The Preservation and Pursuit of White Privilege

When we say someone is ‘privileged’, it refers to inherited advantages an individual may receive because they belong to a certain social identity group.

Earlier this year, Judge Don Torgerson of Grand County, Utah twice cited the ‘privilege’ of convicted sex offender Aidan Hoffman while sentencing the twenty-two year old for sexually exploiting children.

During the sentencing, Judge Torgerson referred to the time already served as “...a lot of jail time for someone your age who comes from some level of privilege.”

The sentencing and references to privilege shocked Grand County attorneys as well as state lawmakers.

Aidan Hoffman is a white male from Maine.

White privilege is one common form of privilege. It refers to the unearned power that white people experience solely due to the color of their skin.

White supremacists do not recognize whiteness as a privilege but as inherently superior to other races, particularly non-white people. White supremacists will reject the notion of white privilege, but use it to codify the culture of white supremacy.

The recent push by conservative organizations to push American universities to require courses on Western Civilization is a prime example of the codification of white supremacy.

The idea of “Western civilization” is sometimes seen as code for “whiteness,” and this association has a history rooted in racialized thinking and the construction of racial hierarchies. Scholars and activists have pointed out how the concept of Western civilization has been used to elevate white Europeans and their descendants while simultaneously marginalizing or excluding other cultures and peoples.

This is seen through the actions of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank started in 1978 that focuses on domestic policy and urban affairs. The Institute’s status was elevated by Senior Fellow Christopher Rufo and his personal crusade against Critical Race Theory (CRT), an advance-level academic discipline that studies racism embedded in legal systems and policies.

Rufo asserts that CRT is, itself racist and, through a cleverly deceptive and well-funded campaign that took off like wildfire in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the pursuing protest Summer of 2020, was able to successfully engineer the conflation of this highly specialized legal theory studied by graduate students and legal scholars with the practice of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

Right-wing conservatives have long wanted to go after Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives following the success of the Civil Rights Movement and subsequent women empowerment and LGBTQ movements. Christopher Rufo used this unfamiliar legal theory to accomplish the end goal of rolling back diversity initiatives that were protected by civil rights laws passed during the presidency of Lyndon B Johnson and upheld by the Supreme Court of Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Rufo helped spearhead the Manhattan Institute’s blueprint to eliminate diversity offices and all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives through its Abolish DEI Bureaucracies and Restore Colorblind Equality in Public Universities.

Following the release of the blueprint to abolish DEI, state legislatures—predominately in red conservative states like Utah, began passing legislation forbidding the teaching of Critical Race Theory in its K-12 schools. This came despite legislators and state school boards being unable to prove that CRT was even taught in its K-12 schools. These measures were soon followed by anti-DEI legislation, which was the anti-CRT campaign ultimate goal.

Proponents of anti-DEI legislation claim DEI goes against the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's dream of a colorblind society. They sometimes go even further by insisting that DEI constitutes a form of reverse racism that rewards less qualified Black people while punishing more qualified individuals because they’re white, and more specifically white males. They promote this ideology behind a veil of meritocracy, an ideology many Black conservatives attribute to the teachings of Booker T. Washington.

After eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in colleges, many of these same advocates began pushing a focus on Western Civilization in academia.

The Manhattan Institute republished on its site in 2023 a commentary by Herbert London entitled How Western Civilization Disappeared From College Campuses that had originally appeared in NewsMax in 2011. In his commentary, London writes, “Latino studies, for example, exalt the accomplishments of Spanish-speaking people. Black studies emphasize the plight of blacks in white societies. Women's studies superordinate the role of women. However, white studies denounce male-dominated, colonial societies. American history, on the rare occasion it is required, tells a story of conflict, exploitation and imperial goals. Third World studies is ostensibly a rehearsal of abuse and unfair dominance by the West.”

Several states have since moved to either restrict or eliminate funding and college credit for AP African American Studies courses in high schools. Some schools have also removed Black history and literature courses while also passing bills that incorporate whiteness and Christianity into curriculums.

Black history began to be included in school textbooks following the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1960s, with some states like California passing laws in 1961 to mandate its inclusion. The inclusion of Black history in American schools is only as old as the Civil Rights Movement and the push for more diverse classroom and workplaces came about after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in 1968. The effort to be a more inclusive nation is less than 60 years old.

