All Europe, All the Time —How Harvard is Failing Ethnic Studies

ETHNIC STUDIES. Harvard has systematically neglected ethnic studies in the social sciences, signaling a deep-rooted problem.

BY JOSEPH W. HERNANDEZ

Harvard needs an Ethnic Studies concentration.

This was the overwhelming consensus reached by College students in a 2021 survey — one that incoming President Claudine Gay tacitly began to work towards as FAS Dean. But even the creation of a concentration would not be a catch-all solution to a far more deep-rooted problem: Harvard’s systematic neglect of ethnic studies in the social sciences.

As a Government concentrator, I’ve felt this neglect firsthand, as it’s been a struggle to find ethnic studies courses that would count towards my concentration. In a recent interview, the Government Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, Nara Dillon, acknowledged to me the lack of Ethnic Studies courses within both the Government department and the College more broadly, expressing hope that recent hires could meet this need.

In the meantime, Dillon said that the option for Government students to petition to count outside courses for elective credit offers a temporary fix.

“We particularly try to give concentration elective credit in these petitions to cover gaps in our curriculum,” she told me.

This message seems at odds with the language of the petition for course credit itself, which explicitly states that courses taught in disciplines other than political science are “unlikely to be approved.” When asked for clarification, Dillon explained that “if about half of the course is political science, we’ll go ahead and give concentration elective credit for it.”

However, Dillon also noted that this approach can exclude students from credit-bearing options.

“Almost every field these days uses this term ‘governance,’” she said. “Sometimes the theoretical perspective they’re coming at this issue of governance [with] is very different than what you would find in a political science course.”

But Christina Shiao-Mei Villareal, a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and an expert in ethnic studies education, told me that she would strongly reject such distinctions.

“Who has historically had a chance to define political science?” she asked. “Who has historically had a chance to even define the parameters of what a school of government is supposed to be, or government studies?”

Villareal, who goes by “Dr. V,” was clear about the broader implications of being more concerned with semantics than representation.

“We can’t take a term like academia for granted and continue to say, ‘We need to be accepted in academia.’ No, we need to fundamentally transform it,” she said. “Ethnic Studies does argue that the problem historically with academia was that it was absent of community, of action within surrounding communities.”

Today, ethnic studies faces challenges far beyond the Government Department. This academic year, History & Literature counted 132 courses for credit in European Studies, as compared to 25 in Latin American Studies, while altogether failing to offer subfields for Indigenous, Middle Eastern, PanAsian, or Pan-African Studies. Even if these fields were to be created, the College’s area-focused history departments — that is, History, History & Literature, and History of Art and Architecture — only offer eight undergraduate-focused courses in Indigenous history, five in Latin American history, three in Middle Eastern history, nine in Pan-African history, and eight in Pan-Asian history.

When including courses offered by other social science and humanities departments, these counts rise to 19 courses in Indigenous Studies, 26 in Latin American Studies, 11 in Middle Eastern Studies, 45 in

OP-ED

Pan-African Studies, 59 in Pan-Asian Studies, and 110 in European studies.

A total of 146 unique courses representing the entire non-white world is woefully inadequate when compared to the 110 courses that exist for European Studies alone. This disparity starkly illustrates the College’s prioritization of white academia.

Notably, these course counts diverge from those offered by the History & Literature concentration and the Ethnicity, Migration and Rights secondary because my analysis does not include language courses offered in subfields — by intention. As Villareal recognized, there is a clear difference between language learning and Ethnic Studies, as the latter “has a very clear, politicized stance.” self good, we don’t have to look far in the past to find promises of new hires that have gone awry. Professor Lorgia García-Peña was an Ethnic Studies scholar who had done everything right — she taught popular classes, had the trust of the student body, and was well-respected within her field. Her reward? She was denied tenure in 2019 and, in turn, was effectively fired from Harvard University.

“If it is not focused on the project of decolonization, if it is not rooted directly in communities, if it is not intersectional,” she told me, then it’s not Ethnic Studies.

