APA Newsletters
Spring 2000
Volume 99, Number 2

Reports

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The APA Committee on Hispanics/Latinos is delighted to inaugurate this first issue of the Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy, a periodical that we hope will help to usher in a new and more expansive era for philosophy in North America and that will benefit the profession as a whole. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks here to Eduardo Mendieta and Pablo DeGreiff for courageously and selflessly accepting the commitment to be our first coeditors. The Committee has great faith in their abilities, their knowledge, and their vision. We also wish to express our gratitude to the APA Board and to the former Executive Director Eric Hoffman who were instrumental in making this possible.

The Committee is engaged in several other new projects that I want to announce here and to ask for the readers’ help with. Following this, I will give a report on the status of Hispanics/Latinos in philosophy, based on a recent survey, and a report on panel discussions on the recruitment of minorities to philosophy that were held at two recent APA divisional meetings. I will conclude with a list of our recommendations to the APA as a whole.

Announcements

(1) The Committee has just created a new listserv called HISPPHIL. The purpose of this listserv is to facilitate communication among Hispanic philosophers in the United States, as well as among all those interested in Latin American philosophy and other philosophical issues of special relevance to Hispanics. This listserv can be used to make job and other sorts of announcements and to raise questions on philosophy, policy, or basic information. If you would like to subscribe to the listserv, send a message to listserv@listserv.syr.edu. Type the following in the body of the mail:

SUB HISPPHIL fullname

Messages to the list can then be sent to:

HISPPHIL@listserv.syr.edu

You can also send a message to the HISPPHIL listserv by sending it to the listserv manager at lsalcoff@syr.edu

(2) The APA is launching a new JobSeeker Database Project that will allow job seekers to register online through the APA Web page and provide information about their racial and ethnic status along with their qualifications and interests. This will greatly facilitate the work of search committees that are pursuing diversity, who can then contact candidates directly.

Job seekers must register themselves for this service by logging on to a secure page through the APA Web page (www.udel.edu/apa). They will need to supply their Member Number, UserID and Password. If you are a jobseeker and do not yet have these, logon to the APA Web page for information on how to obtain them. This service will be free for members of the APA in good standing. The Committee strongly encourages all Hispanics in the profession who are considering looking for a new job or job change to use this service. Numerous search committees contact the Committee routinely to ask for help in advertising their jobs to Hispanic candidates. On the other hand, one of the problems we sometimes hear from search committee chairs is that "there simply aren’t any Hispanics out there." This joblist will be able to show them how wrong this is.

(3) At the urging of the Diversity Committees, the APA National Office has appointed a new Ombudsperson to address the professional rights of underrepresented minorities in the profession and address complaints of discrimination: Leslie Francis, who may be contacted through the APA National Office, University of Delaware, Newark DE 19716.

(4) The Committee itself has a web site that is accessible through the APA web site. We use this to make announcements, share information, and eventually publish back issues of this newsletter. If you have contributions or suggestions for this site, please contact the Committee chair.

Report on the Status of Hispanics in Philosophy

The Committee on Hispanics/Latinos has now conducted two surveys in the last ten years from which we have been able to garner some useful data. The main conclusion that is glaringly apparent from both surveys is that there is a severe underrepresentation of Hispanics in the philosophy profession, to a degree that has been virtually unchanged in ten years.

This most recent survey is focussed on departments in the U.S. and its territories, as well as Canada, that have M.A. and/or Ph.D. programs. These are likely to be the most important departments affecting the future generation of philosophers in North America. The survey asked for information on the number of Hispanics at all levels, including students and faculty.

Of the 140 graduate departments responding to the survey (which is a response rate of better than 75%), 58, or about 41%, reported having Hispanic faculty, graduate or undergraduate students, or recently completed Ph.D. students. In these departments, there was a total of 19 tenured faculty, 13 untenured faculty, 37 recent Ph.D. recipients, 30 Ph.D. students, and 30 M.A. students. Given that the total number of faculty in the graduate departments that responded to the survey is 2,367, we can calculate that in these graduate departments, only 1.3% of the faculty are Hispanic, with .8% holding tenure and .5% without tenure.

The total graduate student population in the U.S. is roughly 3,000, which means that (assuming all of these are in fact in the U.S. rather than Canada), only 2% are Hispanics. To compare, a similar survey conducted in 1992 established that the percentage of Hispanic graduate students was 1.9%. This statistic is perhaps the most disturbing of all, because it provides no reason to expect the future to change.

Although these surveys have been important tools, the Committee strongly supports the initiative of the joint Committees on Diversity that a professional social science survey be conducted on the status of underrepresented groups in philosophy. We need to be able to determine, for example, the percentage of Hispanics that complete Ph.D.’s in philosophy who attain teaching positions, as well as how their own personal situation may affect their decision to enter the profession as teachers. We also need reliable information about Hispanic undergraduate majors, and about the "quality of life" for Hispanic faculty in philosophy departments and for graduate students. And we need to track Hispanics from their undergraduate work all the way to tenure in order to obtain accurate information of their situation in the profession.

The Committee on Hispanics has discussed the problem of underrepresention at several of its meetings, and held panels at the APA conferences in order to facilitate a discussion of the reasons for and solutions to the general problem of minority underrepresentation. On the one hand, we recognize that some of our underrepresentation is due to forces beyond the philosophy profession’s control, such as the fact that many Hispanics have family and economic considerations that weigh against the riskiness of pursuing an academic career of any type, much less philosophy. However, as Jorge Gracia has pointed out, even if this reason accounted for fully half of the disparity that exists between the percentage of Hispanic faculty and the percentage of Hispanics in the U.S. population at large, we could still increase the number of Hispanics in philosophy about ten fold.

