Berkeley gender and race studies students were given the task of creating and editing Wikipedia pages and filling them with critical theory/queer propaganda instead of submitting final papers — for over a decade.
Rodríguez’s Wikipedia assignments take place in partnership with Wiki Education, a nonprofit that works with university professors in the United States and Canada. The professors’ students add content to course-related Wikipedia articles, which, according to the organization’s website, helps them gain skills like “media literacy, writing and research development, and critical thinking,” while simultaneously filling Wikipedia “content gaps.”
“Wikipedia is a public-facing project — it’s the largest encyclopedia in the world,” Rodríguez told UC Berkeley News in a December interview. “In a political moment where these histories are actively being erased from public view, having students work on a platform like Wikipedia becomes even more important.”
According to The Daily Californian, as of January 26, Rodríguez’s students have contributed over 300,000 edits and 3,000 citations to Wikipedia. At the time of writing, their work has garnered a whopping 96 million-plus views. Her students’ topics run the gamut, touching upon local history like the resonance of queer life in San Francisco’s Chinatown, as well as more international focus areas (for instance: worldwide sex worker movements).