University of Central Florida Launches Graduate Degree Program in Social Justice

University of Central Florida Launches Graduate Degree Program in Social Justice
People participate in a protest in Miami, Fla., on June 2, 2020. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Bill Pan
5/26/2021
Updated:
5/26/2021

The University of Central Florida (UCF) is offering a certificate program for graduate students who wish to specialize in social justice.

Students can now receive a graduate certificate in “Social Justice in Public Service” via the UCF School of Public Administration. The program, according to the university’s website, seeks to develop leaders “who can influence policy to create social justice.”

Students will obtain a “theoretical background in social justice, exploring topics such as human rights, income distribution, and the role of markets,” according to the program’s description. They will also understand “factors that contribute to inequity among various groups,” with a focus on “providing a theoretical background and methods to analyze social justice issues in public service.”

“They will understand principles of social justice as they apply to government and nonprofit sector in education, health, transportation, and housing policy domains among others,” the website reads.

Besides two required courses, “Foundations of Social Justice for Public Service” and “Policy Advocacy for Social Justice,” the program allows students to select a variety of courses, including “Equitable Educational Opportunity and Life Chances,” “Environmental Security,” “Women and Public Policy,” “Social Inequalities in Health,” and others.

When it comes to employment opportunities, the UCF says students with the social justice certificate will be ready for jobs like city council member, government affair researcher, political consultant, legislator, and other public policy making or researching positions.

In a Wednesday interview on Fox News, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he’s no fan of UCF’s social justice certificate program, dismissing it as “cultural Marxism” and “another way to tear apart capitalism and the American way of life.”

“We have to understand what we’re saying here. We call it wokeness, social justice, whatever it may be. Look, it’s a theory that says the following: the world is divided up between oppressors and the oppressed, and that’s the story of America in their mind,” the senator told the host. “Our system of economics, our government, our laws, our educational system, traditional marriage, religion, is all designed to benefit the oppressor at the expense of the oppressed.”

“And so, the answer is that the whole system has to be torn down, including capitalism, and replaced with something else. That’s what they call social justice,” Rubio said.

He then questioned why Florida taxpayers and the rest of the United States should be “subsidizing teaching our young students how to hate America, how to hate everything about our history, how to divide and hate one another, and how our identity is not American but the color of our skin.”

“Why we should be spending taxpayer money to teach these things that are destructive, not to mention untrue, is beyond me,” he continued. “I don’t understand why that’s happening and I hope it’s corrected.”