Ethnic Studies: Diversity, Identity, and Communities in Society

The corridors of San Francisco State University echoed with the sounds of protest songs and chanted demands as students of color occupied campus buildings during the fall of 1968, their voices rising above the tear gas and police sirens to articulate a vision of education that would finally include their histories, experiences, and perspectives in the academic curriculum. Dr. Nathan Hare, recently hired as the first coordinator of what would become the nation's first School of Ethnic Studies, watched as student activists from the Third World Liberation Front transformed their anger at educational exclusion into a movement that would fundamentally challenge how American universities understood their mission and responsibilities to diverse communities.

The emergence of ethnic studies as an academic discipline represents one of the most significant challenges to traditional higher education in American history, arising from the recognition that conventional curricula systematically excluded the experiences and contributions of communities of color while perpetuating narratives that centered whiteness as the universal American experience. The student movements of the late 1960s demanded not merely inclusion but fundamental transformation of educational institutions that had historically served as gatekeepers of dominant cultural knowledge while marginalizing alternative ways of understanding history, society, and human experience.