The University of Minnesota–Twin Cities is promoting online material warning families about what it calls a nationwide “Whiteness Pandemic.” The webpage—hosted by the university’s Culture and Family Lab within the Institute of Child Development—lays out “resources” aimed at helping parents “halt and reverse” what it frames as a cultural crisis.

According to the university’s own language, “If you were born or raised in the United States, you have grown up in the Whiteness Pandemic.” The site insists that white Americans in particular bear responsibility for combating this supposed contagion because of the “power and privilege” they allegedly hold.

While the materials attempt to reassure readers that childhood “socialization into the culture of Whiteness… is not your fault,” the lab declares that once someone becomes an adult, “it is now your responsibility to self-reflect, re-educate yourself, and act.” The page repeatedly urges white parents to engage in what it calls “courageous antiracist parenting/caregiving.”

The watchdog group Defending Education sounded the alarm this week, issuing a report outlining how deeply this ideology is embedded at Minnesota’s flagship public university. The group’s research director, Rhyen Staley, told Fox News Digital that this is yet another sign that DEI has become permanent architecture in higher education, not a passing trend.

“This far-left programming at a major public university is another example of how ingrained DEI is,” Staley said. He added that it’s “concerning” the programs continue to operate and warned that bizarre ideas about “whiteness” gain legitimacy when they’re dressed up as academic research. His blunt conclusion: “Universities must end this nonsense yesterday.”

The university argues that racism should be viewed as an “epidemic” or “pandemic,” but claims an even deeper force is at work: a “whiteness pandemic.” The site asserts that “whiteness” doesn’t mean biology but refers to a “centuries-old culture” characterized by “colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility”—traits the school describes as “covert expressions of racism.”

One section claims that focusing on the “Whiteness Pandemic” shifts attention “from the victims and effects of racism” to the systems that uphold it—starting, the site says, with the family. “At birth,” the page declares, “young children growing up in White families begin to be socialized into the culture of Whiteness.”

A study linked on the site surveyed primarily affluent liberal white mothers—averaging more than $125,000 a year in income—and concluded that family socialization “perpetrates and perpetuates U.S. racism,” describing this as an “insidious Whiteness pandemic.”

The project lists resources from well-known ideological activists like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, including child-friendly explainers such as “How to explain white privilege in terms simple enough for a child.” Funding comes from multiple sources, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)—meaning federal dollars are helping fuel the initiative.

A University of Minnesota spokesperson defended the controversial content by insisting the school remains “steadfast in its commitment to the principles of academic freedom.”

But this latest revelation follows a recent Defending Education report showing UMinn distributing K-12 teacher training material endorsing left-wing activism—from promoting Black Lives Matter to encouraging “defunding the police” and warning about “white supremacy” and “settler colonialism.”

Parents’ groups say the pattern is obvious: the university is using its authority to push a political worldview into classrooms and homes—and into the youngest children.