Ethnic Studies Added to List of California State University’s Graduation Requirements

Amid a social climate that is actively combating racial injustice, California State University, the largest four-year public university system in the United States, has added ethnic studies and social justice classes to its graduation requirements for students. Starting in the academic year of 2023-2024, the University of California system’s Board of Trustees will implement the first change major change to the system’s education curriculum in 40 years.

The California State University system’s new graduation requirement is planted in ethnic studies; however, students will have the opportunity to choose from classes focused on class, race, immigration, police brutality and reform, and other areas having to do with ethnic studies and/or social justice. CSU students must choose from one of four ethnic studies disciplines — African American studies, Native American studies, Latinx (Latino and Latina) studies, or Asian American studies — or a course focused in social justice. Each CSU campus will determine their specific requirements regarding ethnic studies and social justice course fulfillment for graduation.

Although the study of minority groups as a requirement has been a longstanding idea in the state of California, the push toward making ethnic studies and social justice classes part of graduation requirements was marked by the fatal police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. The new requirement is opposed by California Faculty Association and several lawmakers who instead support AB 1460, legislation that restricts the graduation requirement to strictly the four ethnic studies disciplines and excludes courses outside of those disciplines, including those of other minority groups (such as Jewish studies) and social justice component courses.

Chancellor Timothy White expressed the California State University system’s decision to add ethnic studies and social justice classes to graduation requirements “will empower our students to meet this moment in our nation’s history, giving them the knowledge, broad perspectives, and skills needed to solve society’s most pressing problems” including the systemic marginalization of people of color.