Professor’s Comments on Multiculturalism Cause Furor at College : Education: His Santa Monica College colleagues condemn remarks as ‘racist, sexist and homophobic’ but say no further action is planned.

A Santa Monica College professor’s scathing denunciation of multiculturalism has caused a furor, leading some on campus to demand his dismissal and others to defend his right to free speech.

On Tuesday, about 100 students chanted “Buchholz must go” outside a classroom where the social science department met to discuss what action, if any, to take against Ernest M. Buchholz, a tenured professor of economics.

After the closed meeting, Buchholz, 67, revealed that his colleagues had voted 11 to 7 to censure him for a written statement in which he blasted curricular diversity, lauded the dominant white, heterosexual male culture, and disparaged the Third World. The department condemned Buchholz’s attitudes as “racist, sexist and homophobic” but said no further action was planned.

The controversy at the 24,000-student community college surfaced earlier this month when Buchholz, a faculty member for 31 years, sent a statement to his departmental colleagues, denouncing “ ‘multiculturalism’ and its stillborn child, ‘curriculum diversity.’ ”

The statement, which Buchholz said was meant for his colleagues’ eyes only and was intended to spark debate, argued that “we’re delaying people’s entry into the labor force, and, in some cases, make them virtually unemployable when we feed them pap like gender-based courses, or, worse yet, ‘studies’ in ethnic fields such as Chicano studies (what is there to study?) or ‘Black studies’ (or whatever they have been renamed by now), which sidetrack students who could otherwise gain useful discipline or skills that would integrate them more quickly into the dominant culture.”

Buchholz, who is Jewish, said he fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1939. He is described by colleagues as a rigorous teacher, although not an especially popular one.

“When I speak against these ethnic studies, it’s not out of bigotry but out of a sincere desire to see the students succeed,” Buchholz said after Tuesday’s meeting. “Apparently, we are coming down to a situation in this country that approaches my early experiences in Hitler’s Germany, where people want you to conform.”

Buchholz’s statement was leaked to Stephen Marshall, president of the student body and student trustee of the community college district. Marshall told the student paper that he had had an argument last summer with Buchholz in an economics class. Buchholz threw him out, and Marshall dropped the course.

Marshall, who said his indignation over Buchholz’s statement was not unduly influenced by the classroom incident, sent copies of the statement to student leaders and college officials. He also called the press.

Most faculty and students were appalled by Buchholz’s statement, according to members of the campus community.

“People are outraged, both students and faculty,” a faculty member who asked not to be identified said. “It just seems so deliberately disrespectful to our minority students and to the college’s very strong efforts to achieve multicultural education.”

Students expressed everything from fury to disappointment at Buchholz’s views.

“This is an attack as much as the beating of Rodney King was an attack,” Dale Griner, president of the campus’ Gay and Lesbian Student Assn., said, referring to the beating of the Altadena man by Los Angeles police.

While virtually no one voiced agreement with Buchholz, many on campus defended his right to hold such views. An editorial in the Wednesday issue of the Corsair, the student paper, denounced his attitudes but noted: “Political correctness is not yet a requirement for a college teaching position here.”

In a prepared statement, college President Richard Moore reiterated the campus’ commitment to free speech while chiding Buchholz.

Moore said the school would take further action if it found evidence that Buchholz’s position had adversely affected his classroom performance. But Moore also cited the observation of former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson that “the price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.”