In the month of August, California passed a law that required college students within the state-run university system to complete an ethnic studies class to be able to graduate. In essence this, the California legislature has forced the approximately 500,000 students enrolled in Cal State to take classes. Cal State system to take the courses that students and others campaigned for universities to adopt decades ago. Although the classes aren’t uncontroversial As an academic who researches the dynamics of rac
The classes are offered across the nation at colleges and universities as numerous and varied such as Bowling Green State University as well as at the University of Washington. When the classes are taught in the way they were intended to be – with a particular emphasis on race and tackling discrimination against people of color Research has shown that they can help student’s intellectual and social growth. They also decrease racial discrimination in individuals.
Ethnic studies has a distinct space in higher education. Its existence is due to the struggles of grassroots communities of people of color along with their allies. They often took forms of sit-ins or hunger strikes, as well as other types of agitation targeted. Numerous scholars attribute the origins of ethnic studies back to those of the Third World Liberation Front strike at San Francisco State University in 1968 the year that the classes were a part of the demands made by activists.