CSU to require ethnic studies for all
SACRAMENTO — More than five decades after the movement for ethnic studies was sparked by protests on Bay Area college campuses, the state will require every undergraduate in the California State University system to take an ethnic studies course.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday mandating that every CSU campus adopt the graduation requirement by the 202425 academic year and offer courses about people of color starting next year.
The governor signed AB1460 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, DSan Diego, despite objections from CSU’s Board of Trustees, which approved a competing plan to create a separate ethnic studies and social justice requirement. Weber’s bill will take precedence over the trustees’ action.
The bill was shelved last year after some CSU faculty said it would set a bad precedent for legislators to require that certain courses be part of a college’s curriculum.
But ethnic studies professors and some lawmakers said the killing of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, and subsequent nationwide protests over racial inequality, showed that students need a deeper understanding of race in America.
Weber, a retired professor who helped create an ethnic studies program at San Diego State, said CSU trustees were diluting the core of ethnic studies by removing the focus on race. She said AB1460 is a “true” ethnic studies mandate.
“This bill reflects 50 years of student, faculty, and community advocacy for curriculum reflective of and responsive to our diverse state,” Weber tweeted after the bill signing.
The distinction between the competing proposals is, at its core, a debate about what should constitute ethnic studies, which is traditionally defined as the study of four primary groups: African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
CSU’s ethnic studies and social justice proposal, which trustees approved July 22, would have broadened the requirement to include other marginalized groups including Muslims, Jews and LGBTQ people.
The push for ethnic studies started when students on the campuses of San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley led the Third World Liberation Front strikes of 1968. They demanded courses to emphasize the experiences of people of color, and Berkeley started one of the first ethnic studies departments in the country.