How California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum Got Sucked Into the Culture Wars
By Mark Keierleber | April 15, 2021
Top researcher calls such inclusive models the 鈥榣ow-hanging fruit鈥 of American education reform
As a middle schooler, early December was an agonizing time of year for civil rights activist Karen Korematsu. When the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack approached, she made excuses to avoid the school bus where students subjected her to racist bullying.
鈥淕o home.鈥
鈥淕o back to where you came from.鈥
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 belong here.鈥
Korematsu, 70, said a teacher鈥檚 lesson about the December 7, 1941, bombing in Hawaii only added to students鈥 animosity toward Japanese Americans like herself. Rather than presenting 鈥渂oth sides of the narrative,鈥 she said her teacher taught them that 鈥渢he Japanese are very bad people鈥 who 鈥渒illed over 2,000 servicemen.鈥
Decades later, she said that hatred toward Asian Americans and other students of color 鈥渉asn鈥檛 changed that much,鈥 a reality that鈥檚 been punctuated by during the pandemic and the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd, a Black man. But a first-in-the-nation ethnic studies model curriculum for K-12 students in California, she said, gives her optimism about a more inclusive and tolerant society.
鈥淥bviously we have not done a good job in this country of educating others about the struggles and the marginalization and the cultures that we all bring to this country,鈥 she told 蜜桃影视. The ethnic studies curriculum, she said, will allow students to learn about the country鈥檚 diverse cultures and its long and fraught history of oppression as a strategy to foster tolerance. 鈥淲e need to appreciate and celebrate our differences instead of being afraid of them.鈥
But Korematsu鈥檚 endorsement of the model curriculum, , pushed her in the middle of a contentious national debate over the way schools should teach students about the country鈥檚 history and ongoing reality of racial discrimination. That the issue became so fractious and prolonged in largely progressive, multicultural California, experts said, suggests that it could face even bigger hurdles in more conservative, less racially diverse corners of the country.
California officials have touted their 900-page creation as a model for the nation as people across America grapple with the role race and racism plays in our everyday lives. The curriculum is expected to become the backbone of mandating ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement.
For Theresa Monta帽o, however, a professor of Chicano studies at California State University, Northridge, the curriculum is not something to be emulated and ended up being an example of what ethnic studies aims to confront.
鈥淚f anything, it鈥檚 a model of what happens when white privilege and racism begins to determine what your curriculum is going to look like,鈥 said Monta帽o, one the model鈥檚 original authors who now disavows the final product.
The first-ever state-level ethnic studies curriculum won passage after four years of controversy, multiple drafts and thousands of public comments. Though the curriculum aims to build bridges between different racial and ethnic groups while elevating the voices of those who鈥檝e long been left aside, it quickly dissolved into a battlefield for America鈥檚 raucous culture wars.
Across multiple drafts, it鈥檚 faced accusations of antisemitism, promoting 鈥渨oke鈥 left-wing propaganda and sewing further racial division by teaching white children to feel guilty about past injustices. Even the state education board president, Linda Darling-Hammond, , arguing that an early draft needed to be 鈥渟ubstantially redesigned鈥 to ensure the curriculum is accurate and 鈥渇ree of bias.鈥
But after undergoing several substantive rewrites that sought to make it more inclusive and less radical, the original authors 鈥斅燼 committee of ethnic studies teachers and professors including Monta帽o 鈥 distanced themselves from a product they no longer reflected their work and urged state education officials 鈥渘ot to give in to the pressures and influences of white supremacist, right wing, conservatives.鈥 Rather than a reflection of traditional ethnic studies curriculum, Monta帽o said it became a hodgepodge of concepts that turned it into a 鈥渕ulticultural, all lives matter U.S. history course.鈥
鈥淚 would definitely say that white privilege and monied interests prevailed,鈥 she said.
Yet Korematsu said the model curriculum is an important first step, while noting that there鈥檚 room for it to become even more inclusive down the road.
One of its sample lesson plans includes classroom instruction on America鈥檚 鈥渦njust and unconstitutional incarceration鈥 of Japanese Americans in the wake of Pearl Harbor. It documents that citizens with Japanese ancestry were forced into 鈥淎merican concentration camps鈥 surrounded by barbed wire and guards instructed to 鈥渟hoot anyone attempting to leave.鈥
Along with highlighting the profound impact of interning Japanese Americans without due process, the lesson plan offers instruction on Korematsu鈥檚 father, the late civil rights icon Fred Korematsu, who became a fugitive in his effort to escape wartime incarceration. In the landmark 1944 case Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the internment of more than 117,000 Japanese Americans was a military necessity.
