Erring in the Name of Multiculturalism

The expansion of ethnocentrism threatens to lead us into an abyss of academic separatism.

Harvard and other universities across the nation are suffering from a rapidly advancing malaise--an overdose of ethnic separatism that is poisoning true scholarship and perverting our understanding of what it is to be American.

We toss around terms like "multiculturalism," but we no longer know what they mean. Indeed, our definitions have become distorted, twisted around. Once we spoke of assimilation and a "melting pot;" now, a new breed of scholarship emphasizes a curious form of academic segregation. Where once we studied and learned American history, now we study Afro-American, Asian-American and other ethnically-defined histories. And we do it in the name of multiculturalism.

This is wrong. In all our academic endeavors, we should work to incorporate multiple perspectives into a coherent whole. And, while important strides have been made towards the true integration of varying ethnic perspectives, the expansion of ethnocentric concentrations continues, fostering separatist tendencies and undermining any serious progress.

Even at Harvard, no academic department, however renowned, can hope to be a positive force in the community if it is ethnic-based. Take our much-acclaimed Department of Afro-American Studies, for example.

Harvard's Afro-American Studies program is without doubt among the best --if not the best--in the nation. Through a string of faculty recruitments in recent years, the program has amassed an impressive array of academic all-stars. The department's chair, W. E. B. DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr., is widely regarded as a top scholar in his field. And Gates deserves the lion's share of credit for the success of the program, using Harvard's resources and his own reputation to lure well-established professor from other universities to Cambridge. In light of the serious problems confronting many other African-American studies departments across the country--including allegations of shoddy scholarship, anti-Semitism and politicized teaching--the achievements of Harvard's program are even more remarkable.

But the recent successes of Harvard's Afro-American Studies Department do not change our view that the department should be disbanded and its members integrated into other fields taught at the university. For it is as wrong to have an ethnocentric Afro-American Studies Department as it would be to have an ethnocentric European-American Studies Department.

such a claim is bound to ruffle some feathers. After all, as proponents of ethnic studies often argue--quite properly, in our view--for too long scholars have ignored the role of African-Americans and other ethnic groups in history. From this indisputable basis, however, they go on to reach a flawed conclusion. Programs like Harvard's Afro-Am Department are needed, they argue because they promote the multicultural perspective we have long lacked.

This argument, made by conservatives and liberals alike, is premised on a misinterpretation of what "multiculturalism" is all about. True multiculturalism is not the movement which has swept through American campuses in recent years. It is not separatism, it is not ethnocentrism and it is not represented by the proliferation of ethnic studies departments. It is the inclusion and integration of noteworthy individuals and groups, regardless of race, religion and class, into a common curriculum.

Minority activists opposed to assimilation have favored unintegrated ethnic studies separate from traditional curricula. Under a mantle of faux-multiculturalism, they advocate curricula dealing with their ethnic and cultural heritages, bolstering their ethnic pride and providing ethnic role models. Sometimes termed "particularistic multiculturalism," these advocates believe "that no common culture is possible or desirable".

In the words of Molefi Kete Asante, chair of Temple University's Black Studies Department, "There is no American culture as is claimed by the defenders of the status quo".

Rather, says Asante, there is only a "hegemonic culture...pushed as if it were a common culture".

Like the vast majority of Americans, we hold this denial of American culture to be inherently false. Sadly, such distortion of true multiculturalism is the version often pushed by the majority of educators today--and it is wrong. This is ethnocentrism, not multiculturalism.

Today, we can see the fruits of misguided multiculturalism all across our nation, from the African-American Studies Department at the City University of New York, chaired by the controversial Professor Leonard Jeffries, to the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

The same separatist mentality has resulted in "ethnic theme houses" at Stanford University, the Malcolm X House at Columbia University, a separate Black yearbook at the University of Pennsylvania, distinct houses for different ethnic groups at Oberlin College, including an Asian House for Asians, the so-called "J" House for Jews, the Spanish House for Latinos, the African Heritage House for Blacks and the image-enhancing Third World House for foreign students.

As one University of Pennsylvania professor has remarked, American colleges and universities have created "the cultural diversity of Beirut." Such separation from the common academic and social life both reinforces old divisions and creates new ones. It flies in the face of the image of America as a melting pot which helped assimilate our ancestors into the rich and vibrant culture we have inherited.

In our opinion, there are three main steps needed to correct this misunderstanding and misapplication of true multiculturalism. First, we must recognize and accept that there is an American culture which is more than the sum of its ethnic components. We are not Americans with a hyphen rather, we are all Americans.

Second, we must integrate ethnically defined departments into nonethnically defined ones. It is simply divisive to have separate departments defined by race. These often give rise to politicization, historical distortions compromising academic integrity and overtones of victimization and oppression, as illustrated by Arthur Schlesinger inThe Disuniting of America.In the process, appropriate stress on the positive individual and group contributions to our shared society is lost.

Third, at the course level we must introduce true multiculturalism. That is, events must be taught as interconnected and inclusive history which shaped the lives of every ethnic group and, in turn, were shaped by all of these groups.

Here at Harvard, an institution with the potential to be a trend-setter, we must lead the way. integrating the nationally-respected Afro-American Studies program into the history, sociology and other nonethnically defined departments would be a tremendous step toward the true pluralistic multiculturalism America needs to embrace.

Currently, the University administration is considering the creation of an additional Ethnic Studies Department. As a first step, we recommend that Harvard stop this divisive trend toward race-based education.

Only then can we begin to consider ways in which Harvard can reverse the current ethnocentrism masquerading as true multiculturalism and perhaps, with time, lead other institutions away from the abyss of separatism.

Doug Lanzo '94 and Gabe Sterling '94 are director and vice-director, respectively, of the Harvard Philosophy Project