“I’d been trying [the idea] on administrators at several universities since about the mid-1990s,” Feagin says, adding that administrators then didn’t think it was important. In recent years, it has been easier to make the case for such research centers, but there are new challenges to getting these conversations started.
“Most senior administrators at our top universities are worried about funding, grants, endowments and tuition,” Feagin says. “The issue of multiracial changes, multiracial America, multiracial democracy is down on their list of priorities.”
Brought forth by other universities and researchers along the same lines, race and democracy research centers have been established at other universities, including Stanford University, Texas A&M University and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“Part of the job of these centers is to begin telling the truth about American history and our racial and ethnic history,” Feagin says. “As a country, we have not faced our history.”
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