While language courses may not necessarily teach ethnic studies content, it remains clear that such courses can open avenues for students to learn ethnic studies, as recordings of the histories and societies of people of color are far from limited to the English language. With that in mind, there is no denying the complete inadequacy of Harvard’s language course offerings. Filipino — the standardized form of Tagalog, currently the fourth most common language in the U.S. — will only be offered for the first time next semester after years of student activism.

This decision was decried by students and academics alike, the latter of whom argued in a letter to President Bacow that the decision to deny GarcíaPeña tenure would render the University unable “to respond to students’ growing interest in ethnic studies” and “to recruit and retain top faculty working in our fields.” ple of color but also remedies centuries of untaught history.

When asked if she would be in favor of counting courses for elective credit based on relevance rather than department, Dillon agreed, arguing that the Government department had already taken the unconventional step of requiring only 10 courses for the concentration “to promote flexibility and encourage students to take a wide range of courses in other departments as part of a liberal arts education.” This comes in contrast to other concentrations, which can require as many as 20 courses.

Even still, joint and double concentrations are commonplace, and it seems unlikely that students will find room for Ethnic Studies courses until they’re counted for concentration credit everywhere they’re relevant.

Eric C. Henson, a lecturer at multiple of Harvard’s schools and research fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, recounted that for many of his students, particularly those at the Law School, his classes didn’t count towards their graduation requirements. According to Henson, since only five of his 27 students are degree-seeking from the school that offered his class, the perception of enrollment may be skewed.

“It looks to the administration like you’ve got nobody showing up or caring,” he told me.

So How Can We Fix It?

Though there’s no denying that Harvard College needs an Ethnic Studies concentration, we can’t stop there. An Ethnic Studies concentration is a first step, but if it barely has any courses, what have we really accomplished? And even if we add ethnic studies courses, how much have we really changed if they’re only accessible for undergraduate students in a single concentration?

While the promise of new Ethnic Studies hires is a start, we need more than promises — we need an Ethnic Studies department where professors are afforded the same degree of job security and basic respect as their colleagues in other departments via tenure.

Further, to recognize the intrinsic value of ethnic studies, Harvard College should create an ethnic studies course requirement — stamping it as essential to an undergraduate education — similar to UCLA in 2015 and Princeton in 2020.

In contrast, even when only ten undergraduates graduated with a degree in the concentration in 20212022, Classics is seen as too intrinsically valuable not to teach. Don’t get me wrong; Harvard should offer Classics. But there is no excuse for treating the languages and histories of white people that have been dead for thousands of years as if they have more inherent value than those of billions of people of color today.

Problem

‘We’re Hiring’

The

When questioned on the lack of ethnic studies courses at Harvard today, administrators, including Dillon, have often offered the same sentiment: We’re hiring. This is certainly a welcome start; hiring Ethnic Studies faculty is essential. But it’s clear that hiring faculty alone can’t solve the underlying exclusion of ethnic studies from social science concentrations. While hiring more ethnic studies faculty is it-

The truth is, if we don’t tenure faculty like GarcíaPeña, many such scholars will eventually reach Harvard’s eight-year limit for untenured faculty and find themselves forced out of the University’s gates. This creates an endless cycle of instability for ethnic studies at Harvard and renders the excuse that “we’re hiring” entirely inadequate.

Access to Ethnic Studies

At the end of the day, a new Ethnic Studies concentration with more courses means nothing if interested students cannot easily take them — regardless of their concentration choice. When Ethnic Studies courses are relegated to specific subfields and concentrations, they become a sacrifice to take, no matter their relevance.

Fixing this problem will require more than just tacking on an Ethnic Studies concentration — existing concentrations must move away from rigid, exclusionary systems, refocusing requirements around course relevance rather than department name. Doing so will allow students of color to take Ethnic Studies classes that not only accurately reflect their fields of interest but represent their identities, too.

Such a representative education is essential but rarely available before college. In the U.S. public education system, under 10 percent of K-12 class time is spent on Black history; the taught histories of Indigenous people largely end in the 1800s; education on the Middle East is often limited to the context of war; and the histories of Latines, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders are often ignored entirely. Ethnic Studies not only teaches the experiences of peo-

Don’t Be Afraid of Moving Far From Home

BY MCKENNA E. MCKRELL

It was around this time last year that I had gotten back all of my college acceptances, and began to come to terms with the reality of leaving behind my friends and family in northern California to attend Harvard. For months I had claimed that moving far from home didn’t scare me, but once the decision was made, the first instances of doubt quickly crept in.

