DEALING WITH MERITOCRACY IN DEMOCRACY
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took a back seat to race and gender. If an oppressed or deprived group was
not of a different race or ethnic group from the one dominant in the soci–
ety, or women, there was simply not much interest in it. Class as a subject
of study and research has fallen from the eminent position it held in the
1950s and 1960s in sociology, history, anthropology, and other fields.
This early conflict was followed by many others in leading American
colleges and universities, and in state public education systems. The most
prominent conflicts in the public education systems were in New York
State and in California, as I discussed in
VM?
Are All Multiculturalists Now.
The major literature on multiculturalism, indeed the overwhelming part of
it, deals with conflicts in colleges and universities.
Conflicts in the colleges and universities are different from those in the
state public school systems.
In
the colleges and universities, conflict centers on
one or a few required courses, on new courses designed to instruct students in
the problems of "race, class, and gender;' and on demands by various student
groups that studies of various racial and ethnic groups
be
included in the cur–
riculum. But college students not interested in these issues can generally
ignore them: the conflicts have had no influence on education in science and
engineering, little influence on much pre-professional and professional educa–
tion (education and social work are exceptions), and have found their greatest
faculty support in English departments, in some foreign-language departments,
and in a few of the social sciences, particularly anthropology. There has not
been much influence of multicultural demands on business education, one of
the largest undergraduate concentrations, or on economics. Most students can
go through college and university only marginally affected by the new
required course or courses or by the expanded programs in ethnic studies.
They will probably not escape the drumbeat of praise for "diversity," led by
college presidents,
will
probably read some pre-registration materials on diver–
sity, may be lectured on its value and on the need for sensitivity to different
others in orientation week, but they need not go to the diversity celebrations,
and can manage their college educations pretty much as before.
One can find extensions of "multiculturalism" that will properly out–
rage conservative observers of higher education, most prominently, gay and
lesbian studies, which have seen a prodigious growth, but I believe they are
not required anywhere. One or another gay or lesbian studies course may
qualifY as a course that fulfills a requirement, but students can easily
maneuver around them.
Matters are quite different in the state public school systems. There the
teaching in the social sciences or social studies elementary or high school
students that receive is at issue, because most of the curriculum in elemen–
tary and high school is fixed. Further, it is not formally set by teachers or
even organized groups of teachers, but by political bodies at the state level.
