Stonewalling on Ethnic Studies

Motivated by a belief in the value of the study of a variety of subjects and cultures, Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot created a flexible curriculum in the late 19th century to broaden the scope of education and “enlarge the circle of liberal arts.” Unfortunately, Harvard has lost sight of its liberal, democratic aims by ignoring and deflecting student demands for ethnic studies for over 30 years.

The mission of ethnic studies is to diversify the academic curriculum to include critical perspectives of ethnic communities that have been historically neglected by Euro-centric academia and to examine the social construction of race, class, gender and sexuality. Ethnic studies, the collective term that commonly refers to Afro-American, Asian American, Latino and Native American Studies, has often been connected to minority communities, but the scholarship seeks to diversify the curriculum to examine the experiences and perspectives of all ethnic groups, including “white” ethnic groups such as Irish and Jewish Americans. In essence, ethnic studies is about the fight for academic diversity.

Aside from the Afro-American Studies Department (which was reluctantly established as the result of a University Hall student sit-in and was largely under-funded until the arrival of Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. in 1991), Harvard has never fully supported ethnic studies. As a result, there are only 14 classes specifically related to Asian American, Latino and Native American Studies. No courses focus on the comprehensive history of Asian Americans, Latinos, or Native Americans. The lack of any cohesive Native American Studies curriculum is particularly disturbing since the 1650 Charter of Harvard College established the College for “the education of the English and Indian youth of this Country.”

The administration has responded by creating an imaginary ethnic studies curriculum. The official position articulated by Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles in 1995 states that ethnic studies is inherently comparative and should not be confined to a single department. This vision of ethnic studies is idealistic and has not worked in practice at Harvard, or at any other academic institution. Current departments lack both courses and Faculty in ethnic studies, and the University knows this. It hopes that students will either not recognize the lack of ethnic studies or will have too many other commitments during their short time at Harvard to create change.

The University distributes a booklet by the Committee on Ethnic Studies (CES) outlining over 90 courses available in ethnic studies at Harvard, from ethnic conflicts around the world to Ukrainian literature. In a booklet that is supposed to outline courses in Afro-American, Asian American, Latino and Native American Studies, why is “Questions of Identity in Central European Modernist Fiction” listed when there is only one course focusing on Latino studies? Harvard likes to be unique, but its interpretation of ethnic studies as any course related to ethnicity only confuses students, blurring area studies and ethnic studies and deflecting focus from the problem of excluded minority perspectives.

After having a decade of ethnic studies proposals ranging from Faculty positions to a concentration rejected by the administration, last year students in an ethnic studies coalition proposed an ethnic studies certificate as a small step towards a more diverse curriculum. We believed that the certificate would encourage more students to take ethnic studies courses and more Faculty to offer them. A small victory was thought to have been achieved in spring 2001 when the certificate was approved by both the CES and Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82, but unfortunately, the new chair of the CES—Werner Sollors, who is also a professor of Afro-American studies—decided to review the certificate proposal again this year. As with most proposals stuck in committee, no progress has been made.

In the wake of recent commitments to diversity by both University President Lawrence H. Summers and Provost Steven E. Hyman, many students would like to see progress in the form of a strong and formal commitment to ethnic studies. It is unfair that students currently interested in ethnic studies have no tutorials to learn its methodology, no coordinated advising, no set curriculum and a limited selection of disconnected courses. To address these problems, several principal changes must be made. The ad-hoc Committee on Ethnic Studies should be elevated to a standing committee. A Latino and Latin American Studies, Native-American studies and an Asian-American studies department should each be created. And the University should develop greater curricular diversity in areas studies, which concentrate on regions outside the U.S. For example, there should be an African studies department and a South Asian studies program.

Academic diversity is of utmost importance at an institution designed to expand the way we approach and examine knowledge. The glacial rate of progress in ethnic studies de-legitimizes Harvard’s commitment to diversity, and it is time for Harvard to provide a truly liberal education.

Ethan Y. Yeh ’03 is an environmental science and public policy and economics concentrator in Kirkland House. He is a member of the Ethnic Studies Coalition.