Cornell University has introduced an astronomy course to explore the connection between the term black holes and “racial blackness” — proof, say critics, that even the hard sciences aren’t immune to universal “racial hysteria.” The course, titled “Black Holes: Race and the Cosmos,” uses work from black studies theorists, artists and fiction writers to challenge “conventional wisdom” about the role that race plays in astronomy. “Conventional wisdom would have it that the ‘black’ in black holes has nothing to do with race. Surely there can be no connection between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness. Can there?” reads...