In the wake of Bill Cosby's sentencing and Christine Blasey Ford's testimony tomorrow, I can't help but think about how all of us could benefit from both Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies in our schools, whether at the higher education or K-12 level—ideally, at both. 

How many lives, careers, and reputations could be saved by the knowledge and dispositions that these kinds of courses provide?  The answer is not to rail against feminists or the #MeToo movement for ostensibly raising a high bar—which simple human decency and respect toward others is not.  Nor should parents or families be entirely blamed.  After all, parents got the same (mis)education as their children.

Expressed differently, a systematic failure of our schools and society to offer these courses in sufficient numbers means that many of those present at tomorrow's Senate judiciary hearing will have failed to reap the benefits either of an enhanced, critical understanding of human experience or the skills, knowledge, and sense of empowerment and personal responsibility that are crucial to the successful, and ideally, fulfilling, negotiating of difference in a complex society and world.

When will we learn?  

-Angela Valenzuela

Why We Still Need Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies

By Susan M. Shaw | Huffington Post | January 18, 2017

Getty images

Recently someone wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper criticizing 

our university’s Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs 

for being divisive by their focus on “tiny subgroups” (African Americans, Chicanos, 

Asian Americans, LGBTQ people, women) rather than the larger human population.  

In other words, this writer believes we don’t need Ethnic Studies (ES) and Women, 

Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) because we should be teaching about our 

common humanity rather than our different identities, experiences, and cultures.

He could not be more wrong.

First of all, human beings do experience themselves as people who have gender, 

race, sexuality, and culture. And those differences lead to different experiences in

the world. 

If we are to broaden and deepen our understanding of human experience, we have 

to examine it in all of its diversity and understand the difference difference makes. 

Ignoring social differences in human experience in academic study would make 

as much sense as ignoring differences in fish or stars or flowers. Commonalities 

don’t negate differences.

Second, those “tiny subgroups” are actually the majority of the human population, 

and, yet, those subgroups are still mostly ignored or marginalized in much of the

curriculum of higher education. Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality 

Studies ensure that students have an opportunity to develop skills to understand 

how race, gender, sexuality, and other forms of difference work in the world.

Third, research shows that taking Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and 

Sexuality Studies classes is good for students and helps achieve the goals of higher 

education.

Many Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies students are 

members of the groups studied in these courses, and they are attracted to courses 

that focus on their communities, identities, and histories because they do not find 

their experiences and concerns centered in many other classes throughout the 

university. 

Research shows that ES and WGSS courses have positive impacts on these students. 

Taking these courses improves students’ sense of empowerment and their sense of 

self-worth and enhances student engagement and academic achievement.

ES and WGSS courses also have positive impact on all students, especially 

heterosexual white men. White students who take Ethnic Studies courses experience 

reduction in prejudice and bias, and they become more democratic in their orientation. 

Students in ES and WGSS classes become more empathetic and more accepting of

diversity.

Additionally, students who take ES and WGSS courses develop greater cognitive 

complexity and higher levels of thinking because of their exposure to diverse 

experiences and ideas.

And on campuses with strong attention to diversity, students across all groups 

report that they are more satisfied with their college experience than students 

who do not engage diversity in college.

Finally, ES and WGSS faculty contribute essential scholarship to local and global 

communities. Here at Oregon State University my ES and WGSS colleagues are 

involved with research on motherhood, immigration, minority health, student 

success, and transnational adoption, to name a few topics. One just returned from 

supporting a medical team working with refugees in southern Iraq. Another works 

with Latino/a communities in Oregon. One was nationally recognized last year for 

work on behalf of transgender people. Another was recently honored by our local 

community on MLK Day for his work with students and other people of color on 

campus and in the community.

Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies bring unique analytical

lenses to academic study that help us understand how race, gender, sexuality, and 

other forms of difference shape individual and group experiences. They help us 

examine social institutions and the roles these institutions play in maintaining social 

inequality. And these academic disciplines also help us think about how people can 

work to bring about changes in the world that create more inclusive, equitable, and 

just workplaces, families, schools, churches, and other social organizations.

We still need Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies because 

race, gender, and sexuality are still important facets of human experience that give 

shape to the ways we are in the world. We need ES and WGSS because people from 

those “tiny subgroups” need an academic home to explore their concerns. We need 

ES and WGSS because all students benefit from exposure to diverse people and 

ideas. And we need ES and WGSS because the world still needs academics who can 

help us see things in a new way and develop skills to create a world that is 

life-affirming for us all.

Follow Susan M. Shaw on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drsusanmshaw