The replacement of Black history with Western Civilization is the codification of whiteness in academia.

South Carolina’s Senate Bill 134: Teaching the Bible in Public Schools closely resembles Utah’s Senate Bill 334: Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University. A straight line can be drawn from each of these bills to the Civics Alliance from National Association of Scholars, a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to improving America’s civics education, according to the coalition’s website.

A quick glance at this coalition reveals notable right-wing organizations like the Eagle Forum, The Goldwater Institute, No Left Turn in Education, and Moms for Liberty. A scroll through its publish signatory list reveals noteworthy names in Utah politics like former state legislator, Steve Christiansen, former Utah State Board of Education member, Natalie Cline, and current Utah State Board of Education member, Christina Boggess. The list of signatories also include prominent nationally known conservative figures like the aforementioned Christopher Rufo, Scott Yenor who is a Washington Fellow from the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life and Robert Woodson, Founder and President of the Woodson Center.

The Civics Alliances published the American Birthright: The Civics Alliance’s Model K-12 Social Studies Standards that many conservative lawmakers, especially right-wing school board members like Cline and Boggess draw guidance from.

The National Council for Social Studies (NCSS), the largest professional organization devoted exclusively to the teaching and learning of social studies, “determined that the suggested social studies standards developed by the Civics Alliance do not align with best practices related to the development of social studies standards. If implemented in schools, these suggested standards would have damaging and lasting effects on the civic knowledge of students and their capacity to engage in civic reasoning and deliberation. NCSS does not endorse nor support the use of these standards.”

The NCSS also writes, “Although the Civics Alliance claims that its standards align with these expectations, they do not. Rater, we view these suggested standards as an attempt to return to a time when United States social studies classrooms presented a single narrative of U.S. and Western history that glorified selected aspects of history while minimizing the experiences, contributions, and perspectives of Indigenous peoples, people of color, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, the working class, and countless others.”

The Civics Alliance inspired Utah’s S.B. 334 Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University was signed into law by Utah Governor Spencer Cox on March 25, 2025. In their press release, The National Association of Scholars wrote, “We are delighted that Senate Bill 334 has been passed into law, and congratulate Governor Cox, Senator Johnson, and every Utah state legislator who voted for the bill for bringing new excellence to Utah's system of public higher education.”

S.B. 334 Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University codifies the culture of white supremacy in academia, which is the very thing Critical Race Theory seeks to expose.

There is one name on the list of high profile signatories that stands out because he is not white, Robert Woodson the Founder and President of the Woodson Center.

Woodson is a prominent Black conservative that created the 1776 Unites campaign and subsequent curriculum to counteract the 1619 Project, which was created and directed by New York Times Magazine staff writer, Nikole Hannah-Jones. The collection of essays was published by the NYT Magazine in 2019. The publication set off a right-wing fury, as conservatives accused Hannah-Jones of disparaging the country, the nation's Founding Fathers and distorting the nation’s history.

Woodson is a regular point-person used by white conservatives to provide a counter-narrative around issues of civil rights, the plight of the Black community, and Black/African American history. These counter-narratives typically either blame the Black/African-American community for its ills or the community’s historical voting pattern that aligns with the Democratic Party. These counter-narrative will never shine a light on conservative policies that have caused harm. The ‘pull yourself up by your bootstrap’ ideology or the notion of ‘self-sufficiency’ against victimhood are used to downplay institutional racism. Black conservatives like Woodson, Thomas Sowell, and Carol Swain are masters of these counter-narratives.

Cited as a former Civil Rights activist, Woodson gives conservatives the cover they need when they pass legislation that targets civil rights and diversity initiatives. Woodson is often invited by Utah’s conservative and organizations as a shield when pushing what can be perceived as an anti-Black agenda. He appeared alongside the lead sponsor of SB334, Senator John Johnson at Weber State University in April 2023. His presence followed an appearance by Nikole Hannah-Jones the previous month.

When a person of color believes they have white privilege, it’s usually at the expense of people of color.

For example, when Black Americans choose to not vote or vote in such a way that does not take into account the entirety of the political landscape, its result is detrimental to the Black community as a collective.

