Cerritos College Students Voice Ethnic Complaints

Officials at Cerritos College in Norwalk have been urged by a group of students to hire more minority faculty members and to add more ethnic courses to the curriculum.

The students said they are upset because the faculty is predominantly Anglo, while about two-thirds of the nearly 19,000 students are minorities. The issue surfaced recently when a black instructor, who was teaching part time, was not interviewed for a full-time position as a history teacher.

Officials said they are committed to increasing the number of minority faculty members, but were resisting the proposed program of ethnic studies. President Ernest Martinez said he prefers to emphasize a curriculum that includes ethnic components in every course. “My concept of ethnicity is that each and every class, whether it is literature or physical education, has some ethnic diversity,” Martinez said. More than 80% of the college’s 238 full-time faculty members are Anglo.