Note: Top of Mind subscribers received a condensed version of this article in this week’s newsletter. This is the full-length piece, including copies of the assignments discussed.
If one were to need a specific example of how colleges and universities are creating leftist foot soldiers, they need look no further than the assignments currently being given at Texas State University.
A Texas State student shared with Minding the Campus two assignments from a required communications course the student is taking this semester. Both assignments are bizarre, and at least one reveals explicitly how ideological training in “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) has seeped into even the most ordinary corners of the curriculum, transforming basic communication exercises into social conditioning drills.
One assignment, called a “Self-Disclosure Exercise,” requires pairs of students to ask each other a series of intrusive questions during a 15-minute session. According to the student, the stated purpose of the exercise was to serve as a peer-to-peer communication activity. Among the prompts: “What features of your appearance do you consider most attractive to members of the opposite sex?,” “What turns you on?,” and “Are females equal, inferior, or superior to males?” Other questions probe students’ religion, income, political leanings, criminal history, and sexual attitudes.
The second assignment, titled “#TheCompanySlipUp: Small Group Activity,” places students in the role of crisis managers at a fictional company accused of “unethical practices in the workplace.” Students must imagine themselves responsible for drafting a public apology and then choose five “corrective actions” to repair the company’s reputation.
Among the required options for rebuilding trust? “Implementing a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Improvement [DEI] Plan.” In other words, the assignment frames DEI expansion as a default, almost compulsory remedy for alleged wrongdoing, positioning it as the practical and moral centerpiece of corporate reform.
The required communications course is led by Dr. Alan Grant, who, according to his faculty profile on the Texas State website, “frequently works social justice initiatives into the classroom environment.” He notes that he assembles a team of teaching assistants drawn from “various nationalities, ethnicities, and sexual persuasions” to lead group discussions on a range of topics.
Each assistant is also assigned a “mini-lecture” aligned with their academic focus—a series that has included presentations such as “Understanding Latin X,” “The Korean Exchange,” and “Challenging Binaries.”
Dr. Grant further states that his pedagogical goals include acknowledging who is in the room, meeting students “where they are ideologically,” and “instituting sessions specifically related to race, class, gender, [and] ability.” According to his biography, he is currently researching “racial ventriloquism,” the idea that when someone from a majority group—meaning whites—speaks about minority issues, they are effectively impersonating those communities.
Meanwhile, a Graduate Instructional Assistant for the course, Suraya Alidu—who leads the lab section—describes herself on LinkedIn as a “Media Personality, Disability Rights Activist, and Women’s Development Advocate.”
According to the student, Alidu often begins lab sessions by asking students for their consent to take attendance, which is understood to be a symbolic gesture of “inclusivity”—In the seminary of DEI, can we be surprised at the ritual of woke?
All of this is occurring despite Texas’s sweeping effort to eliminate DEI from its public institutions.
In 2023, the legislature passed Senate Bill 17, banning DEI offices and initiatives at public universities, a law that took effect in 2024. More recently, Senate Bill 12 extended DEI restrictions to K–12 schools and is now in effect for the 2025–2026 school year. Governor Greg Abbott has issued an executive order directing all state agencies to dismantle DEI policies, and President Trump has issued a similar order at the federal level.
These assignments, however, expose that no bill or executive order can entirely uproot DEI.
The ideology has become so woven into the habits of modern universities that it persists even after the bureaucratic structures are dismantled, quietly embedding itself in lectures, exercises, and routine coursework.
Within that everyday academic work is where the indoctrination occurs—shaped by professors who see it as their job to transmit this ideology.
Follow Jared Gould on X.
Image: “Texas State University at San Marcos sign” by Billy Hathorn on Wikimedia Commons