Nothing speaks to this more than the presidential election of 2024. Images and footage of Black conservatives speaking to members of the Black community about the benefits of voting for then candidate Donald Trump resulted in a significant jump in Black men casting a vote for a man who’d never shown any affinity for Black people outside of the casual rubbing of elbows with Black celebrities.

Once elected, Trump immediately began to roll back many of the civil rights gains of the last half century and initiated the erasure of Black history.

Forgetting the strategy used by the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement when voting helped lead to a preventable setback in the movement for civil and human rights in America that will likely be felt around the world.

Black Americans are well aware that they do not have white privilege, but some tend to forget this when it’s time to vote. This lapse only benefits right-wing conservatives that elected Donald Trump and other MAGA-aligned politicians.

White privilege is also not extended to the nations’ most recent second largest racial group—Hispanics.

In 1954, the Supreme Court case Hernandez v. Texas ruled that while Mexican Americans were legally classified as white, they were still entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protections against discrimination. The Court recognized that Mexican Americans were a distinct class facing discrimination, even if not officially categorized as a separate race. This was a landmark decision during the civil rights movement, broadening the scope of protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision was handed down just two weeks before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, highlighting the growing legal challenges to segregation and discrimination.

Since the founding of the country, Black/African Americans were the second largest racial group, and has been the primary group to push the country to live up to the creed written in the Preamble to the United States Constitution, that We means all of the people in pursuit of forming a more perfect union.

In 2013, the Hispanic (generally refers to people with ancestry from, or who speak the language of, a Spanish-speaking country or territory. This includes people from Spain, Mexico, most of Central and South America, and parts of the Caribbean) population surpassed the Black or African American population to become the largest ethnic or racial minority group in the United States. This has proven to have a major impact on the power of the vote and will be impactful in the future of American politics and what that will look like.

One of the hottest pro-Trump Hispanic rappers, Nicky Jam was misgendered by Trump at a pre-election rally, which signaled Donald Trump had no idea who he was.

Hispanic American citizens that voted for Donald Trump believing him to be the opposite of what he’d shown himself to be from the moment he descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, has resulted in the execution of an immigration policy that targets hardworking Latino American citizens and Green Card holders for detainment and potential deportation.

Trump has reneged on his promise to target and deport violent criminals but rather sends Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to college campuses, construction sites, department stores, elementary schools, parking lot at Home Depot, and even Dodger Stadium to terrorize anyone that might be darker shade of brown or has a particular sounding name.

Children are being separated from their parents, service men believing non-citizen spouses are safe from deportation are finding out differently, wives are missing husbands and husbands are saying good-bye to wives without knowing if they’ll ever see them again.

This is not the first time this has happened in America. It mirrors an ugly part of this nation’s history that saw captured Africans taken from the shores of a familiar homeland, sold on the auction block in America, bred for labor, and separated from the children they bore. This is our history. This is our present. This is America.

Hispanic voters voted for these policies not believing they belonged to the targeted Hispanic group. They needed only to look at the nation’s history and learn who is and is not extended white privilege.

Donald Trump could not have won without an increase in the Hispanic vote. He did not win the majority, but he won, enough and that put him in the White House and ushered in the current reign of terror upon the Hispanic and immigrant communities. They did not received the same extension of white privilege immediately extended to white South Africans.

Civil, economic, and social policies that impact the Black/African American communities determine how they vote. The same will be true for Hispanic voters and will determine which political party they ultimately align themselves. Will they do a self-correction or continue to support a party that has adversely targeted their communities? They have only until the Mid-term elections to make that determination.

When a person of color believes they have white privilege, it’s at the expense of other people of color.

From the nation’s gun laws that protect gun ownership over public safety to public school education policies that diminishes public school resources in favor of private and religious education that remain out of reach for most Americans, these laws have roots in a culture of white supremacy that ultimately harms communities of color.

An African American that gives testimony against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion which leads to the elimination of DEI programs and an erasure of Black history from textbooks cause harms to all children. Black children no longer see the contributions of fellow Black/African Americans. All other students never learn the contributions and sacrifices made by people that don’t look like them, which leads to intergenerational ignorance and racism.

Though they are law, when people of color forget they do not have white privilege, communities of color are almost always harmed. This is something men like Robert Woodson tend to either forget, or ignore as they maneuver among a group committed to the preservation of whiteness and the culture of white supremacy at the expense of everyone else.