What Are We Going to Do About Our Coercive Classrooms?

How the Whitelash study exposed humiliation as a teaching method—and what students and citizens can do about it.

Sep 08, 2025

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Across the country, families take on extra work, fill out forms, write checks, and sign up for loans to pay for their kids to get an education that everyone has been told will be the key to a successful life.

But what are students really getting in this deal?

In the Whitelash study, professors Quinn Hafen and Marie Villescas openly described using humiliation to indoctrinate white students, framing their distress as the “learning.”

Abuse was rebranded as education. Even more troubling, the study passed ethics, peer, and editorial review before being pulled, despite documenting abusive practices Villescas has used for years at Colorado State University. It shows just how normalized this behavior has become in academia.

My own experience, and that of many other students, attests, the problem of abusive pedagogy in teaching a racist ideology is widespread. It continues in part because the current systems don’t have adequate protections in place, and the current law isn’t being enforced.

That doesn’t mean that we are powerless. What it means is that if we want this to change, we must fight.

So put your boots on.

The Reality in Classrooms Today

The pedagogy of discomfort goes back to 1999. It was first introduced by feminist cultural theorist Megan Boler in her book, Feeling Power. The intent from the beginning was to use uncomfortable feelings to challenge students’ deeply held beliefs. Even back then, it was framed as a way to examine questions of race and privilege.

If you check Google Scholar today, hundreds of studies have come out exploring the uses of the pedagogy of discomfort. A few highlights include “Towards a pedagogy of discomfort in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms,” “Subverting the white cis gaze: Towards a pedagogy of discomfort, accountability and care in the anthropology classroom,” “Uncovering the Hidden Medical Curriculum through a Pedagogy of Discomfort,” and last but not least, “‘Ah, but the whiteys love to talk about themselves’: discomfort as a pedagogy for change.”

Adding insult to injury, many of these studies and the journals that publish them are paid for with tax dollars several times over, with business models that rely on unpaid labor and triple-dip income streams totaling upwards of 40% profit margins.

The practice of a pedagogy of discomfort, while arguably identical to coercive indoctrination, is framed as a “teaching strategy,” and the intent is to break down students’ existing beliefs and worldview to make way for anything from environmentalism to a belief in systemic oppression.

If the “study” titled, “Ah, but the whiteys love to talk about themselves,” is any clue, typically, these methods target white students as inherently racist and the source of systemic oppression. Invariably, it is the white students who must examine their beliefs and understanding of the world with the goal they become better allies to minorities.

This can not help but create a hostile environment where white students feel shame for their skin color. Even worse, it flattens all of the students' sense of identity down to physical characteristics, ignoring elements of character, like courage, that are the essential components of breaking down real racism across the board.

With this vehicle, students are taught unproven ideas like microaggressions, white fragility, or that gender is a social construct, as though they are the settled truth.

In a classroom environment where students are subject to grades and peer pressure, where they are expected to earn participation points, the only right answer is compliance. For most, coercion wins the day.

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How Students Can Push Back Effectively

Students caught in these classrooms often feel understandably trapped. Step one would be to reconsider any career path that currently requires instruction in critical theories or its derivatives, like multiculturalism, ethnic studies, and more. But there are also ways to resist and still finish your degree, if you must. The key is to be principled, careful, and strategic.

Document Everything - Simple but powerful: keep records. Save syllabi, assignment instructions, and copies of required readings. Take notes on classroom discussions and exercises, especially when humiliation or coercion is involved. In some cases, state law allows students to record lectures; always know the rules before doing so. Documentation is protection. It creates a factual record that can be used later if you decide to file a complaint, write publicly, or seek legal help.
Ask Questions, Don’t Just Comply - Direct confrontation can backfire, but carefully framed questions can shift the dynamic. When told that microaggressions cause demonstrable harm, ask: “What empirical evidence supports this claim?” When presented with only one ideological interpretation, ask: “How do alternative viewpoints explain this differently?” Framing resistance as academic inquiry forces the discussion back onto scholarly ground, where ideology is weakest.
Form Quiet Alliances - No student should face this alone. Often, many classmates share the same doubts but keep silent for fear of retaliation. Look for small signals of skepticism, a raised eyebrow, a sigh, or an offhand comment after class. Build circles of trust. A quiet alliance not only provides moral support, it creates the possibility of coordinated resistance—whether that means asking sharper questions together or pushing back on assignments as a group.
Know When to Defer - Not every battle should be fought in the classroom. Sometimes survival means writing the paper the professor wants, then pushing back outside of class. Students should recognize the difference between performing for a grade and betraying their own convictions. Remember: a classroom is temporary, but integrity and freedom of conscience are lasting.
Engage Outside Channels - When conditions become intolerable, students should seek allies beyond the classroom. Organizations like FIRE, campus free-speech groups, and student newspapers provide support and protection. But escalation should be strategic. Going public too soon can expose students to backlash. Choose your battles, document carefully, and engage when the time is right.

How the Public Can Respond

This problem doesn’t belong only to students. Universities operate with public funding, public trust, and influence that extends far beyond campus walls. If classrooms are being used to humiliate students and enforce ideology, the wider community has a duty to respond.

Policy Solutions

State legislatures can play a crucial role. They can:

Strengthen bans on compelled speech and ideological loyalty oaths.
Reform accreditation to ensure bodies do not enforce ideology as a condition for program approval.
Require transparency in course content by mandating that syllabi be made publicly available.
Deregulate licensing. If it must be maintained, how it is administered must be reformed to break up the current cartel structure.

On the Federal level, there needs to be a reckoning regarding what level of involvement, if any, national government should have in what was originally state business, including all funding.

If there is going to be a commitment to protecting the rights of students, then there must be more effective channels for enforcement.

These measures are a beginning to protect students while preserving academic freedom, the freedom to question, and to think for oneself.

Business & Hiring

Employers have more power than they realize. By refusing to reward empty credentials, they can undercut the value of ideological programs. Hiring decisions should prioritize competence, experience, and critical thinking, not conformity to fashionable dogmas or the myth that a college degree equals reliable expertise.

Businesses can also expand alternative pathways: apprenticeships, professional certificates, and merit-based advancement. The clear message must be: we value skill, not indoctrination or fancy paperwork.

Parents & Citizens

Families and communities are not powerless. Parents can reconsider whether paying tens of thousands in tuition is worthwhile when universities degrade their children. Alumni can and should withhold donations until reforms are made.

Citizens can support reform-oriented nonprofits and independent media that expose these practices. And everyone can speak up locally, at school boards, in civic groups, in state policy debates.

Higher education is not an isolated bubble; it shapes the culture we and our children live in.

V. The Bigger Cultural Choice

Universities stand at a crossroads. They can return to the mission of rigorous, evidence-based education, or they can continue down the road of ideological capture and watch public trust collapse.

The choice isn’t only theirs. Every citizen has influence: families deciding where to send their children, businesses choosing whom to hire, donors deciding which institutions to support, and voters shaping state policy.

This isn’t about silencing anyone. It’s about restoring genuine inquiry, open debate, and the dignity of students in the classroom.

VI. Conclusion

The Whitelash study was a symptom, not the disease. The deeper problem is a teaching model that humiliates, coerces, and indoctrinates under the guise of education.

Students are not powerless—and neither is the public. By documenting, questioning, organizing, and demanding accountability, we can resist coercion and restore integrity to higher education.

If enough people take these steps—students in classrooms, parents at kitchen tables, legislators in statehouses, and employers in boardrooms—we can push back against ideological capture. Education should form minds, not break them.

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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.