It wasn鈥檛 until 2018, when the Supreme Court on several Muslim-majority countries, that the court , with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority that it 鈥渨as gravely wrong the day it was decided.鈥
Though the curriculum has been accused of being divisive, toward white Americans in particular, Karen Korematsu said her father鈥檚 legacy is critical to its success. She now serves as the founder and executive director of the Fred T Korematsu Institute, which seeks to advance civil rights through education.
His fight 鈥渨asn鈥檛 just for Japanese Americans and himself, it was for all Americans,鈥 she said. 鈥淗e didn鈥檛 want something like the Japanese American incarceration to happen again to another group of people.鈥
The 鈥榣ow-hanging fruit鈥 of education reform
Though the model curriculum is new, ethnic studies has deep roots in California, with the first formal classes taught at San Francisco State University in 1968 at the tail end of the civil rights movement. Part of a growing but controversial push for 鈥渃ulturally relevant pedagogy鈥 to improve the educational outcomes of historically underrepresented students, the final curriculum takes a head-on look at racism and oppression in America with a goal of 鈥渁ffirming the identities and contributions of marginalized groups in our society鈥 and helping students from all backgrounds 鈥渟ee themselves as active agents in the interethnic bridge-building process we call American life.鈥
鈥淐onsidering that European American-centered history and cultures are already robustly taught in the school curriculum, ethnic studies presents an opportunity for more inclusive and diverse histories and cultures to be highlighted and studied in a manner that is meaningful and can be transformative for all students,鈥 the introduction states.
Ethnic studies鈥 ability to improve educational outcomes for all students remains unclear, said the renowned education policy researcher Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford University鈥檚 Graduate School of Education. But a report he co-authored in 2016 with University of California Irvine assistant education professor Emily Penner gives reason for optimism, particularly in closing the achievement gap between white children and students of color. The study reviewed an ethnic studies curriculum piloted at several San Francisco high schools that included students deemed at-risk of dropping out. found 鈥渟urprisingly large effects,鈥 including improved student attendance and grade point averages.
鈥淚 would go so far as to say I鈥檝e never been so surprised by a result in my career,鈥 Dee told 蜜桃影视. 鈥淲hen you study education policy you become accustomed to having your heart broken鈥 when reforms struggle to move the needle. But he said the results from San Francisco were striking. 鈥淚nnovative curriculum may be the low-hanging fruit of education reform.鈥
In a similar pursuit, the model curriculum seeks to 鈥渃ritique empire-building in history and its relationship to white supremacy,鈥 challenge 鈥渞acist, bigoted, discriminatory, imperialist/colonial beliefs,鈥 connect students to past and contemporary social justice movements and build 鈥渘ew possibilities for a post-racist, post-systemic racism society.鈥
One sample lesson offers instruction on 鈥渄ominant narratives鈥 that are often 鈥減resented as apolitical, objective truth,鈥 but often target 鈥渘on-white ethnic groups who face oppression at the hands of the dominant social group.鈥 Such strains include a belief that 鈥淎merica is a land of equal opportunity,鈥 according to the curriculum, and that the 鈥淲ar on Drugs鈥 beginning in the 1970s accused drug dealers and users of 鈥渃ausing violence, poverty and addiction鈥 when 鈥渋n actuality, this narrative was used to justify disproportionate arrests of communities of color.鈥 Though Black and white people , 鈥渢hese discriminatory policies were meant to perpetuate racialized social control,鈥 according to the curriculum.
Though ethnic studies has long centered on four historically marginalized groups 鈥 African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and Asians and Pacific Islanders 鈥 the final model curriculum took a more inclusive approach in the wake of backlash. For example, the end product teaches that antisemitism is 鈥渁n ancient hatred that has persisted for centuries鈥 and that anti-Jewish discrimination, 鈥渋nterwoven at times with white nationalism,鈥 has increased in recent years.
Tye Gregory, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco, also sees value in teaching ethnic studies. But his group in opposing the state model鈥檚 early drafts, which were accused of being unfairly harsh toward Israel and for including a rap lyric about Israelis 鈥渦sing the press,鈥 an antisimetic trope. Members of the Jewish Legislative Caucus criticized the early draft for omitting Jewish Americans鈥 contributions to Californian society and alleged that their exclusion 鈥渁ppeared to be intentional and reflected the political bias of the drafters.鈥
The rap lyric 鈥渟et off alarm bells鈥 that the Jewish community 鈥渉ad a problem on our hands,鈥 Gregory said. At first, his group was OK with the curriculum鈥檚 focus on the four identified groups, he said, so long as Jewish Americans weren鈥檛 鈥渕isrepresented or denigrated.鈥 But when the second draft expanded its focus to include instruction on the experiences of Arab Americans, their advocacy shifted to endorse a greater emphasis on Jewish Americans, a .
