Ethnic Studies - Criticism

Criticism

Ethnic studies has always been opposed by different elements. Proponents of Ethnic studies feel that this is a reactionary movement from the right. They point out the rise of the conservative movement in the United States during the 1990s which saw the discipline come increasingly under attack. For proponents, the backlash is characterized as an attempt to preserve "traditional values" of Western culture, symbolized by the United States. For some critics, this actually is a slant by the proponents to disparage criticism by false association to right wing ideology. They have no objection about African, Latino or Native American culture being legitimate topics of academic research. What they object to is the current state of Ethnic studies which they see as characterized by excessive left wing political ideology, postmodernist relativism which, in their view, greatly undermined the scholarly validity of the research. However, Ethnic studies is accused of promoting "racial separatism", "linguistic isolation" and "racial preference". In addition, Ethnic studies is attacked for reinforcing stereotypes and offering simplistic explanations for the very deep fissures among different cultural groups in this country.

In 2005, a professor of Ethnic studies at University of Colorado at Boulder, Ward Churchill, came under severe fire for an essay he had written about the September 11, 2001 attacks in which he argued that U.S. foreign policy was partly to blame for the atrocity. Conservative commentators used the Churchill affair to attack Ethnic studies departments as enclaves of "anti-Americanism" which promote the idea of ethnic groups as "victims" in US society, and not places where serious scholarship is done. "The epistemological nadir of any university is found in the wacky world of ethnic and gender studies: black studies, Africana studies, Chicano studies, Latino studies, Puerto Rican studies, Middle Eastern studies, Native American studies, women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, et al.," wrote columnist Mark Goldblatt in the February 9 online edition of the conservative magazine National Review. "The suggestion that 'studying' is involved in any of these subjects is laughable. they are quasi-religious advocacy groups whose curricula run the gamut from historical wish fulfillment (the ancient Egyptians were black; the U.S. Constitution was derived from the Iroquois Nation) to political axe grinding (the Israelis are committing genocide against the Palestinians; the U.S. is committing genocide against the people of Cuba)."

In the face of such attacks, Ethnic studies scholars are now faced with having to defend the field. In the media, this takes form of characterising the attack as right wing reactionary movement. For example, Orin Starn, a cultural anthropologist and specialist in Native American studies at Duke University, says: "The United States is a very diverse country, and an advocate would say we teach kids to understand multiculturalism and diversity, and these are tools that can be used in law, government, business and teaching, which are fields graduates go into. It promotes thinking about diversity, globalization, how we do business and how we work with nonprofits."

In reaction to criticisms that Ethnic studies academics undermine the study of a unified American history and culture or that the charge that they simply a "colored" version of American Studies, defenders point out that Ethnic studies comes out of the historically repressed and denied presence of groups within the U.S. knowledge-production, literature and epistemology. Efforts to merge Ethnic studies with American studies has been meet with fierce opposition as was the case at UC Berkeley. While the field is already decades old, the ongoing creation of new Ethnic studies departments is fraught with controversy. Administrators at Columbia University attempted to placate student protests for the creation Ethnic studies Department in 1996 by offering American Studies as a compromise.