Professor Bans Students From Using The Phrase “Illegal Immigrant”

A professor at the University of Southern California has barred her students from using the phrase “illegal immigrant” in their final exam for the class.

Alicia Chavez teaches the American studies course, “America, the Frontier and the New West,” a course that focuses on “the intersecting historical processes and diverse peoples which have shaped the region of the North American West.”

Undocumented Mexican immigrants walk through the Sonoran Desert after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Undocumented Mexican immigrants walk through the Sonoran Desert after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. (John Moore/Getty Images)

According to an email screenshot supplied by a student in the class, despite the class dealing substantially with illegal immigration into the United States, Chavez banned use of the term “illegal immigrant” on her students’ upcoming final exam. Instead, students have been ordered to use the term “undocumented immigrant” or “unauthorized entry” as a euphemism for such immigrants.

The ban on the term “illegal immigrant” is just the most recent sign of anti-conservative bias in the class, according to the student who forwarded the email. The student said Prof. Chavez also denounced supporters of President-elect Donald Trump as racist, and the class’s teaching assistant once claimed Trump wants to deport all Mexicans from the United States.

A message from a USC TA warning students not to use ‘illegal immigrant’ in their paper.
A message from a USC TA warning students not to use ‘illegal immigrant’ in their paper.

Chavez’s class isn’t the only one in the American studies department marked by a severe political bias. The Daily Caller News Foundation was sent a flier promoting a spring, 2017 course, “Borderlands in a Global Context.” The flier is nakedly political in outlook, telling prospective students the class will focus on “current activism in Standing Rock as water protectors hold off the construction of a destructive oil pipeline, the importance of organizing with undocumented immigrants in this historical moment, and Native Hawaiian sovereignty and cultural revitalization movements.”

TheDCNF reached out to Chavez for comment, but did not immediately receive a reply.USC’s annual tuition is more than $51,000 per year, with the total cost of attendance reaching up to $70,000 per year.

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