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.