Florida Professor Bans Students From Using Term 'Melting Pot'

University of Florida art professor Pamela Brekka banned students from using the term "melting pot" in her class.

According to Campus Reform, students enrolled in Professor Brekka's Art Appreciation class risk losing credits on assignments if the phrase is used. Several online modules has the warning: "Do not ever use the phrase ‘melting pot' in this class. In this class we celebrate diversity, not sameness."

The class description calls it "an introduction to the visual arts from a global perspective with an emphasis on diversity in the United States."

Brekka said the term, by her interpretation, "signals a Euro-White colonial standard, point blank, period." She told Campus Reform that she has reprimanded students and withheld credit for using the phrase.

Her course fulfills the University of Florida's general education requirements, which includes three credits in the "Diversity" category for the student to be eligible to graduate.

One student anonymously told Campus Reform that he had not been penalized, but said that not being able to use certain phrases "changes the way I learn."

Professor Brekka said a more appropriate metaphor for diversity in America is salad, not a melting pot. "It's the difference between a soup and a salad. In the salad, the flavors remain distinct. Your romaine lettuce retains its flavor, the tomatoes retain their flavor, and so on. They are all living happily in one bowl," Brekka said.

She told Campus Reform that she wasn't trying to suppress free speech. "I welcome open debate in all my classes."

The anonymous student said Brekka is biased politically. "There's a left-wing bias. If she said she doesn't want people complaining because they can't say certain things, she should have asked those questions in a more broad way so everyone can answer how they actually feel, and not how she wants us to feel."

A diversity statement for the class provided a list of diverse groups that the professor calls on the students to support: "race, ethnicity, veteran status, parental status, socio-economic level, national origin, religious belief, physical ability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identification, cultural / ethnic identification, age, and political ideology."

The anonymous student said Brekka expects the class to conform to her political ideology. "It's almost as if the questions, how they're worded, you can only answer them this one certain left-wing way," the student told Campus Reform.

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