The Fight for Ethnic Studies Is a Fight for All Identities, Everywhere

Within our campus, we profess a commitment to academic freedom. But outside this ivory tower, the K-12 education system is unwell.

In late 2020, former U.S. President Donald Trump — seemingly spurred by a Fox News interview that called critical race theory an “existential threat” that “has pervaded every institution of the federal government” — signed an executive order to ban “divisive” concepts about race and sex in the federal workforce.

Though the order would eventually be rescinded, it had remarkable staying power. In the aftermath of Trump’s departure from office, a new network of think tanks, donor networks, and activist groups, dedicated to promoting his policy legacy, unleashed mass opposition to CRT: They produced sample legislative text, crafted political strategy, and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into individual school board races.

Anti-CRT rhetoric quickly spread to schools. Conservative operatives, by their own admission, morphed the previously obscure graduate school discipline into a catch-all term for identity-conscious policies in schools, moving to censor discussions on race, sexuality, and gender identity.

This activism is not entirely novel; conservative forces have historically mobilized at school boards against everything from desegregation busing to LGBTQ+ teachers.

But the level of organization behind this new wave of activism is unprecedented. This movement isn’t simply a gaggle of rowdy parents in previously sleepy public comment meetings; it’s deeply coordinated, embraced by the highest levels of the Republican Party and a dominant subject on mainstream conservative media.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this activism as something that will inevitably blow over. In 2021, more than 250 anti-CRT measures were adopted by localities and states; in 2022, that number rose to 275. Likewise, in 2022, there were 315 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced and 29 laws enacted, many of which focus on education; this year, there are more than 500 bills.

As academic inquiries of identity confront a hostile political reality, we may implicitly position Harvard as an island untouched by these anti-equity forces.

But Harvard itself does not adequately support scholarship surrounding identity — and its failure further reinforces the censorship efforts sweeping K-12 education.

Consider the most obvious example: ethnic studies.

We may be on the brink of an Ethnicity, Indigeneity, Migration concentration, according to a new FAS proposal. But over the past 51 years of ethnic studies organizing on campus, it appears that change, like the hiring of three Ethnic Studies professors in 2022, only occurs with massive student organizing.

We may think that these positive signs suggest a future robust ethnic studies department at Harvard, but we cannot stop mobilizing. The fact is: Harvard does not yet have an Ethnic Studies concentration.

When the self-proclaimed “most venerable institution of higher learning” refuses to treat ethnic studies as an academic field worthy of a concentration, it legitimizes the national narrative that disciplines studying identity are dispensable.

Anti-CRT leaders often claim that ethnic studies is an unproductive academic discipline. Virginia Governor Glenn A. Youngkin frequently blamed diverse curricula efforts for declines in test scores in math and reading. Florida’s Department of Education rejected AP African American Studies, saying the course “significantly lacks educational value.”

The creation of an Ethnic Studies department at Harvard could counteract this national trend. The national media coverage generated would surely add momentum to the faltering education equity movement. More importantly, Harvard’s name ensures visibility for scholarship from its Ethnic Studies department — centering the populations disempowered by the censorship of identity.

Ethnic studies pedagogy is rooted in building agency; the 1969 strike that led to the creation of the first Ethnic Studies department in the country was driven by students’ desire for a school “developed, implemented, and controlled by Third World People” to confront racism and misrepresentation.

Ethnic studies scholarship thus actively centers those who are targeted by anti-equity forces. Work that explores the queerphobic legacy of British colonization, for example, can be especially empowering for LGBTQ+ students of color today, given that resonant books that they could otherwise turn to are threatened by bans.

The movement for ethnic studies is larger than a single concentration. It is about leveraging the influence of our institution to defy the unchecked censorship and hate that seeks to erase identity — and its associated potential to unleash transformative change — from our earliest educational systems.

Aaryan K. Rawal ’26 is a Government concentrator in Eliot House. Their column, “Queer Queries,” runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays.