Racial and Ethnic Politics in the US

Multicultural Education

Multicultural Education:  what is it? 

How should we define it?

Do we have it here at Gonzaga?

Foreign Language or Culture

One course in any foreign language or one foreign culture course approved by the Dean of Arts & Sciences.

D for Diversity Requirement

One course on issues of race, ethnicity and culture in the US, from courses approved by the Dean of Arts and Sciences.

SJ for Social Justice Requirement (2003-2005 Catalog)

One course on Social Justice issues related to experiences of difference (like race, class, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation) from courses approved by the Dean of Arts & Sciences.

Why do colleges and universities have multicultural education requirements?

What are they trying to accomplish?

Why do some, such as Dinesh D’Souza oppose multicultural education?

D’Souza rails on multiculturalists because he says they really aren’t interested in educating students about the achievements of other cultures

Rather they choose works that promote their political, mostly leftist, agenda

For him, that the point behind reading I, Rigoberta Menchu:  An Indian Woman in Guatemala at Stanford

Born and raised in an indigenous people’s village in Guatemala, she becomes educated, radicalized, a Marxist

While multiculturalists argue that she is an authentic voice of a peasant woman, D’Souza argues that she is certainly not typical of indigenous women but rather promotes a specific political agenda endorsed by the champions of multiculturalism

Further, while multiculturalists rail on the sexism, racism, classism of the canon, i.e., the writings of dead white men, they overlook the racism of writers such as Marx and Engels (89)

Arguments for Multiculturalism

To represent the global, historical diversity of views

To represent multiple truths

To create a climate of ideological, cultural pluralism

To become literate in more than one culture

To become aware of how one’s own opinions, ways of knowing have been shaped by one’s particular historic, economic, racial, ethnic, class, sexual orientation, and gender locations and identities

Arguments against Multiculturalism

Making room for multicultural texts takes time away from learning the canon

Creates climate of cultural relativism, all cultures equal; no room for value-based claims.

Erodes standards of scientific, academic excellence by saying all knowledge claims are equally valid.

Often isn’t representative of other cultures anyway; rather represents the political agendas of Western faculty, political activists.