DEI dominoes wobble in California

University of California faculty have rejected a plan to make "liberated ethnic studies" a college admissions requirement, writes Richard Sander, a professor of economics and law at UCLA.

It's a "turning point," he writes. "UC faculty are learning to say out loud that the emperor has no clothes and that the longstanding taboos against candid, critical discussion of race-related initiatives are starting to lift." Nobody was canceled.

The proposal would have required high schools to offer an explicitly political version of ethnic studies that's based on a belief in "structural racism," "colonialism" and a neo-Marxian concept called "racial capitalism," Sander writes.

Ethnic studies will be a graduation requirement, starting with the class of 2030, but only if the state funds implementation, which it has not. Many districts now offer ethnic studies, usually as an elective.

"Liberated" advocates -- many of them UC faculty -- failed to get their curriculum standards adopted by the state, notes Sander. The state went with a less-political model. But it's all voluntary: Local school boards can adopt whatever version of ethnic studies they want, and many have gone with the left-wing version.

Requiring all UC applicants to take a "liberated" ethnic studies course would have made the "liberated" course the standard statewide.

Over his 36 years on the faculty, writes Sander, administrators have gone along with progressive proposals, building the DEI bureaucracy. "There has been a similar tendency among UC faculty to assume that any measure advancing a progressive racial agenda is either worth supporting or dangerous to openly oppose." But this time critics spoke up. Nobody was canceled.

"The fight to replace political propaganda with critical-thinking skills, and fair consideration of all points of view, still has a long way to go," he concludes. But it's a start.

San Francisco Unified Superintendent Maria Su is planning to cancel ethnic studies for 2025-26, reports Ezra Wallach in the San Francisco Standard. The district's two-semester course, which had been mandated for ninth graders, would not be offered, "giving district staff time to develop an alternative curriculum and get it approved by the board."

However, "teachers are fighting back, and the district is considering rushing through an updated curriculum to keep the course in place for 2025-26, sources say."

The Standard reported on parent pushback to the course last month. The draft curriculum suggested telling "students to rank various racial, socioeconomic, and gender identities based on the amount of power they have in the world," and an exercise "asking them to role-play as Israeli soldiers herding Palestinians into refugee camps."

Students complained about the jargon. They are expected to disrupt cisheteropatriarchy, anthropocentrism, xenophobia, misogyny, anti-Indigeneity, among other ills.

Ever since, writes Wallach, "SFUSD has been scrubbing and altering content in its publicly posted ethnic studies curriculum, removing references to the Chinese Red Guards and white male privilege."

Teachers fear canceling ethnic studies "could create a domino effect for DEI-related programs in the city," he writes. “This move will be a concession of defeat to racist political interests that are seeking to eradicate multiracial education,” a document circulating among staff reads. “The implications are far-reaching beyond ethnic studies.”

FAIR's American Experience curriculum was developed as a "pro-human" alternative to ideological approaches. It takes a "teach the conflicts" approach to educate citizens, not activists, writes David J. Ferrero, one of the writers.

The Independent Institute's Comparative Cultures curriculum also aims to expose students to different interpretations of American ethnic history with balance and nuance.