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Inspired by the civil rights movement and buoyed by the energy of the antiwar movement, a generation of American college students invaded administrative offices 25 years ago, demanding fundamental changes in higher education. The occupation of administrative offices by students of color and their white supporters startled and terrified presidents, deans, and professors. The faculty and administration were almost exclusively white and predominantly male -- and the student body was predominantly white and primarily male. The curriculum had been fairly static since the first decades of the century, and multiculturalism had not evolved.
Beginning in 1968 at San Francisco State University and at the Berkeley and Santa Barbara campuses of the University of California, the movement spread to many other schools throughout the nation. Students of color demanded better access to higher education, changes in the curriculum, the recruitment of more professors of color, and the creation of ethnic studies programs. These programs were the beginning of multicultural curriculum reform in higher education.
From their origins in California, ethnic studies programs and departments have survived and proliferated throughout the United States.(1) After serious cutbacks during the budgetary crises of the 1970s and 1980s, they are back bigger and stronger than ever. Ethnic studies programs have been revitalized, reorganized, and reconceptualized. Indeed, they are increasingly becoming institutionalized. The field of ethnic studies has produced a prodigious amount of new scholarship, much of which is good and innovative. However, as is true in all disciplines, some of the work is weak. The perspectives of ethnic studies are intended not only to increase our knowledge base but eventually to transform the disciplines. Their influence is being widely felt and hotly debated.
Today there are more than 700 ethnic studies programs and departments in the United States.(2) They are represented by five established professional associations: the National Council of Black Studies, the National Association of Chicano Studies, the Asian American Studies Association, the American Indian Studies Association, and the National Association of Ethnic Studies. The Association of Puerto Rican Studies was formed in 1992.
A disproportionate number of ethnic studies programs are located in public colleges and universities because these institutions are more susceptible to public pressure than are private schools. There are more ethnic studies programs in the...