Educators and NAACP persuade Hoosiers ethnic studies benefit everyone
06/19/2017

As part of their EdJustice series, NEA Education Votes recently profiled Indiana's new ethnic studies law.

“If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere,” said teacher Hilda Kendrick after Indiana passed an ethnic studies law. “It was an astonishing and historic victory, given Indiana’s history of racism and Ku Klux Klan activity.”

Hilda Kendrick, an Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) activist, teaches in Jeffersonville in southern Indiana. She is confident the new law will benefit all students, not just those in more ethnically diverse Indianapolis. “Ethnic studies will help white students avoid negative stereotypes, and give students of color in small towns a feeling that they too matter.”

Supported by ISTA, the law, which goes into effect July 1, requires Indiana high schools to offer ethnic and racial studies as an elective course at least once a year. Its surprising passage by the very conservative Indiana state legislatures was the culmination of a four-year, multi-racial campaign orchestrated by Garry Holland, the interim education chair of the NAACP branch in Indianapolis.

Continue reading at Education Votes