Race, gender and ethnicity are often the center of controversy on campus. Tuesday night, three prominent women from around the country were part of a University forum titled The Intersection of Race, Gender and Ethnicity in Higher Education to explore those issues.
The forum, which was held in 175 Knight Law Center, drew about 80 people and was presented by The Center for the Study of Women in Society and the Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity.
The three panelists were Norma Cantu, Gertrude Fraser and Yolanda Moses.
At the age of 19, Cantu was the first U.S.-born Latina to be admitted to
Harvard Law School. She was regional counsel and education director of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and assistant secretary of education for civil rights for President Clinton’s administration.
Fraser, who was the program director specializing in education and scholarship with the Ford Foundation in New York, has been part of interdisciplinary research on gender, ethnicity and raceand helped create an intercultural global curriculum. She is currently vice provost for faculty advancement at the University of Virginia.
Moses is former president of the City University of New York and the American Anthropological Association, where she spearheaded efforts to
promote multicultural curricula. She is currently special assistant to the chancellor for excellence and diversity at the University of California, Riverside.
The three women made up what Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Greg Vincent called “a dream realized” and “a dream team” for the discussion.
Each woman spoke about her various fields of expertise and her visions of and solutions to the issues of race and gender in higher education.
Moses started the forum by discussing models of exclusiveness and the way institutions respond to changing student demographics.
“There are changing models of institutions,” Moses said. “Current models are a thousand years old, and we are in the 21st century.”
Moses discussed statistics that show ethnic minorities are most successful at historically minority-based institutions and that universities need to look to those institutions for examples.
“Leadership needs to look at models of successful, sustained diversity within institutions,” Moses said. “Partnership with institutions and places where the pipeline is filled with people you want.”
Fraser discussed education as a instrument for social mobility. She also discussed the changes that gender and ethnic studies classes have made.
“There has been the emergence of African-American studies, women’s studies, Latino studies,” Moses said. “They have been institutionally marginalized, yet they are central to the survival of the academy. History is a different field because of African-American studies. English has changed because of women’s studies.”
Cantu’s main point was that the struggles women and racial minorities face are issues that affect the
entire population.
“Race and gender are connected,” Cantu said. “All of us can become allies to each other. Get involved, be an ally, be a supporter.”
Cantu also emphasized the need for solutions and goals instead of a focus on current problems.
“When you bring forth a problem, you need to have a solution in mind,” Cantu said. “Know what your mission is, what your goal is and what you will produce.”

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