Late 1980s and 1990s > Ethnic Studies
Ethnic Studies
In 1996, four students – Marcel A. Agüeros, Michael Maldonado, Heather Starr and Joaquin Ochoa – launched a hunger strike in an attempt to force the University to allocate more funding to Ethnic Studies and restructure the Core Curriculum to include more rigorous, non-Western and critical perspectives.
African-American Studies Professor Manning Marable was among the faculty who voiced support. Addressing an audience of 200 at St. Paul's Chapel, Marable urged faculty, administrators and students to reflect on what the Core is supposed to be about instead of simply adding or deleting books. "We're not throwing out things," he said. "We're talking about a different perspective."
After two weeks of striking, the occupation of Hamilton Hall and six days of negotiations, the administration conceded to several of the strikers' demands. They agreed to hire two professors in Asian Studies and another in Latino Studies, and to formally consider expanding Ethnic Studies into a full-fledged degree- granting department. The University would also review the Extended Core/ Major Cultures requirement and redouble efforts to create rigorous seminar-style courses.
The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race was created in 1999 and today offers a major in Ethnicity & Race Studies, with tracks in Asian-American, Latino and Native-American/Indigenous Studies.
