During the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, students at San Francisco State University walked out of class every day for five months to push for greater integration and acceptance of minority groups on campus.
In response, in 1969 the university created the nation’s first school of ethnic studies ““ very much a product of the larger Civil Rights Movement.
But today, with universities constantly professing their commitment to diversity, critics are increasingly beginning to question the relevance of ethnic studies departments and programs.
Academics and outside observers come down on both sides of the question: Are ethnic studies still necessary for understanding and acceptance, or do they simply divide students and faculty along racial lines?
“We have more and more integration on campus, and opportunities are not closed to anybody,” said Ward Connerly, former UC regent and a prominent activist against affirmative action. “If there was any rationale for these programs in the late ’60s (and) early ’70s, I think we have now outlived that.”
The University of California was one of the first school systems in the country to offer ethnic studies programs, beginning with UC Berkeley’s ethnic studies department’s foundation 1969.
The term “ethnic studies” typically encompasses Afro-American studies, Latino/Chicano studies, Native American studies and Asian American studies.
UCLA now offers all of these as interdepartmental programs or formal departments, though the university does not have a separate department of ethnic studies.
Brenda Stevenson, chair of UCLA’s Afro-American studies program, said she believes these programs remain very relevant at universities around the country, both socially and academically.
“Even though people have moved forward and departments have become more integrated … there still is a need to continue to provide this information because this still is not the mainstream,” she said.
Stevenson noted that ethnic studies programs are increasingly being converted to formal departments, which she explained as a sign that universities are recognizing these programs’ academic relevance.
The role of ethnic studies has changed within universities as well, said Don Nakanishi, professor of Asian American studies and education and the director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center.
As an example, he said Asian American studies offers courses to students in professional and graduate schools to help them prepare for careers in specialized communities.
“They gain even more in-depth knowledge about these communities and individuals so services can be better provided and needs can be better addressed,” Nakanishi said.
But the evolution of ethnic studies departments has sparked its share of controversy.
Recently, in 2005, the chair of the ethnic studies department at the University of Colorado at Boulder came under fire for an article he had written in which he compared Sept. 11 victims to Nazis. Debate over the incident quickly turned to the professor’s ethnic studies background and the overall value of such studies.
Connerly said he believes that instead of promoting diversity and acceptance the way they were intended, ethnic studies programs today often accomplish exactly the opposite.
“I’m not saying for one moment that there’s no racism, but I’m saying that a lot of this Afro-centric perspective is coming straight out of the ethnic studies departments,” he said. “I think the colleges do a great disservice to the notion of social interaction because they drive people into these rigid racial cliques. Interaction occurs outside classroom. … That’s when diversity becomes meaningful.”
Instead, since universities are so much more integrated today, faculty should de-emphasize ethnic and racial divides, Connerly said.
“If you want to promote diversity, on the first day of class tell people, “˜Drop your identity. Drop this race thing. Go out there and see if you can meet some new people who are different from you,'” he said.
But Stevenson maintained that ethnic studies departments at UCLA are in no way about dividing students based on race.
“The majority of students who take our classes are not African American,” she said. “And certainly some African American students come to the Afro-American studies department and say, “˜I want to learn more about myself,’ but I don’t think (it occurs) any more than students taking American history classes who identify themselves as American.”
Stevenson also noted that the way ethnic studies departments operate has changed over time: Though during the 1960s and ’70s they were often aimed at effecting social change, today these departments and programs are strictly academic, she said.
“Many of the programs, when they were first established, were very much associated with community organizations … that were challenging traditional organizations in American society,” she said. “(Today) it’s a place where people have wonderful academic endeavors. And that’s very important. They’re creating new knowledge. And that will never become irrelevant.”
Connerly, on the other hand, said he believes ethnic studies may be on their way out precisely because their academic value to students is waning.
“Once (students) graduate with a degree in ethnic studies, what the hell are they going to do with it?” he said. “I think (these programs are) going to wither and die … because there won’t be the demand for them. If Senator Obama were coming along right now, do you think he would be majoring in some ethnic studies program? I don’t think so.”