Professors Criticize Ethnic Center

Correction appended.

Professors criticized the limited offerings within the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and urged students to take matters into their own hands to create a department of ethnic studies at a teach-in last night.

Six panelists-including two CSER professors, two current ethnic studies students, and two participants in the 1996 strikes that led to CSER's creation-spoke to more than 40 students about the current state of ethnic studies at Columbia. The teach-in was sponsored by Students Promoting Empowerment and Knowledge.

Former protesters Marcel Agueros, CC '96, and Sung E. Bai,M.A. '91, Ph.M. '94, shared strategies about promoting activism on campus and achieving their original goal of creating a department. Agueros and Bai were part of an ethnic studies advocacy group that took over Hamilton Hall-the location of the teach-in-for five days in 1996.

"They [administrators] will put out all these arguments about why this center can't be a department," Bai said. "But what the students can do is make it happen."

Bai said that while she and the other 1996 protesters did not achieve their goal of creating a department, they paved the way for today's student activists. "We got the best we could have gotten at that time," she said. "That's how change happens. You have to organize and demand it. Because if you don't organize, you're not going to get it."

All panelists agreed that the current state of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race was not meeting the University's needs. Although the two former protesters acknowledged that the University's concessions had made a difference, they said the moves did not go far enough.

"We wanted the ability to hire people to lead programs and not rely on other departments to make these hires," Agueros said. CSER does not have hiring capabilities.

Bai said that "In that perspective we didn't win because we didn't get anything close to that."

Panelist and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Latino Studies Nicholas de Genova described ethnic studies as "the only viable avenue" to understand and fight a history of white supremacy. "It's absolutely crucial for any university within the U.S. that aspires to not be merely an accomplishment of the continuing perpetration of racial injustice," he said.

De Genova warned that without an increase in support, CSER's status might decline. "Some of us who are untenured have been here for a long time," he said. "We may not be for long if the Center doesn't have a robust commitment. ... There may be very soon six, five, four, three, maybe just one-the director."

De Geneova also emphasized how CSER's non-departmental status made it difficult for the center to develop.

"The Center has no power to hire its own faculty, which means that every hiring decision is beholden to the caprices of disciplinary departments," he said. "This means that every time we are in a position of trying to hire someone, we're ultimately not subject to the priorities of the Center, which has no real autonomy and integrity. It's entirely subject to whether departments will provide the stamp of approval."

CSER director Claudio Lomnitz stated that he did not consider creation of a department of ethnic studies a priority. "Creating an Ethnic Studies department is not desirable," he wrote in an e-mail last night. "Ethnic Studies is best developed as an interdisciplinary platform from which to infuse the University as a whole with critical reflection, pedagogy, and research on racism and ethnicity in modern social formations."

Lomnitz added that he did support students' desire to maintain an ethnic studies program on campus. "Although I do not share some students' desire for an Ethnic Studies department, they are right to insist on the University's commitment to Ethnic Studies," he wrote.

Associate Professor of Sociology and Latina/o Studies Nicole Marwell said that students need to make their issues an immediate concern for the administration by producing "a state of emergency that requires them to solve the problem."

Markwell added that she believed the University's creation of CSER in response to the student 1996 protests was inadequate. "Students of color are making noise," she said in reference to how the past administration viewed the 1996 protesters. "How to solve the problem? Throw them some crumbs. That's how the Center has been."

Christien Tompkins, CC '08 a member of SPEaK, campus liaison for Black Students Organization, and political co-chair for United Students of Color Council, was on the panel and said that he felt the administration showed little concern for the creation of a department of ethnic studies. "We have to be organized and we have to be consistent," he said. "It's not just for the takeover of buildings, but the slow, painstaking, everyday discussions."

CORRECTION: This article misattributed comments to professor Nicole Marwell that were made by another panelist. The same article also misquoted professor Nicholas de Genova as saying, "It's absolutely crucial for any university within the U.S. that aspires to not merely be an accomplishment of the continuing perpetration of racial injustice." In fact, he used the word "accomplice" instead of "accomplishment."