Mirabile dictu, Pope Center director wasn’t the first to write (oh, hostile! mocking!) satire of ethnic studies. As Ralph R. Frasca of the Division of Labour blog writes today, in 1997
Luis Chavez, an Hispanic faculty member at Pikes Peak Community College, wrote a satirical proposal for an academic program ?Gringo American Studies.? Citing court papers, the Rocky Mountain News reported that the proposal “parodied academic minority studies programs and addressed racial/ethnic issues by applying the minority studies format to a study of ‘Gringo American’ culture.” Apparently the administrators at PP CC didn?t think it was too funny and penalized Mr. Chavez for his attempt at humor (or was it for attacking ethnic studies?) by suspending him without pay for 15 days.
Funny thing is, “the chair of the history department, Katherine Sturdevant, came to his defense,” Frasca writes. “She called it legitimate political satire.”
“Legitimate?” Legitimate? Did she not know that, according to some UNC professors, mockery isn’t “incisive criticism”?
Also on the subject of ethnic studies, earlier today, Frasca discussed the goose-stepping granddaddy of ethnic studies.
