Ethnic Studies: No Separate Department

Perhaps the most highly charged intellectual debate on campus today is to what extent American universities should support ethnic studies. The debate is confounded by the highly complex and somewhat abstract themes that comprise the issue. Individuals on both sides tend to oversimplify and polemicize, labeling ethnic studies advocates as screaming radical minorities and their opponents as perpetuators of white male racism.

Ethnic studies is an outgrowth of the trend in recent decades toward multiculturalism, or the belief that only by studying and preserving the disparate cultures that comprise this country can we construct a fair and just society. Most intellectuals, and indeed most citizens, are in favor of a fair and just society. The problem, of course, is in the details; what is fair and just, and how do we achieve it?

According to the Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, ethnic studies comprises Afro-American Studies, American Latino Studies, Asian American Studies, Native American Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies. The purpose of these disciplines is not only "to broaden the extant canon of knowledge to include experiences and contributions of groups historically excluded from such consideration," but more significantly, to create "an approach striving towards multiple positioning of race/class/gender/sexuality" and "[to reinterpret] existing paradigms through which the meaning of the human experience is apprehended." We agree with the first of these two tenets. American society today is the result of hundreds of years of interaction between individuals of very different backgrounds, and if modern scholarship ignores the contributions of any group because of subtle or overt prejudice, then this intellectual rift must be fixed.

It is the second tenet which disturbs us. What the AAC seems to be saying here is that racism is so firmly built into the system that non-white minorities cannot be truly empowered in America without a paradigm shift. This shift would take us away from an emphasis on universal truths to a view of knowledge as simply a conglomeration of different perspectives. This is problematic for a number of reasons.

To begin with, it flirts with the notion of moral relativism, or the belief that it is invalid to criticize the mores of any one culture no matter how wrong they may seem. Not only is this a lazy intellectual argument, but it is also threatening to American democracy because our political system is built on very specific notions of what inherent legal rights individuals do and do not possess.

The second problem is that, as the AAC describes it, this paradigm shift will come about mostly (though not entirely) through the study of non-white ethnic groups. This seems to imply that racism in America against non-whites is somehow inherently different from the prejudice faced by white ethnicities throughout this nation's history. This is not necessarily true--anyone who studies the problems of, say, the immigrant Irish and Jews at the turn of the century will realize that these groups faced discrimination that was much stronger and more destructive than that leveled against, say, Asians and Hispanics today.

Finally, ethnic studies and multiculturalism may actually be divisive. By emphasizing the primacy of culture above all else, we risk losing the common ties that bind America together and descending into the type of ethnic conflict that is so common and destructive in the world today.

Therefore, we believe that ethnic studies should be strengthened insofar as its goal is to change the racist attitudes that have prevented non-white minorities from enjoying equity in our society, but not to the extent that a paradigm shift is sought. While this pursuit definitely requires the study of immigrant cultures, literature, etc., it does so as a means to an end. That end is a uniquely American culture which is not a bland homogenization but rather a synergistic whole that is greater than the sum of its ethnic components. In other words, the contemporary experiences of non-white minorities should be looked at as an extension of the immigrant experiences of white ethnic groups in the earlier history of America.

To this end, we support the request of Thomson Professor of Government Jorge I. Dominguez that the Committee on Ethnic Studies (CES) be upgraded to a standing committee. Dominguez, who is chair of CES, believes this change would broaden the committee's mandate to promote ethnic studies. He also believes that ethnic studies should not be a separate department. His reasons for this include administrative problems, but more fundamentally, as he and Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles write in the Handbook on Race Relations and the Common Pursuit: "The creation of narrowly defined administrative or curricular entities in the FAS would be misguided. Our faculty do not favor limiting the study of ethnicity to a handful of groups whose own self-determination has been changing over time.... The study of ethnicity at Harvard is, and ought to be, focused on the broad canvas of human experience."

We agree. The study of non-white minorities in American society should be integrated with those intellectual pursuits that are already dedicated to examining the American experience: history, government and sociology. The structure of American society and the scholarship which explicates it is inherently sound. What has been sorely lacking is the fair application of these principles to all, and it is in remedying this that ethnic studies can be a useful tool.

Those who disagree with our argument are likely to point to the existence of the Afro-American Studies Department and the Committee on Women's Studies as strong evidence that it is necessary and important to focus on the experience of specific minorities in American society. There are fundamental differences, however, between the experiences of blacks and women, and, say, Italians, Asians or Latinos. To begin with, blacks are the only members of American society, besides Native Americans, who did not come to this country voluntarily. In fact, most blacks were brought here in a tragic and violent nature. The emotional and political legacy of slavery and segregation sets aside the black experience from the white and non-white immigrant experience. And women, who obviously are members of all ethnic racial groups, suffer from prejudice that is due more to incorrect perceptions of biological differences than xenophobia.

The third wave of immigration, which began in 1965 and has been primarily non-white, is forcing us to reexamine our notions of tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism. Constant evaluation and reevaluation of ideals keeps America on its intellectual toes. But our new appreciation of difference must not obscure our valuation of common human goals. The road to a common good is not to exalt difference beyond what is necessary, but rather to ensure that all have fair access to American ideals and opportunities.