Word: esac
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...need courses particularly focused on ethnic studies. It simply isn't addressed in most courses," says Irene C. Cheng '97, president of the Asian American Association and a member of the Ethnic Studies Action Committee (ESAC...
...hard to imagine the Harvard Republican Club fasting to bring George Will to Harvard or history concentrators staging a sit-in to protest the new intellectual history track. By using a hunger strike, ESAC undermines its call for recognition by displaying its cause as essentially political and not academic...
University of Colorado professor Evelyn Hu-DeHart, whom ESAC quotes in their manifesto, admits that activism and not academics is the motor behind the movement. Hu-DeHart argues that growing acceptance of ethnic studies' basic academic premise--that past social scientists have focused on elite perspectives--challenges its position as a separate discipline apart from traditional academic departments. "The challenge is to reconcile the academic goal of ethnic studies--the production of knowledge--with its original commitment to liberating and empowering the communities of color [emphasis mine]," she writes...
...fact, ethnic studies is really a misnomer. While the term implies a study of national identity and cultural differences of all people, ESAC limits its definition to "groups of color," who "have a shared history of having been viewed as distinct from the European immigrants." With a disturbing lack of historical perspective, proponents of ethnic studies argue that America has welcomed all peoples of "white" background into the fold, while all "non white" Americans have been relegated to the periphery. This black and white scheme ignores the diverse experiences of people from both non-white and white backgrounds. It presumes...
...ESAC's call for recognition is simply a veiled demand for a department that accepts its thesis that America is a nation irredeemably separated along racial fissures. While Harvard should continue to seek new approaches to knowledge, especially in areas that have been overlooked in the past, there is more than enough room for such expansion within existing disciplines...