Historically, Jews have been 鈥渇lattened to that of a white religious minority,鈥 Gregory said, but the final model curriculum provides a more robust conversation about Judaism and the pervasive effects of antisemitism 鈥斅爈essons that are particularly poignant given the current political discourse.
鈥淲hen you have the Capitol insurrection with those sweatshirts that said 鈥楥amp Auschwitz,鈥欌 he said, 鈥渙f course our community is going to feel like the stakes of how Jews are presented in the classroom is increasingly important.鈥
鈥淔or 500 years, nobody wants to experience racism and marginalization, but all of a sudden everybody wanted a piece of something [they] didn鈥檛 have. It鈥檚 kind of like, you finally get a little piece of the pie and then even before you taste it, people want to take bites.鈥 鈥Theresa Monta帽o, professor of Chicano studies professor, California State University, Northridge
Monta帽o, the original curriculum author, views the situation differently. When she and other ethnic studies experts convened at the state Department of Education in Sacramento in early 2019, she said that they were given far too little time to produce a draft, a reality that left them scrambling. The State Board of Education didn鈥檛 respond to an interview request.
Ultimately, she disagrees with the final draft鈥檚 inclusive scope, noting that the document devotes just 77 pages to Chicano/Latino studies in a state where Hispanics and Latinos make up of the student population. While asserting the state鈥檚 final curriculum was 鈥渟anitized,鈥 Monta帽o is now co-chair of the group , which seeks to create a curriculum 鈥渨ith authenticity to the field.鈥
鈥淎ll of a sudden everybody wants to be ethnic studies,鈥 she said. 鈥淔or 500 years, nobody wants to experience racism and marginalization, but all of a sudden everybody wanted a piece of something [they] didn鈥檛 have. It鈥檚 kind of like, you finally get a little piece of the pie and then even before you taste it, people want to take bites.鈥
Viewing the 鈥楢merican creed as sinister鈥
To Manuel Rustin, a history teacher in Pasadena, California鈥檚 model curriculum in ethnic studies offers students the kind of instruction he wishes he got when he was a student. Most critical, he said, were the lessons and perspectives traditionally left out. He pointed to one on persistent housing segregation in cities across the U.S.
History classes have long taught about the Great Depression and how the New Deal put the country on the path to economic recovery, said Rustin, who co-chairs the state Instructional Quality Commission, which oversaw the model curriculum鈥檚 development. Absent from those lessons, however, were discussions about how a housing program created under the New Deal .
The model curriculum offers a lesson on 鈥渞edlining鈥 and 鈥渉ow housing inequality has manifested in the form of institutional racism.鈥 The Federal Housing Commission, which was created in 1934, upheld a discriminatory policy where red lines were drawn around predominantly Black neighborhoods, refusing to insure mortgages there while subsidizing the development of subdivisions where homes remained off limits to African Americans. The government-supported policy is often used to partly explain why neighborhoods 鈥斅燼nd schools 鈥 remain racially segregated today and how white families accrued wealth through real estate over the decades.
鈥淓thnic studies helps tell those stories of what structural or systemic racism actually is and how it plays out and then students can make connections,鈥 Rustin said.
But discussions about the ways systemic racism continue to shape contemporary life once again pushed the state ethnic studies curriculum into controversy 鈥斅爐his time over its use of 鈥渃ritical race theory,鈥 a framework that focuses on structural racism and the way bias permeates policymaking. In the last several years, critical race theory has been sucked into the culture wars, with former President Donald Trump calling it 鈥溾 and signing a that barred federal agencies and contractors from providing diversity training that included critical race theory.
In , the Wall Street Journal鈥檚 Editorial Board called the model curriculum an effort to 鈥渆nlist students in progressive politics,鈥 arguing that its use of critical race theory teaches students 鈥渢o view the American creed as sinister.鈥
Among critics is Lori Meyers, a first-grade teacher at a private school in the Bay Area who created the group Educators for Excellence in Ethnic Studies to combat the model curriculum鈥檚 reliance on critical race theory. Though she believes that students should be taught 鈥渢he true story of racism in our country, warts and all,鈥 she said that critical race theory is 鈥渄ivisive and discriminatory,鈥 and should therefore not be used as a primary strategy to teach children about race.
