Ethnic studies is an academic discipline dedicated to the study of ethnic minorities. It evolved in the second half of the 20th century partly in response to charges that traditional disciplines such as anthropology, ethnology, and orientalism were imbued with an inherently eurocentric perspective. Ethnic studies tried to remedy this by trying to study minority cultures on their own terms, in their own language, acknowledging their own values.

In the United States, the discipline of ethnic studies evolved out of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which saw growing self-awareness and radicalization of minority groups such as Native Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanic Americans (also known as Latinos). Ethnic studies departments were established on many campuses and grew to encompass the emerging disciplines of African-American and Chicano-American studies, later to be joined by Native American and Asian-American studies. Courses in ethnic studies tried to address the criticism that the role of Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans in American history was undervalued and ignored because of eurocentric bias. Ethnic studies even at times encompasses issues of gender, class, and sexuality. There are now hundreds of African-American, Asian-American, and Latino studies departments in the US, approximately fifty Native American studies departments, and a small number of comparative ethnic studies programs. [1]

While ethnic studies has always been opposed by some conservative elements, the rise of the conservative movement in the United States during the 1990s saw the discipline come increasingly under attack. Ethnic studies was seen to reflect "an excess" of political correctness, whereby the "traditional values" of Western culture, symbolized by the United States, were being undermined by postmodern relativism. Ethnic studies, it is argued by right-wing critics, promotes "racial separatism", "linguistic isolation" and "racial preference". [2]

In 2005, a professor of ethnic studies at University of Colorado at Boulder, Ward Churchill, came under severe fire for an essay he had written about the September 11, 2001 attacks in which he argued that U.S. foreign policy was partly to blame for the atrocity.

Conservative commentators used the Churchill affair to attack ethnic studies departments as enclaves of "anti-Americanism" which promote the idea of ethnic groups as "victims" in US society, and not places where serious scholarship is done. "The epistemological nadir of any university is found in the wacky world of ethnic and gender studies: black studies, Africana studies, Chicano studies, Latino studies, Puerto Rican studies, Middle Eastern studies, Native American studies, women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, et al.," wrote columnist Mark Goldblatt in the February 9 online edition of the conservative magazine The National Review. "The suggestion that 'studying' is involved in any of these subjects is laughable. they are quasi-religious advocacy groups whose curricula run the gamut from historical wish fulfillment (the ancient Egyptians were black; the U.S. Constitution was derived from the Iroquois Nation) to political axe grinding (the Israelis are committing genocide against the Palestinians; the U.S. is committing genocide against the people of Cuba)". [3]

In face of such attacks, ethnic studies scholars are now faced with having to defend the field. "Now, all of a sudden, because of one individual professor we have to undergo this absurd process as a legitimate academic enterprise, and that is grossly unfair," said Carlos Munoz, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley and one of the founders of the discipline. [4]

Defending the importance of ethnic studies for society, Orin Starn, a cultural anthropologist and specialist in Native American studies at Duke University, says: "The United States is a very diverse country, and an advocate would say we teach kids to understand multiculturalism and diversity, and these are tools that can be used in law, government, business and teaching, which are fields graduates go into. It promotes thinking about diversity, globalization, how we do business and how we work with nonprofits." [5]

External links

• Index of ethnic studies resources
• "Ethnic-studies divisions across U.S. working to defend their discipline" (Chicano.org, 24 February 2005)