Can’t get enough of the George Zimmerman trial? If you’re a George Mason University student you’re in luck — you can take a whole class on it.
The university is offering a sociology course this fall titled “Race and Politics, Trayvon Martin.” The course will be taught by Professor Rutledge Dennis of the Sociology and Anthropology Department.
Dennis said the course does not entirely revolve around Martin, as most people would suspect from the title.
“The course is not about Trayvon Martin,” he told Red Alert Politics. “It is a course looking at issues, racial issues in American society from Homer Plessy to Trayvon Martin.”
He added that the three-credit course will also touch on individuals like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. while examining the development of racial issues in society.
And the class has not been offered before; it is a “special topics course,” according to Professor Dennis.
Martin was shot in February 2012 after an altercation with neighborhood watch member, Zimmerman. The subsequent murder trial has received significant media attention due to speculation that Zimmerman shot Martin for racial reasons. The jury is set to issue a decision later this month.
Dennis said he has not yet decided what elements of the Zimmerman case will be included in the course.
“It is an ongoing process,” he told Red Alert. “The court case has still not been resolved.”
The university originally spelled Martin’s first name wrong — ‘Trevon’ instead of Trayvon — in the course title, as Campus Reform noted. The mistake was later corrected.