She promoted several state bills, , that would prohibit schools from teaching it to students. To make her argument, she points to comments made by the late Derrick Bell, a Harvard University law professor credited as one of critical race theory鈥檚 originators, who 鈥減rogress in American race relations is largely a mirage, obscuring the fact that whites continue, consciously or unconsciously, to do all in their power to ensure their dominion and maintain their control.鈥
鈥淲hat we don鈥檛 agree with is having students being grouped by race now, and we鈥檙e talking about now in classrooms, and being made to feel guilt or responsibility for something that happened a long time ago,鈥 she said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 critical race theory. Critical race theory looks at things that are happening now through an exclusive lens of race.鈥
But Rustin said that the theory鈥檚 opponents have 鈥減oliticized and distorted鈥 its intentions, adding that it isn鈥檛 about 鈥渂laming individuals鈥 for their role in structural racism and making people feel guilty, but is simply a framework to explain how racism in the past, such as the 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥 segregation doctrine upheld in 1896 by Plessy v. Ferguson,have perpetuated persistent racial disparities in issues like health care, economics and criminal justice.
If educators don鈥檛 push back, he said, then 鈥渋t鈥檒l be nearly impossible for any school and teacher to be allowed to actually teach about America鈥檚 racial past and racial present because no matter what you say it鈥檚 going to be framed as being bad or being liberal or being indoctrination,鈥 he said. 鈥淓ducators need to be clear about why we need anti-racism.鈥
Turning down the heat, turning up the light
In her years of teaching ethnic studies, Julia Jordan-Zachery, a professor of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and president of the Association for Ethnic Studies, has found tremendous value in the discipline for all students, including those who are white. She said that all students, including those with European ancestry, are given 鈥渁n opportunity to see themselves represented鈥 and to 鈥済rapple with identity鈥 and become critical consumers of information.
鈥淗istory is a tale we tell around a series of events. What ethnic studies seeks to do is say different groups have experienced that same event possibly in a different way.鈥 鈥Julia Jordan-Zachery, Africana Studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Its detractors, she said, ignore the fact that 鈥渒nowledge is vested in power,鈥 that those with power shape prevailing narratives. But how any historical event is interpreted is open for debate.
鈥淗istory is a tale we tell around a series of events,鈥 she said. 鈥淲hat ethnic studies seeks to do is say different groups have experienced that same event possibly in a different way.鈥
To make the case, she pointed to the classic series Little House on the Prairie, based on Laura Ingalls Wilder鈥檚 childhood as a white settler on the American Great Plains, of Native Americans. Instead of erasing the true experiences of indigenous people, she said, what if the beloved children鈥檚 books included them, allowing more young readers to see themselves in the story?
Without receiving a complete accounting of American history, many of her college students are shocked about the subjects that were left out of their high school experiences. That鈥檚 the benefit she sees in California鈥檚 model curriculum and how it鈥檚 elevated ethnic studies鈥 awareness. While many students 鈥渇eel cheated鈥 by their K-12 educations, the model curriculum provides 鈥渁n opportunity to address that before they get to me at college,鈥 she said.
In order for the model curriculum to be successful, she said it all comes down to implementation. Now, as the California state Legislature considers an ethnic studies graduation requirement, the culture wars could shift to the local level as individual school districts across the state respond. Rustin, the Pasadena history teacher, noted that each of the curriculum鈥檚 versions are publicly available and that he plans to use 鈥渂its and pieces of all the different drafts鈥 in his classroom.
Dee, the Stanford researcher, agreed about the importance of how the curriculum is carried out. While his study showed serious promise in San Francisco, he said the course was implemented with careful teacher training, highly motivated educators and a thoughtful deliberation about which lessons should be taught.
But to create national momentum around ethnic studies in K-12 schools, he said it鈥檚 important that the discipline becomes more than 鈥渏ust another pawn in the broader culture wars debate.鈥
鈥淚 would like to see us turn down the heat and turn up the light,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 would love to see local school districts consider adapting and adopting a curriculum like this for their own communities, but critically coupling that with serious assessment efforts to understand whether it鈥檚 working.鈥
Lead Image: Students attend a lecture at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California, where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. This image was taken by the renowned photographer Ansel Adams, who was hired by the U.S. government to record life in the American West. (Buyenlarge/Getty Images)
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