Majorism: How bias impacts both classes and classism

By Jay Snyder-Phillippoff

CASL Atrium // Jay Snyder-Phillippoff

The term “majorism,” coined by a visionaries at the University of California Los Angeles, describes a dynamic many students know well: science- and math-based majors are often treated as more valuable than humanities-based majors. For many students in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, that imbalance is not abstract. It shapes everyday academic life, from the way majors are discussed by peers and parents to the way universities allocate time, funding and institutional support. The growing emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics has brought important opportunities, but too often, it has also come at the expense of the humanities.

That imbalance is especially visible in the classroom. From an early age, students are encouraged to pursue STEM fields, often not as part of a holistic education but through a system that subtly teaches them to view the humanities as less practical or less essential. 

In college, that message can take structural form. Many CASL students have only one section of required courses available each semester. For students who work, care for family members, complete internships or support themselves financially, that lack of flexibility creates a serious burden; they must either take the classes they need to graduate or meet obligations outside the classroom. Students in non-CASL majors, by contrast, often have multiple section options to choose from each semester, allowing them to build schedules that better fit the realities of their lives.

The disparity extends beyond course registration. Employers and outside institutions often direct funding toward programs they believe will produce a more immediate return, which frequently means STEM fields. Internships, partnerships and financial support tend to follow that logic. 

Humanities students, meanwhile, are often told their degrees prepare them for a broad and adaptable future, yet the full value of their skills is rarely communicated with the same confidence. As a result, their programs receive less investment, evident in U-M Dearborn’s unremedied CASL cutbacks in November 2024, in turn hindering institutional reinforcement for and their professional pathways. Students who are already underserved by their universities will then find themselves deprived of the resources needed to prepare them for the industries and organizations they are seeking to work for.

There is also a personal cost to this hierarchy. Dismissive comments, skepticism and a general lack of respect for the humanities can make students feel that the work they care about is constantly being questioned. Many students choose humanities fields because they want to engage deeply with ideas, language, culture, ethics and history. They choose them because those subjects matter. When those choices are repeatedly devalued, even ordinary conversations about one’s major can begin to feel defensive, as though students must continually justify the legitimacy of their interests and ambitions.

The preference for STEM will not disappear overnight, but universities can make deliberate choices about what they honor, fund and elevate. This doesn’t mean that valuing the humanities requires diminishing other fields. Rather, schools can treat humanities research, writing and creative work with the same seriousness often afforded to highly visible STEM projects. They can build structures that support humanities students not symbolically, but materially. A more balanced university does not ask students to prove that their disciplines matter. It recognizes that they already do.