Still Demanding Ethnic Studies Now

The University has worked hard to perfect its dance step on ethnic studies --delay, delay, delay--and ethnic studies activists on campus are getting frustrated.

Students urging Harvard toward more ethnic studies in the curriculum say conciliatory tactics are just not working. They imply that drastic action may be required for the University to create an ethnic studies concentration.

On campuses across the nation, student groups--through a combination of rallies, hunger strikes and sir-ins--have succeeded in convincing administrations to implement ethnic studies curricula.

But at Harvard, students say they can't get past the rhetoric. Debate continues to center on the viability of ethnic studies as an academic discipline.

"I'm walking closer to the edge of the cliff, and a lot of other people are as well," says Irene C. Cheng '97, former president of the Asian American Association and a member of the Ethnic Studies Action Committee (ESAC).

And recent correspondence between student activists and administrators indicates that the situation at Harvard is increasingly similar to those campuses--perhaps Harvard, too, is on the verge of a violent eruption.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles and Thomson Professor of Government Jorge I. Dominguez, chair of the Faculty Committee on Ethnic Studies, have consistently rebuffed student calls for an ethnic studies department.

Ethnic studies activists on campus expressed their frustration with the administration in a recent letter requesting a meeting with Knowles.

"Professor Dominguez has been twice quoted as saying that he is not impressed by students banging on windows; we say in return that we are similarly not impressed with specious claims of 'progress," the students wrote.

The Protests

Students say they are looking for the kind of progress enjoyed by Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of California at Los Angeles.

The most recent victory for ethnic studies activists came at Columbia this spring.

On April 1, four students pitched a blue pup tent in the middle of campus and began a hunger strike, demanding the creation of an ethnic studies department. Several days later, more than 100 protestors barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall, forcing classes to meet elsewhere.

Columbia president George Rupp vowed that the sit-in would not prove effective. "We don't develop academic curricula through negotiations, but through the regular process that has served Columbia well," he said.

But in the end, the University promised to hire four new professors in Asian-American and Hispanic Studies and to continue to recruit faculty members for its African-American studies department.

Although Harvard activists recognize the most important studies in ethnic studies across college campuses have been made by radical protesters, they have been reluctant to go to such extremes.

"Our feeling is that we should have exhausted all legitimate means before using alternative tactics," Cheng says.

Ethnic studies organizers at Harvard have kept this year's activities relatively mild, hoping to gain the support of faculty members rather than alienate them.

For instance, organizers only tabled at this year's Junior Parents' Weekend instead of staging a major protest as they had done for the previous three years.

"We're channeling our energies into other endeavors which we hope will reach more faculty and more administrators in a more influential way," Alex H. Cho '96, an ESAC member, said at the time.

Ethnic studies advocates say they have carefully considered their conciliatory approach to ethnic studies activism.

"It's very, very conscious. We are very careful about our strategy and tactics," Cheng says.

Working within the administration's framework "is more tailored to where we are," Cho says. "Had we been more hot-headed, it would have only done us a disservice."

Others agree that a more aggressive approach could cost activists faculty support.

"Taking over a building at this stage places [the faculty who support us] in an awkward position," says one member of ESAC who asked not to be identified.

And prominent faculty members say ethnic studies activists have been taking the right approach.

"The best thing a student movement can do is get the faculty on its side," says DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates says he supports establishing departments in two or three areas in which Harvard can excel, rather than forming a single ethnic studies department.

This Year's Events

Ethnic studies supporters' most significant activities this year were an April Forum on Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies and a protest in the Yard one week later.

The forum drew a crowd of nearly 200 to Sackler Hall, making it the largest discussion on ethnic studies in Harvard's history. Speakers included Knowles, Dominguez, Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 and nine other professors.

"It was the first time we had gotten that many people in a room to talk about ethnic studies," Cheng says.

But students were still disappointed that the administration made no commitments.

"It is really exciting to have everyone come together," Academic Affairs Committee member Jennifer Y. Lin '98 said after the conference. "But we are frustrated that no concrete commitment was issued from the administration."

The second, more heated event occurred a week later when more than 100 students rallied outside University Hall to urge administrators to expand Harvard's ethnic studies curriculum.

Protesters carrying brightly-colored signs, banging drums and chanting "Hey, hey, ho, ho! Delay and red tape have to go!" accused Harvard of being "behind the times."

"It was really exciting," says Cheng. "It was one of the first times, there was a sign students were concerned."

This time, too, the protesters got a response.

For more than a week after the rally, several doors to University Hall were locked at the recommendation of Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, and Harvard Police officers were stationed outside the building to monitor who entered.

The Debate at Harvard

Despite student attempts to add courses and faculty, Harvard's curriculum remains largely unchanged.

Currently, students interested in studying ethnicity in the United States are directed to consult a 50-page brochure available from the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education.

Of the 90 courses listed in the brochure "Ethnic Studies at Harvard" which are not in the Afro-American Studies Department, only 25 meet the students of ethnic studies established by Harvard's student advocates and programs at other schools.

Knowles says he broadly defines ethnic studies as "the study of race and ethnicity in the United States and worldwide." Courses cited as ethnic studies in the handbook include classes like History of Relations Between China and Inner Asia (3rd Century B.C.E. to 12th Century C.E.) and Comparative Politics of the Middle East.

Students, however, say that ethnic studies must be viewed much more specifically, as Asian American studies, Native American studies and American Latino studies.

The University's position was codified by Knowles and Dominguez in the 1996 "Handbook on Race Relations and the Common Cause."

While they acknowledged the "fundamental importance" of ethnic studies, Knowles and Dominguez argued that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences "should not establish programs limited to narrowly defined ethnic groups."

Instead, they insisted that the study of ethnicity be included within already existing departments and programs.

In a recent interview with The Crimson, Dominguez said, "My own analysis is that the speed and the number of appointments in ethnic studies has been greater precisely because several departments...have said, 'You know we really want someone here who does ethnic studies.'"

Leaders of the movement are asking for better coordination of ethnic studies at Harvard and for more professors in the area. But they say receiving assurances from the administration has been nearly impossible.

"The administration has been willing to meet with us at times, and they'll make tenative promises," Cheng says. "But none of these things are really adding up to much."

Students say they are getting frustrated because winning even the smallest concessions in faculty and courses has proven difficult.

"We can't even begin to talk about departments," Cho says.

What Next?

To justify their more careful approach, leaders of the ethnic studies movement point to their strides in acquiring faculty support during the past year.

In addition, Dominguez has adopted one request of the student activists, asking that the Faculty Committee on Ethnic Studies be ungraded from a dean's committee to a standing committee.

"With a dean's committee there is a list of tasks, and that's what you do," Dominguez said in an interview last month. "A standing committee of the Faculty is chartered by the Faculty to go and promote this field."

Such a committee could raise funds and encourage faculty hiring and research in ethnic studies but would not grant degrees.

While advocates of ethnic studies say they appreciate these "small gains," they say the administration's concessions have been insufficient.

"It's ridiculous," says Cho. "It has been 20-plus years, and we've basically gotten nowhere."

Student activists indicate that they may be on the brink of changing their approach. The letter to Knowles last month implied a threat of more extreme action.

"We also wanted to comment on the role of radical student actions in struggles such as the ongoing one here for comparative race and ethnic studies," the students wrote. "Unfortunately, the vast preponderance of efforts for comparative race and ethnic studies we know of at peer institutions...have required such actions to push their respective administrations to make funds available."