Let ’s talk about Ethnic Studies, or rather the debate about the value of ethnic studies.

For those of you who are not or have not been students within the University of California (UC) system, a course in Ethnic Studies is a requirement for a Bachelor’s Degree, regardless of your field of study. This requirement is now under siege at UC Riverside (UCR. The talk is about closing down the program, thus removing the requirement for graduation. I don’t know if it’s a "suggested possibility" filtering down from the Board of Regents, which governs all UC policy, or if it’s in-house politicking between the department, the school, and the Chancellor’s office. The Powers-To-Be are mum on the subject. But this talk of disbanding the program of Ethnic Studies is once again in the air with students polarizing along ethnic lines.

Let’s take a minute to define the bureaucracy, and thus the line of decision making, within the university environment, just for those not involved in higher education. Each university is comprised of various schools: School of Science, School of Humanities, School of Art, etc. Each school is divided into varying departments of specific disciplines. Disciplines are specified areas of study, such as history, dance or biology. Under the School of Social Sciences, you would have the Departments of History, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, or Economics for instance, while the School of Science oversees the Departments of Chemistry, Biology, Physics, or Mathematics among others. Administratively speaking, the university is managed by the Chancellor, the individual schools are managed by a Dean, while the departments are managed by a Chair. Department Chairs are tenure-track faculty, aka full-time with all the benefits. They carry teaching loads as well as administrative departmental responsibilities. Deans generally do not teach, although it may happen on occasion. Teaching is nowhere in the job description for the Chancellor.

Each school also offers interdisciplinary programs. These programs are highly specialized fields of study which draw their courses from several disciplines. Ethnic Studies is an interdisciplinary program within the School of Social Sciences which draws mainly upon the disciplines of History, Sociology, and Literature. Although these programs are run like departments replete with an office staff and a Chair, their faculty size is minuscule with only a handful of full time professors, supplemented by part-time instructors and augmented by professors-on-loan from the various disciplines. While one can major in Ethnic Studies and receive their Bachelor’s Degree in that field, programs by their very definition do not offer course work for post-graduate degrees, such as a Master’s or a Doctorate (Ph.D.). Such is the status of Ethnic Studies in the chain of command at UCR.

The debate among UCR’s students is not an isolated case of intellectual brouhaha, but rather seems to reflect the sublime and divergent thoughts of society at large on a thirty year, on-going redefinition of social order. Generally galvanized along racial lines, the main question seems to be whether there is still a need for ethnic studies as an independent department. The polarization of people on this subject largely parallels that surrounding Affirmative Action recently.

Ethnic Studies as a field of study had its origins in the 1968 San Francisco State Strike. This was a student protest movement at California State University, San Francisco, which protested the substance of the university’s curriculum. They demanded courses which not only reflected the historical experience and contribution of the minority groups, but were also taught in the voice and from the perspective of the minority person. They sought a recovery of the social experience and cultural heritage of those who had been marginalized within the pages of history, within the milieu of intellectual thought. Carter G. Woodson said that history is knowledge, identity and power. To deny one’s history is to deny their identity as a person. Knowledge of one’s history gives one an understanding of the legacy that defines their status within society. This empowers the person. Ethnic Studies thus offers courses such as Native American Law, African American Literature, Introduction to Chicano Studies, Contemporary Asian American Issues, Race Relations, Ethnic History, or Race and Ethnicity to name but a few.

For some people, interdisciplinary programs, such as Ethnic Studies, Women Studies, or Gender Studies for example, are not true "disciplines of learning", as they would describe Physics, Art, or Philosophy. In the case of Ethnic Studies, one thought bouncing around is that it has served its purpose as the various disciplines have incorporated a body of courses which focus on aspects of the social, cultural, and historical records of minorities. They point to the cross-listing of courses between the Ethnic Studies program and the discipline of Sociology. Yet, this cross-listing is due to a professor’s joint assignment as faculty in both the Department of Sociology and the Ethnic Studies program. The rationalization here is that since these professors are already teaching these courses within the discipline, there’s no need to maintain a separate department or program office and staff. While agreement exists that ethnic studies should be maintained as a major, this can be offered through any of the disciplines which contribute both the professor and the course(s).

If you are starting to wonder if this talk about dismantling the Ethnic Studies program is about money, you are absolutely correct in my opinion. However, I do wonder how much of this talk is reactionary in nature, and is seeking a return to a White focus in education. While the UCR student body is the most ethnically diverse of all the UC’s, this diversity is not seen among the Deans.

Those offended by this line of thought argue that there’s no such thing as a White focus in education. They may say education is all about the objective truth of the facts as they are, and that the transmission of knowledge has no color code. this may be true in the tenets of egalitarian ideology, the practice of this ideology falls short in realizing its ideals. For women and minorities, the struggle for true equality, not only in all aspects of society, but also in the mentality of society, is far from over. There is still much to be done. White and male privileges still exists. My sister is fond of saying that money talks. We all know what walks.

Marijke Marsana can be reached at MMarsana@aol.com Comments, flame mail, kind words of support, or your take on the subject all are accepted gracefully and are subject to being published in future columns. Include your full name and city of residence. Thanks and have a good one.

Written by Marijke Marsana, 1/19/00