The courses, which cover everything from race to gender, have been the subject of scrutiny for pushing left-leaning talking points
The University of Wisconsin-Madison isn’t alone in requiring every undergraduate to enroll in highly politicized ethnic studies courses in order to graduate. All 13 four-year University of Wisconsin System schools impose a similar requirement, according to analysis of curriculum materials by Badger Institute.
Ethnic studies is a loosely defined academic discipline that regularly involves content related to race and sexuality. The UW System does not impose a blanket standard for its schools to require ethnic studies; campuses reached this consensus individually.
While a decision by the UW System in July to standardize course requirements led the backers of such classes to worry that schools would drop ethnic studies mandates, the system later clarified its schools would retain individual discretion.
Ethnic studies rules have come under fire as a threat to intellectual diversity.
“Universities exist to cultivate intellectual rigor, open inquiry, and exposure to differing viewpoints,” researcher and essayist John Mac Ghlionn commented to the Badger Institute. “Many ethnic studies programs, however, are built around ideological frameworks that privilege activism over analysis and present contested political interpretations as settled truth.”
“When such courses are required rather than elective, students are compelled to engage with a specific worldview,” he added. “This undermines academic neutrality and intellectual freedom.”
Students themselves are also not necessarily on-board.
“Most UW-Madison students treat their required ethnic studies course as a blow off,” junior Benjamin Rothove told Badger Institute. “One progressive student leader even admitted that her peers would not take these courses if they weren’t required to.”
“The sad part is that UW-Madison should have a more rigorous core curriculum,” Rothove added. “Students can easily graduate without once encountering Aristotle, Shakespeare, Milton, or Locke. That’s a shame.”
Badger Institute President Mike Nichols recently analyzed UW-Madison’s courses offered to meet an ethnic studies requirement, finding the offerings often arcane or ideologically skewed and the requirement unnecessary and outdated.
But what of the other UW campuses? Badger Institute examined university websites and curriculum materials to analyze requirements across the system.
Eau Claire
To satisfy the school’s liberal education benchmark, UW-Eau Claire students must sit for four “learning experiences” that fall under the school’s responsibility goal, meant to instill “personal and social responsibility for active citizenship” and “skills needed to thrive in a pluralistic and globally interdependent world.”
Of the four classes, two must be within the “equity, diversity and inclusivity” category, meant to impart “critical and analytical skills to evaluate assumptions and challenge existing structures in ways that respect diversity and foster equity and inclusivity.”
One diversity course must fall under the UW System’s Design for Diversity requirement. That initiative, launched in 1989, aimed to increase the number of students of color but was shuttered a decade later.
Options include “Black Feminist and Black Queer Studies,” “Music and Gender” and “Transgender Activism and Cultural Production.
Eau Claire students can then choose one course each focused on “global perspectives” and “civic and environmental issues.”
Green Bay
UW-Green Bay requires its students to take three credits worth of ethnic studies courses in order to graduate. Students can choose from one of 16 three-credit courses, including “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning,” “Latinx Experiences and Voices in our Community” and “Introduction to LGBTQ Studies.”
Students are expected to learn to “articulate insights into their own cultural rules and biases,” and to “interpret intercultural experience from the perspectives of their own and multiple worldviews.”
La Crosse
At UW-La Crosse, students are required to complete one ethnic studies course before graduation. Among the 17 offered are “Data and Power: Feminist Science Studies,” “Understanding Human Differences” and “Race, Gender, Sexuality and Class.”
Similar courses satisfy other requirements. For the school’s “social and behavioral studies” requirement, one option is “Ethnic, Racial, and Gender Stereotypes in the Media.” Under “the cultures of our world,” students courses on “Women, Gender and Sexuality in Latin America” or “International Multicultural Philosophy.”
Milwaukee
Students at UW-Milwaukee are required to take a cultural diversity course meant to “focus on the experiences of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and/or U.S. Latino/as” while including “perspectives on how differences other than race and ethnicity (such as economic class, gender, gender identity/expression, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, etc.) complicate cultural identity categories.”
Among the options in the school’s catalogue are “Black Reality: Survey of African American Society,” “Psychological Effects of Racism” and “Migration and Gender: Starbucks, Sex Trafficking and Nannies.”
Similar courses complete the university’s international course requirements, including “Extended Families in Black Societies” and “Race, Class and Gender in Southern Africa.”
Oshkosh
UW-Oshkosh students must take three credits of ethnic studies courses as well as nine credits in courses that explore culture and society. A checklist published in 2021 directs instructors of these courses to “highlight people in the U.S. who have historically been overlooked.”
Some upcoming ethnic studies courses include “Introduction to African American Studies,” “Introduction to Multi-ethnic Literatures” and “Health Practices with Diverse Populations.”
Parkside
Students of UW-Parkside must take one three-credit ethnic diversity course prior to graduation.
Options include “Lowriders, Kicks, and Graffiti,” which focuses on “art and visual culture of Latin Americans, Hispanic Americans, and African Americans during the past 40 years.” Another class titled “Institutional Racism in America” examines “racism within various institutions such as public government bodies, private business, and universities.”
Platteville
To fulfill the university’s liberal studies requirements, students at UW-Platteville must take three credits of ethnic studies courses meant to “awaken the minds and spirits of students to the issues of race and ethnicity” and “the social realities and moral challenges of racism in U.S. culture,” a university web page reads.
Students can select from 20 courses, including “Management, Gender & Race,” which “explains why gender and race/ethnicity have become important concerns of business.”
River Falls
UW-River Falls mandates that students take courses in American cultural diversity. Options include “Migrant Farmworkers in America,” “Queer Media” or “Mapping and Spatial Justice.”
Stevens Point
At UW-Stevens Point, students must take up to nine credits of social and environmental responsibility courses in categories such as “global awareness” and “U.S. diversity.”
Diversity, a university pamphlet reads, is defined as “individual differences (e.g. personality, learning styles and life experiences) and other group and social differences (e.g. race, gender, ethnicity, country of origin, class, sexual identity/orientation, religion, ability or other affiliations).”
Course options include “Pluralism for Educators,” “Gay and Lesbian Literature” and “The Family: Continuing Concerns.”
Stout
UW-Stout requires two racial and ethnic studies courses, such as “Food Justice,” “Applied Nonviolent Activism” or “Masculinities.”
“Through approved courses, it is hoped that graduates will come to appreciate, understand, value and respond respectfully to cultural diversity, to discourage racism and thus reduce its effects,” the university writes. “Racial and Ethnic Studies Courses examine the experiences of race and ethnicity within the United States.”
Superior
Students at UW-Superior must take one three-credit course centered around “diversity and global awareness.” Among the options are “Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” “The Construction of Gender in the United States” and “Voices of Hispanic Women.”
Whitewater
To graduate from UW-Whitewater, students must take up to three credits of “U.S. racial/ethnic diversity” courses. Satisfying this standard are courses such as “Introduction To Chicanx Literature,” “Gender, Sexuality, And Race In Film” or “American Minority Politics.”
Jackson Walker is a native Wisconsinite and 2023 UW-Madison graduate.
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