AZ High School AP Exam: Emphasizing Personal Responsibility Promotes “Predjudice” Against African Americans

A teacher at Mountain Ridge High School in Glendale, Arizona has mistaken indoctrination for education. Submitted through YAF’s Campus Bias Tip Line, a student from Mrs. Annie William’s Psychology 101 class, shared a question that was posed on their exam:

“Government officials who emphasize that African-Americans are personally responsible for the economically disadvantaged position of their ethnic group are most likely to promote:

-superordinate goals
-reciprocity norms
-prejudice
-deindividualization
-social traps”

The only correct answer for the question was “prejudice.”

According to the class syllabus exclusively obtained by YAF, the class, in partnership with Rio Salado College, is aimed to do the following:

“…acquaint the student with basic principles, methods, and fields of psychology such as learning, memory, emotion, perception, psychological, developmental, intelligence, social and abnormal.  This course is aligned with Arizona College and Career Ready standards and supports the school-wide efforts in increasing student achievement. “

This question– at first take, is simply embarrassing to be asked on a college-level test.

In the freest country in the world, everyone has equal opportunity to achieve their goals and a higher economic status––it is not “prejudiced” to believe this.

Perhaps this teacher should have examined her own bias, as psychology is aimed to do.

*****

This article was published on April 27, 2021 at Young America’s Foundation.