#EthnicStudiesNow
#ESN @UChicago aimed to establish a Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) Department or School that champions transformative, anti-oppressive, and community-centered education and administers the interdisciplinary study of Race and Ethnicity. Our campaign asserted that an Ethnic Studies Department would fundamentally transform the workings of the University to dismantle the existing structures of oppression. Moreover, we honored our lineage to the Third World Liberation Front, and other radical, multiracial student coalitions that have existed from the 60s and 70s to the present, that work to abolish the University as we know it.
The #EthnicStudiesNow campaign briefly existed in a joint campaign with #CommunityCentersNow before becoming inactive in 2022. This was after winning the creation of the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the college.
DEMANDS
Structural Demands:
Situate Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies under the College, not the Office of the Provost
Instead of the traditional, faculty-governed departmental structure with a Department Chair, Faculty Director, and Director of Undergraduate Studies as key decision-makers, establish a Governing Committee consisting of faculty, students and, community members and activists affiliated with the CSRPC
Governing Committee
Student Representation
Faculty Representation
The budget of the CRES Department must be finalized before that of all other Departments
The construction of the new Department building must not contribute to the gentrification of the South Side.
Academic Demands:
Create 20 tenure-track faculty of color positions:
4 tenure-track faculty positions in African American and African Diaspora Studies
4 tenure-track faculty positions in Native Studies - U.S.
4 tenure-track faculty positions in Latinx Studies - U.S.
4 tenure-track faculty positions in Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies
4 tenure-track faculty positions in Comparative or Area Studies
CRES faculty and student committee should develop new, more holistic metrics for deciding and conferring tenureship to allow for community members without PhD/academic credentials to teach at the Department
Abolish all academic penalties, including but not limited to suspensions, academic probations, etc.
The Department must teach and uplift movement-based knowledges, the revolutionary theory and practice of successful and unsuccessful, past and present social movements worldwide.
Fund a stipend for the creation of a Chicago-based Critical Race and Ethnic Studies conference, in partnership with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, open to academics, activists, organizers, educators, and students to collaborate, convene, and share knowledge
Accessible to high schoolers
Material Resources and Support for Undergraduate and Graduate Students and Community
Provide accessible and effective academic advising and faculty mentorship
Reserve 20 spots per quarter for South Side community members to take CRES Department courses
Classes must be free for community members
Establish an Activist-in-Residence program
A (Brief) History of Ethnic Studies
Ethnic studies emerged as a subversive field as early as the 1900s when W.E.B DuBois advocated for the need to teach Black history. As the movement progressed into the 1960s and 70s, civil rights and anti-war organizing re-energized ethnic studies campaigns by emphasizing the importance of marginalized and racialized communities autonomously sharing and learning their own histories.
And in the 1960s, at San Francisco State University (SFSU), the movement for ethnic studies was led by the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF). The TWLF @SFSU was a coalition of the Black Students Union, the Latin American Students Organization, the Pilipino American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE) the Filipino-American Students Organization, the Asian American Political Alliance, and El Renacimiento (a Mexican-American student organization). These student orgs organized a massive, all-out strike —which was not well received by administrators— but it did inspire students nearby at UC Berkeley.
Berkeley students founded their own TWLF and organized a strike with their own demands for ethnic studies. The strikes at Berkeley were met with much more violence and incidents of police brutality against the students and their supporters. In fact, five police departments, the California Highway Patrol, the National Guard, and other federal agencies were recruited to quell the violence. More than four months at SFSU, nearly three at UC–Berkeley, and hundreds of arrests later, the two schools eventually conceded in 1969 and established the first two ethnic studies departments.
Ethnic studies was envisioned as a transformative academic field that would produce subversive scholarship and knowledge for people of color to bring about institutional change in their own lives. And as BIPOC students at UChicago who experience, recognize, and confront the University’s ideological and material violences toward Black and Brown communities here and abroad, in academic settings and beyond, we call for the creation of an alternative, anti-oppressive university rooted in self-determination, liberation, and revolutionary ways of knowing.
In October 2020, some #ESN organizers went around delivering jack-o-lanterns to different buildings on UChicago campus. The pumpkins were all carved with different slogans or images reflective of #ESN and #UCU work. Some depicted in this image include #ESN, #UCU, a UCPD patrol car on fire, and #KillTheCopInYourHead.
After the jack-o-lantern action, UCU hosted the “‘Twas the Night UCPD was Defunded” rally which culminated the week-long series of actions in October meant to maintain energy from UCU’s summer occupations.
#ESN Statements
#ESN Public Statement October 1, 2020 | UChicago United
Statement of Support from Theresa Mah February 10, 2020 | Rep. Theresa Mah
Joint Campaign Public Statement January 30, 2020 | The Chicago Maroon
Open Letter to Faculty May 29, 2019 | UChicago United
#ESN In The Press
State Rep and Alum Theresa Mah Endorses UC United's Push for Ethnic Studies Department March 3, 2020 | The Chicago Maroon
"No Professors, No Classes": Students Push for Race and Ethnic Studies Major October 15, 2019 | The Chicago Maroon
Students Meet to Discuss Forming a Department of Race and Ethnic Studies February 18, 2019 | The Chicago Maroon
At Alumni Event, Students Call for UCPD Transparency, More Counseling Resources June 1, 2018 | The Chicago Maroon