Wesleyan Student Majoring in White Guilt Performs Selma on Ice in Birmingham as Senior Thesis
MIDDLETOWN, CT — Wesleyan University officials confirmed Monday that its White Guilt major has become the school’s third most popular, behind only Biology and Psychology, and just ahead of Economics. The major was introduced in 2021 in light of Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial, where she solved police brutality by handing a cop a worse alternative to Coke. The decision followed pressure from student activists, a very tense Parent Weekend, and an anonymously written zine titled “We’re Not Mad, Just Deeply Disappointed in Ourselves.”
The major combines history, performance, and anxiety into a 4-year immersive experience in identity-based self-flagellation. Highlights include:
"Amplifying Black Voices" – an arts elective where students take turns doing karaoke of Jackson 5 songs in the quad to “raise awareness through harmony.”
"Digital Reckoning 101" – a lab where students delete photos of them with cornrows from their Instagram history, then issue apology carousels with captions like “I’ve grown. I see you. I’m listening.”
“Mentorship in Urban Spaces” – a community outreach program that mentors “inner city youth” from Middletown, Connecticut, a town of 90% white kids in North Face. Despite the lack of Black participants, senior Isabelle Kavanaugh insisted it was “emotionally equivalent.”
"Contextualizing Blazing Saddles: A White Ally’s Guide to Not Laughing (Out Loud)" – a weekly film discussion and trigger journaling session, followed by 45 minutes of sitting silently with guilt.
This semester, senior Isabelle Kavanaugh submitted her thesis: a one-woman figure skating performance titled Selma on Ice, staged on a temporary rink in downtown Birmingham.
Wearing a sequined “Good Trouble” leotard and skating to a mashup of Sam Cooke, Hamilton instrumentals, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Isabelle glided solemnly across the ice while projecting black-and-white protest footage onto a backdrop of reclaimed SoulCycle towels, hung unevenly with binder clips and shame.
“This was about embodying the march, but with grace, and pirouettes,” said Isabelle, who choreographed the moment where she performed a triple axel over a symbolic voting rights bill, landing shakily into a one-knee pose while mouthing "I have a dream."
As part of the performance, Isabelle announced she wanted to “kick off some grassroots reparations” and gestured toward a laminated Venmo poster beside the rink that read @Serdion-Fund 💸✊🏾 “Slide Into Reparations”
The intended recipient, Serdion Mekonnen, is an international Wesleyan student from Ethiopia whose family owns three luxury resorts and a vineyard.
“I don’t know how I got roped into this,” Serdion said, barely aware of who Isabelle even was. “My family’s never even been to America. But I do want a Tesla, and she already laminated the sign, so here we are.”
At the 45-minute mark, Isabelle took an intermission, assuring her audience that she “would have voted for Obama” before launching into an a cappella rendition of Parliament’s “Give Up the Funk”. Isabelle whispered, “Funk is resistance,” seconds before slipping into a pile of biodegradable glitter and knocking over the fog machine.
After the indisputable success of Kavanaugh, Wesleyan administrators are doubling down on support for the major. Plans are underway to introduce a fifth-year honors track in “Radical Candle-Making and Strategic Apologies,” culminating in a capstone project where students craft a soy-based votive that smells like “Accountability.”