A required textbook at the University of North Carolina is under scrutiny for its implications that Holocaust victims could have helped themselves rather than fall prey to genocide.
All undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina are required to take a Lifetime Fitness course. One of the course options is titled, "21st Century Wellness". The course is a single credit aimed at promoting healthier lifestyle choices. However, the required textbook for the class has recently raised alarm.
Here is an excerpt from the textbook:
"The people in the [Holocaust concentration] camps who did not tap into the strength that comes from their intrinsic worth succumbed to the brutality to which they were subjected."
The book also apparently proposes the idea that cancer is a disease of choice.
According to one of the textbook's authors, Brigham Young University professor Ron Hager, the passage on The Holocaust was not meant to suggest that victims could not tap into their self-worth. He said,
"A sense of inherent self-worth can be a source of strength or motivation that can help those struggling, in this case in concentration camps but also for anyone,"
Whether or not students are misinterpreting the text, Twitter is outraged at the text's implications.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram