of professors admitted they intentionally provoked shame, guilt, and anger in their white students—then recorded those reactions as data for a study.
When Quinn Hafen from the University of Wyoming and Marie Villescas from Colorado State University (CSU) were putting together their study at CSU to determine if co-teaching with professors of different races would be more effective at warming white students up to accepting an anti-racist agenda, ethics were never the biggest concern.
The study’s method, which was more akin to professors’ writing down journal entries than collecting data, meant it wasn’t subject to an internal ethics review.
That all changed when, on the eve of publication, The College Fix ran a brief piece on the concerning behavior the study detailed, and the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research (JSSWR), one of the top journals of the field, pulled it, citing the onset of an additional ethics review.
Now, in a bid to provide the necessary accountability to restore trust in research, higher education, and the governmental institutions intended to address and prevent the kind of abuse detailed in the study, FAIR for All has filed an Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Complaint.
In that complaint, FAIR cites the following passages from the study as the worst examples illustrating the hostile environment the professors had created in their classes (Hafen is Author 1 and Villescas is Author 2):
“When white students felt uncomfortable–i.e., sad, guilty, angry, ashamed–they lashed out in an effort to re-establish white comfort.” (Abstract)
“We reflected that students in ‘both classes started to push back when they’re first starting to feel the shame’ (Author 2)... In our processing sessions, we discussed how white students attempted to derail the class from content about racism and white supremacy, instead seeking to center the entire class’s attention on ensuring their own white comfort. When we doubled down and set a firm boundary that we would not defer to white emotional comfort, we reflected that these students lashed out in an attempt to relieve negative emotions and ease feelings of shame and guilt.” (p. 20).
“In reflecting on the racially specific responses to discomfort, we reaffirmed that [we] want the tension, [we] want the discomfort among people who hold privilege (Author 2).” (p. 26)
“We observed that students who lashed out behaved as if they were ‘a mini mob’ (Author 2) engaged in ‘groupthink’ (Author 1). In our experiences, one student engaging in whitelash ‘leads the way for the whole class’ (Author 1). For example, reflecting on the interaction in Case Example 1, Author 1 noted that, ‘this student has been acting as a spokesperson for other folks that he says talk to him about their concerns... he’s thinking that he’s doing everyone a favor.’ But ‘he’s at the center of the whiteness and the maleness’ (Author 2).” (p. 24)
It’s really interesting how this very bright, very intuitive person of color had assumed those things about me and my approach. But yet the white dudes in the class were attributing oppression and all kinds of nastiness to me. [Laughs]. (p. 29).
This OCR Complaint follows similar efforts by FAIR to hold branches of higher education accountable including challenging racially discriminatory practices at the University of the District of Columbia, a racially hostile work environment at Penn State Abington, and standards that mandate compelled speech, by requiring the evaluation of students values and beliefs as imposed by the counseling accreditor the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).
Recent Master of Social Work graduate from CSU, Nathan Gallo, shared the following:
FAIR’s complaint to the ED’s Office of Civil Rights on September 30 should put a flashing “Beware” sign above the social work field for any potential BSW, MSW, or PhD student or their loan-cosigning family member. Each year, students of all backgrounds hand over tens of thousands of dollars to higher education, trusting that professors will guide them towards developing into competent, thoughtful, and humane social work practitioners. FAIR’s complaint makes clear that Ms. Villescas and Dr. Hafen self-satisfyingly exploited this trust as they ruthlessly shamed and demonized certain race and gender groups under the cover of “anti-racism,” a phenomenon that students and I also experienced during our program.
To this day, we comprise part of the fallout of this discrimination, left to slowly sift through the confusion of forced discomfort and compelled agreement, with one student poignantly contending they needed to be “deprogrammed” as they secured their first job. We continue to help one another separate fact from fiction; technique from indoctrination; and realism from political nihilism. Together, we realized that no matter our identity—White, Asian, Black, Brown, female, male, Muslim, agnostic, Christian, atheist, Jewish, etc.—we deserved better than to leave class ashamed and “shut down,” as did the unsuspecting bachelor’s student who tried to speak out but became covertly rebranded as a part of a “mini mob”.
I am someone who still believes in the humane promise and power of social work; otherwise, I would have dropped out before the sun set on my first year. But the psychological scarring depicted within FAIR’s complaint—and within social work education as a whole—must stop. If redressing harm matters to those in higher education, educators need to come together with an American public fed up with identity-based mudslinging and jointly reconsider: we don’t allow social workers in the working world to discriminate against their clients and families; why, therefore, do we tolerate discrimination in the classroom?
Arnold Cantú, a former doctoral student at the same university who was in the same cohort as one of the authors, is quoted as saying that he is greatly appreciative of FAIR being willing to take on the filing of this OCR complaint.
Cantú has written about his demoralizing experiences in graduate school, observing how truly dystopian he thought social work education had become.
The disenchanting reality of this is that despite having my own values and beliefs questioned by social work faculty for not explicitly endorsing critical social justice ideology –a form of political discrimination–this piece of “research” helped grant one of the authors a shiny PhD. The rectification of my cherished profession is long overdue, especially when social work is tasked with helping people from all walks of life, irrespective of their backgrounds. We can’t be picky and choosy about which identity groups are prioritized, much less so engage in the dehumanization of other groups. Our profession is guided by the Code of Ethics, and no amount of mental or linguistic gymnastics can justify the value of this ‘research’ and treating people this way, especially undergraduate students. It’s laughably shameful.
The filing of this latest OCR complaint by FAIR draws attention to the continued failures in research, higher education, and federal enforcement to protect students from hostile and abusive conditions. For the students who continue to suffer under the combative pedagogy of Villescas, who remains employed at Colorado State University, this is a visceral reality.
If we are to regain social trust in society, the federal government must enforce the existing law. It’s hard to see how public skepticism in our institutions can improve if higher education is allowed to continue to skirt accountability and maintain openly abusive, racist professors on the payroll.
Stories like this one show how deeply ideology has infected our institutions — and why reform can’t wait.
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About
Diogenes in Exile began after I returned to grad school to pursue a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Tennessee. What I found instead was a program saturated in Critical Theories ideology—where my Buddhist practice was treated as invalidating and where dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy was met with hostility. After witnessing how this ideology undermined both ethics and the foundations of good clinical practice, I made the difficult decision to walk away.
Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to exposing the ideological capture of psychology, higher education, and related institutions. My investigative writing has appeared in Real Clear Education, Minding the Campus, The College Fix, and has been republished by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. I also speak and consult on policy reform to help rebuild public trust in once-respected professions.
Occasionally, I’m accused of being funny.
When I’m not writing or digging into documents, you’ll find me in the garden, making art, walking my dog, or guiding my kids toward adulthood.