WOKE WATCH: Job applicant asked to defend whiteness, ‘Stop Woke Act’ passes Florida senate

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A licensed social worker is suing a Massachusetts university after she was asked to “defend her whiteness” during an interview for a professorship that she failed to get.

Donna Johnston, 54, a therapist in Plainsfield, Conn., filed the race and employment discrimination suit in Massachusetts Superior Court last week, claiming she was subject to a racist interview when she applied for an assistant professorship position at Bridgewater State University in June, reports the Boston Globe.

Johnston said she was asked a series of jarring questions about her “whiteness” during the interview, including being asked to consider her “white privilege” and “defend her whiteness” by the associate professor who has since left the university, according to the lawsuit.

She was also allegedly told that “black students may not be able to relate to you because of your white privilege.”

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Johnston’s answers – which, according to the suit, saw her acknowledge her white privilege – supposedly “missed the target” and she did not get the job.

Two women – one black, one white – were hired, according to the school.

Bridgewater State insisted that race played no factor in their decision to go with the other candidates. Rather, Johnston “lacked expertise and live classroom experience and failed to present herself as student focused” in the interview.

Johnston, who claims her qualifications exceeded the other applicants, is demanding a jury trial and seeking $50,000 in damages.

Meanwhile, in Florida, lawmakers voted in favour of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Stop the Woke Act.”

The legislation is aimed toward stopping schools’ and businesses’ “woke” ideology, including the notion that people can be “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” reports the Sun-Sentinel.

“I don’t think that we should be teaching a certain race or should feel they are better or worse than another based solely on their skin and not on the facts of the situation,” GOP state Sen. Kelli Stargel said.

Florida Republicans have been accused by Democrats of politicizing culture war issues, including race and education.

Democrat Bobby Powell, one of five Black senators in the state, is concerned that “colourblindness” ignores historical facts.

House Bill 7 prohibits education that can cause “psychological distress” to people who share the “race, colour, sex or national origin” of people who may have been on the wrong side of history.

“Slavery happened, hangings happened, massacres happened,” said Powell. “Jim Crow happened.”