Some Latinos in academia are assessing the impact of increasing attacks and crackdowns on diversity initiatives amid low numbers of tenured Latino professors and a difficult career path.
Last semester, María Chávez didn’t think her assignment for her Latino politics course was controversial. Chávez asked her students to write an opinion piece about an issue facing the Latino community. When class ended, she accidentally left an extra copy of the homework behind. The next day, Chavez found the spare copy of the assignment defaced with rants about “illegal aliens” and “Stop teaching victimhood!” The paper was not signed.
“This is the type of action that people are encouraged to do now,” said Chávez, a professor of political science at the Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. “The racialization and stigmatization that Latinos experience in the US is often replicated in the classroom.”
Chávez is part of the relatively small group of Latinos in academia. Achieving academic tenure, professors say, is a difficult and challenging process. Now, they’re also grappling with how to navigate the growing politicization of education as states like Florida limit diversity initiatives and impose controls on educational content and courses, particularly those related to race and ethnicity. .
“The direct attack on knowledge about the experiences of people of color is something that is very undemocratic and is very personally damaging to students in a way that impacts who they are as people, as scholars, and as future scholars,” Chávez said.
“The political debates about the so-called awakening and critical race theory are just an attempt to silence people of color and our experiences,” Chavez said. “When scholars of color start using theories to understand the experiences that marginalized communities have, it is interpreted as illegitimate, not to be taught.”
Chávez said that “in good conscience” he would not advise his Latino students to pursue an academic career in the social sciences. “You have to constantly balance your personal and professional identity.”
For Chávez, it is a treacherous time to teach American history and politics. “There is this backlash against diversity, and my undergraduate students are aware of it; there is a backlash against any kind of anti-racist education, and that makes it difficult for everyone.”
The growing politicization of education comes amid a significant underrepresentation of Latinos in university faculty. Although a record number of Latinos attend four-year universities, which represents 1 in 5 college students — nearly three-quarters of postsecondary teachers were white in 2020, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Latinos represent only 6% of college and university professors. Among full-time professors, Latino representation is lower: just 4%.
Amid these low numbers, college professors face increasing scrutiny from conservatives and Republicans in several states who denounce the «awakening,» a term broadly defined as being sensitive to racial and social injustice, and critical theory of race, a legal theory that explores how racism is entrenched. in American institutions.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who launched his presidential campaign on Wednesday, recently signed legislation limiting teaching about structural racism, restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and limiting protections for tenured professors at state colleges and universities.
He Texas House recently passed a bill to eliminate DEI programs and offices at state colleges and universities.
Irma Montelongo, director of Chicano Studies at the University of Texas at El Pasoconsiders political meddling in education «quite sinister.»
Are politicians concerned that we are teaching subjects that encourage ethnic communities to hate white communities? That couldn’t be further from the truth,» Montelongo said. “We teach our students to love their communities, to love themselves, to see themselves in history, in stories and in literature. We are not teaching our students to hate anyone.»
called montelongo attempts to restrict ethnic studies “a total whitewashing of American history.”
When he teaches Mexican American history, Montelongo said his students are «captivated, because they’ve never been exposed to this kind of knowledge.» His students begin to see themselves in the story and make connections to their own family histories. “They get really interested in the material and then they wonder, why have we never been taught this before?”
As Republican lawmakers seek to reshape some aspects of public education in Texas, Montelongo said she and her colleagues are closely watching these developments.
“We are paying attention, but no one is freaking out; We have to see how things play out.» Until now, she has not seen any measure that would lead her, for example, to change her course offerings. It also does not envision any drastic restructuring of the tenure system because doing so could “destroy” universities as research-intensive campuses.
‘The funnel must be bigger’
Most full-time university teaching positions require a Ph.D., a process that can take around 8 years; some positions allow for a master’s degree, which lasts about 6 years. Due to this time commitment, many Latino youth, especially from the working class, face family pressure to start working as soon as possible.
“Sometimes your family may not understand why you want to bother getting a Ph.D.,” said Louis Mendoza, a professor of Latino literary and cultural studies at Arizona State University. “They tell you to just be a teacher.”
“It’s like you’re preparing for a big challenge with your known community,” Mendoza said, “and the community you hope to enter.”
Mendoza said that Latino professors can face isolation, particularly if they are studying a topic that is unfamiliar to the non-Latino professors evaluating their work. “However, being a change agent in higher education and for my peers is important to me.”
This lack of Latinos in academia reflects a pipeline problem, according to Patrick L. Valdez, president of the board of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education. “As we look at the educational attainment numbers, the further we go, the number of Latinos gets smaller…so the funnel needs to get bigger.”
Valdez, a visiting professor at the University of Kentucky, believes that institutions should do more to recruit and retain Latino academics. “Universities should ask themselves about the composition of the search committee, if they are looking for potential faculty members in non-traditional places and if they have a strategy to find Latino PhDs. candidates”.
When universities are aware of having an “equity mindset,” Valdez explained, then they will be better positioned to attract Latino professors.
Last June, 20 top research universities committed to doubling the number of Latino doctoral students in their schools by 2030 by increasing the number of research opportunities and projects, and pledged to increase the number of Latino faculty by 20 %.
Antonio Flores, president and general director of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, emphasized the need to start fostering Latinos in academia in the early school years. «We need to create more opportunities and pathways to success from high school or community college to identify promising Latinos who might consider an academic career,» she said.
This type of support can be critical, as many Latinos are the first in their families to graduate from college and may not have family or friends to advise them on possible careers.
Even as Latinos achieve their professional goals in academia, some academics of color, especially women, often face questions about your credentials and often they are evaluated worse than white male teachers, according to studies.
In 2019, Harvard University denied tenure to Lorgia García-Peña, a renowned ethnic studies scholar, sparking national outrage. Although the school later published a report from a tenure committee that found the system «structurally sound», by then García-Peña had left Harvard for a position at Tufts University.
Last year, García-Peña detailed his experiences at Harvard in a book. In an interview with NBC News last August, she said that «the more open conversations we have about what’s wrong with academia, the more people will be able to walk into these professional positions with their eyes wide open and knowing what to expect.»
‘We are part of the conversation now’
Amid the steep road ahead for faculty and increasing field-restrictive measures and diversity initiatives, UTEP’s Montelongo stressed that he never loses faith in his career path.
“Many of our students come from groups that have historically been left out of higher education and are now succeeding,” he said. “They are opening doors for their communities that were once closed. Seeing the pride in their parents’ eyes when they graduate is indescribable.»
“Our students are hungry to learn, not just Chicano studies, but also history, creative writing, and engineering,” Montelongo added. “Watching them grow and develop, I know that we are shaping the future of El Paso and that they will make the world a better place than it is today.”
At Pacific Lutheran University, Chávez noted that despite the current political and educational climate, he is optimistic about the future of Latinos in academia. “Our numbers may be very small, but we are at the table. I have students who have struggled to get to college, but they are making it. Now we are part of the conversation.»