Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the College Fix on September 09, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission.
Grand Valley State University’s (GVSU) Frederik Meijer Honors College has shifted toward a “social justice” orientation in both its curriculum and admissions in an effort to increase racial diversity, according to emails recently obtained by the College Fix.
The comments were first redacted by university attorneys as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by the Fix. However, they were revealed following an appeal by the Fix. The comments were made on a thread of emails from 2022 that shows Honors College officials discussing how they privilege racial minorities for admissions and scholarships, as previously reported by the Fix.
In the April 2022 email, Honors College staff and leadership discussed removing traditional essay requirements from admissions, saying they present cultural barriers to black and other minority students. Instead, they suggested using letters of support.
“There is a cultural element to asking students to write an essay about themselves that many BIPOC students struggle with – largely b/c many communities emphasize looking to others to speak on your behalf rather than singing your own praises (which can feel arrogant or selfish),” Shell-Weiss told her colleagues.
The email, written by then-Interim Associate Dean Melanie Shell-Weiss, described several initiatives to increase the racial diversity of the Honors College. One main proposal was to “[o]bviously and overtly orient the curriculum and co-curriculum toward social justice.”
In the email, Shell-Weiss referenced the broader goal of integrating social justice values into the Honors College experience. This approach included specific recruitment strategies like “word-of mouth efforts led by diverse students” to make sure to convey the program’s explicit commitment to “diversity, equity, and inlcusion” (DEI).
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Shell-Weiss also emphasized a focus on building a community that values “inclusivity” and social justice.
Included in the email were Professor Roger Gilles, director of the Honors College, and other administrators.
The Honors College, media relations, and communications teams did not respond to multiple requests for information via email and through voicemail in the past several weeks. The Fix asked for elaboration on and reasoning for the changes, whether or not they got approval, for comment on the emails, and for general responses to the changes.
Although the university previously ignored questions from the Fix about its compliance with state and federal law concerning affirmative action, it responded this time with a denial.
Affirmative action has already been banned statewide for years due to a referendum called Prop 2, passed in 2006. The 2023 Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court decision confirmed that affirmative action violates federal law as well.
The GVSU Board of Trustees, however, says it does not use affirmative action in admissions: “Race is not considered as part of admission to the Frederik Meijer Honors College (FMHC), nor as a criterion in awarding scholarships for FMHC students,” Beth Emmitt, board chair, told The College Fix via an emailed statement.
“The program does not disproportionately admit or enroll students of color,” she said. “The over 1,400 FMHC students come from virtually every major, and demographically FMHC’s enrollment mirrors the broader university.”
Emmitt did not directly address questions about the inconsistency between Professor Gilles’ word and the Board’s statement or whether the Board investigated the allegations of allegations of race-based admissions and curriculum. Professor Gilles had previously stated: “[w]e accept virtually all students of color,” citing that as part of the Honors College’s admissions strategy.
The suggestions about the curriculum have already been implemented.
The Honors College now has a social justice curriculum that focuses on a core sequence of courses about identity, race, and inequality. The Honors Sequence is a foundation of the honors track, for which students meet four times a week for one year.
In total, there are 42 uses of DEI/CRT buzzwords, like “justice,” “racism,” and “power,” according to a College Fix analysis. There is even one use of the term “Critical Race Theory.”
The college also altered the admissions process to allow more flexible application materials. According to its website, the Honors College employs a “holistic application process” that includes the student’s leadership experience, self-assessment, and high school writing sample.
Professor Gilles is also the co-author of an essay titled “Directed Self-Placement: An Attitude of Orientation.” This method allows students to choose their own writing course level rather than taking standardized placement tests or writing timed, graded essays.
Gilles and co-author Daniel Royer argued that traditional placement methods often misjudge a student’s writing ability and over-emphasized early writing samples.
“Writing ability, at least as we conceive of it, is far too complex to measure so quickly and easily,” they wrote. Instead, students should self-assess and succeed based on motivation and support.
This philosophy appears to have influenced the Honors College’s admissions criteria as they moved from a less merit-based and more inclusive approach.
The Directed Self-Placement model supposedly provides clear expectations for college-level writing courses and allows students to self-select their level based on their self-assessment.
The Michigan Department of Civil Rights declined to comment on this story since there has been no formal complaint filed regarding the use of affirmative action.
The policy director of the education reform group National Association of Scholars criticized the social justice curriculum strategy in an email to the Fix.
Removing essay requirements is a natural step for those who are anti-merit and pro-diversity, she told the Fix. Essay writing requires multiple skills, not guesswork, Manning said.
Furthermore, Manning says the word “diversity” is simply a “crude euphemism for discrimination” that “disenfranchise[s] some while preferring others.”
“All this is just more of the war on excellence and on America.”
Image: “GVSU” by Thomas Johnston II on Wikimedia Commons
