Is it any more goofy than making an engineering major take a GenEd class in medieval history, or anthropology? School is just weird. Do it, get it done, move on.
Yes this makes no sense
It's odd to me that concerns about equity are cited as the reason to get rid of a swimming requirement because some institutions discovered that the students who didn't know how to swim were predominantly non-white. I think it's a reasonable view that what they actually did was unearth an existing inequity and choose to do nothing about it.
I think the requirement was a matter practical concern back in the 30-50s when there was war and it was assumed that knowing how to swim would be useful , such as on a ship. naval engineering was a huge deal in the 19th and up to the mid 20th century. It seems arbitrary to require it, but it also makes sense in the historical context.