Graduation Requirement (ESGR)
Class of 2025 and Beyond: Students must complete at least ONE ethnic studies course to graduate.
What is Ethnic Studies?
Ethnic studies is the study of perspectives, knowledge, experiences, and contributions of people of color with a central focus on anti-racism. Historically, ethnic studies emerged from social movements in the 1960s as educators and scholars of color pressed schools, school districts, and textbook companies to produce and offer curricula that reflected the diversity and complexity of the United States population.
Why is ethnic studies important?
The expanding research on ethnic studies reveals its potential to enhance understanding, awareness, and appreciation for multiple, situated identities. It fosters increased academic identity, respectful engagement with diverse individuals, and deepens understanding of community ethnic groups. Ethnic studies promotes social, cognitive, and environmental justice consciousness, and inspires social justice action and civic engagement.
The 7 Cs Guiding Values
- Cultivate: well-being, empathy, community actualization, self-worth, self-determination
- Celebrate: Stories of Native People/s and People of Color.
- Center: and value indigenous & marginalized knowledge
- Critique: power and oppression examining its roots, who it benefits and who it harms
- Challenge: beliefs and practices on personal and systemic levels
- Connect: To past and current resistance movements
- Conceptualize: possibilities of a new and different world rooted in liberation and radical healing