A civil liberties organization and other critics are denouncing the recommendations of the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the University of Minnesota flagship Twin Cities campus for its proposal that race, class and gender form the "overarching framework" of all teacher education coursework. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) dispatched a letter to the University President Robert Bruininks in November urging the university's College of Education and Human Development to "change course." FIRE director Adam Kissel warned that if the task group achieved its stated goals, "the result will be political and ideological screening of applicants, remedial re-education for those with the 'wrong' views and values, and withholding of degrees from those upon whom the university's political reeducation efforts proved ineffective." He wrote that, "These intentions violate the freedom of conscience of the university's students. As a public university bound by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the university is both legally and morally obligated to uphold this fundamental right." ....more...