Long, expensive travel days to and from Visitas opened my eyes to the fact that if I moved across the country, my family and friends would not often be able to visit me. The reprieve of a weekend trip home would be wholly impractical. And as the summer before my first year progressed, more reasons for doubt crept in: Moving my belongings across the country became a logistical nightmare, and the reality of not personally knowing anyone else attending Harvard set in.

What had I gotten myself into?

This uncertainty left me seeking reassurance, but in the wake of the excitement and enthusiasm surrounding my acceptance, I was scared to voice these doubts. To high school seniors wondering whether moving far away for school is a good idea,

I’m here to offer you that reassurance I once sought.

It’s been about eight months since I moved, and while I miss my favorite coffee shop and getting to pet my dog, there have been a number of unexpected joys from moving thousands of miles away from home.

At Harvard, for the first time in many years, I had the chance to make an entirely new set of friends. There was no petty drama of “cutting people off” or “dropping” familiar faces — I was in a new place, surrounded by entirely new people. Losing the built-in companionship of family forced me to totally reorient my everyday interactions and surround myself with friends that supported me the same way.

If you’re scared to leave people behind, a daily walk across campus becomes an opportunity for hometown gossip, and with nobody local around to overhear, you can fearlessly drop first and last names.

In other words: I’ve gotten good at talking on the phone. The distance will reveal who from home you can live without, and who you can’t. Then, when term breaks come around, you can make time for the people who really matter. Without the bristling caused by everyday interactions, conflict dwindles and reunions tend to be sweet and nostalgic.

The time difference from Massachusetts to Cal- ifornia means that I can wake up late and go to bed late, and my family will idyllically trail three hours behind me. I often find myself on the phone with them after I’ve stayed up finishing an assignment; it’s midnight here, but it’s only 9 p.m. back home, and not even my 12-year-old brother has been sent to bed.

At the end of the day, a new Ethnic Studies concentration with more courses means nothing if interested students cannot easily take them — regardless of their concentration choice.

Today, the College requires that undergraduates take one formal social science course under the Divisional Distribution requirement, as well two General Education courses exploring social science themes.

It’s simple: If social science disciplines are incomplete without Ethnic Studies, as other institutions have recognized, then so are the College’s social science requirements.

It’s been over 50 years since San Francisco State’s Third World Liberation Front first took up the picket line demanding the eventual creation of the first Ethnic Studies department in the nation, but the fight for Ethnic Studies is far from over.

Change has never come easily, but no politician, no university, no set of handcuffs, can rob Ethnic Studies of its legitimacy.

Also, nobody here has to know what activities I did in high school, so there’s no social pressure keeping me from making changes and trying new things. I’ve made big changes — like some friends I’ve made here, I no longer run competitively as I did in high school — but making little changes can be refreshing too. I could have picked a brand new favorite color upon arriving at Harvard, and instead of my childhood best friend questioning when I swayed from blue to green, everyone here would have just smiled and said okay to this revolutionary new answer.

As the incoming class of 2027 continues to scour informational pages, make pro-con lists, and travel for admitted students days like Visitas in the lead up to acceptance deadlines, I want to offer assurance that distance from home is a factor worth embracing, not cowering away from.

As you prepare to move away, you’ll shove your belongings into oversized Ikea zipper bags, ship dorm supplies you ordered online to your brandnew mailing address, and relish the opportunity to reinvent your life: yourself, your friends, your daily routine. A fresh start, newfound independence, and a potential reputation rebrand all feel like cliché reasons to move away, but don’t dismiss them: Let yourself explore and rediscover.

The opportunity to move away is a privilege, and if you do have that choice, I urge you to consider taking it. Move across the country, move across the world, and I have a feeling you’ll find your own reasons to be grateful you did.

–McKenna E. McKrell ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Pennypacker Hall.