The Committee is also concerned with the fact that most Hispanics in philosophy are foreign born, and many have grown up or spent most of their life in Latin America or the Caribbean. Thus, the percentage of U.S.-born Hispanics in philosophy is extremely low. We need to gather reliable data on this population in particular.

At the Committee-sponsored panel on Recruiting Minorities to Philosophy held recently at the Central Division and at the Eastern Division meetings, panel participants as well as members of the audience shared their views about the problem of underrepresentation as well as their experiences with recruitment. Jorge Garcia explained that in many cases the minority students he has spoken to simply lack basic knowledge about graduate school, such as the fact that funds are more available at this level than for undergraduates and the availability of minority fellowships. He also recounted that many students with whom he has discussed a career in philosophy are concerned about its lack of "real world relevance." Garcia responds to this concern with the information that philosophers are increasingly interested in political issues, ethnic studies, cultural studies, and so on, as well as that philosophy has a kind of intrinsic value. Garcia’s experience suggests that at least some of the reasons that minority students have for not pursuing philosophy are defeasible.

Howard McGary pointed out that lots of people in the philosophy profession have good will in regard to this issue, but that it is also important to act. He and Garcia have been able to garner significant resources for an institute that has been held regularly at Rutgers every summer for the last four years with the purpose of recruiting minorities into philosophy. McGary pointed out that Rutgers admitted few or no minority students before this institute, whereas in 1999 they offered admission to four very highly qualified students.

Karen Hornsby, a graduate student at Bowling Green, explained that 65–80% of Hispanic students use a community college degree as a gateway to a four year college, which indicates that application committees should guard against having prejudice against such students when they apply to graduate programs.

Many members of the audience at our panels stressed the need for a supportive context for junior faculty of color, who are usually very isolated, having moved to a new city, and yet under immense pressure. These faculty are often expected to perform the extra work of mentoring students of color and serving on many service committees for purposes of representation even while the publication expectations on them remain the same and their teaching is doubly scrutinized for how well they satisfy white students. They often feel like they are in a double bind where they are expected to "provide difference" but at the same time real differences in interests, teaching styles, or opinions on departmental matters nearly always count against them. These faculty thus have an objective need for advice and support even more than European American junior faculty yet are least likely to get it, but they fear voicing this need because it may be interpreted as the result of personal incompetence or inadequacy rather than structural difficulties. Mentoring across different colleges is a more realistic means to provide help for junior faculty of color, and would be especially important in order to create connections for those faculty who are the only minority person in their department. It was suggested that a list of faculty of color be compiled who would volunteer to help junior faculty, a suggestion that this Committee intends to pursue using its listserv. It is important for departments to understand that "one is not enough," or that hiring one person of color does not fulfill a department’s needs for diversity. Nor does it create an environment where people can do their best work.

Graduate students also spoke about the double bind they feel between not wanting to be pigeon holed into work on philosophical issues that may be relevant to their background but wanting to have the freedom and support to do such work if they so desire. They also recounted experiences of sitting in graduate seminars where senior professors made racist remarks about their racial or ethnic group in the course of lectures, of having trouble finding dissertation advisors who did not openly hold stereotyped opinions about their group, of being subject to the criticism that their cultural attributes amounted to intellectual deficiencies, and of severe feelings of isolation and alienation. Some knew brilliant people of color who left philosophy, at both the graduate school or post-Ph.D stage, because they considered the working conditions for people of color in the field to be too psychologically debilitating. The first year of study for minority graduate students can be especially stressful and alienating, and faculty should make a conscious effort to stay in touch with these students during this time.

Panelist Gary Mar argued that we need a new language to replace terms like "affirmative action" that have been strongly associated with a demand for special privileges. We need terms that will focus on the redress of discrimination. He recounted the experiences of some students of color who have been criticized as racist for wanting to explore their cultural histories and differences. He pointed out that we need to retell a more accurate story of our collective histories in order to reveal the wealth of non-European ideas and influences that have been largely written out of the official narratives. In relation to this, Jorge Gracia stressed that there is real discrimination against Latin American philosophy in the United States. To the extent that it is ever studied, it is not generally studied as philosophy at all but as history of ideas. Hispanics themselves then become fearful of pursuing an interest in this work because they are certain to then be marginalized in the profession. But in order to recruit more Hispanics and minorities in general into philosophy, Gracia believes we must develop teaching and research on our issues of interest and our philosophical traditions, not in opposition to the regular canon, but as a vital and legitimate area in its own right. It is the possibility of doing this work that will attract students of color to philosophy in larger numbers.

Recommendations

The Committee is united in the belief that the philosophy profession should take aggressive steps toward eliminating discriminatory elements within the profession itself that may inhibit Hispanic participation. A list of the steps that should be immediately taken are given below, with the rationale following:

(1) Spanish should count as a language requirement for a graduate degree in programs that have a language requirement, and students who are interested in pursuing work on Latin American philosophy should be encouraged to do so. Many graduate departments do not allow Spanish to count toward their language requirement.

Rationale: There is a great deal of philosophical work in Spanish that is untranslated. There is no legitimate reason to discount this as an area of study in favor of German or French exclusively.

(2) Latin American philosophers should be incorporated into reading lists of courses wherever relevant, and there should also be courses devoted to the study of Latin American philosophers. We hope our newsletter and Web page will make this easier by providing sample syllabi and bibliography.

Rationale: There is no uniform philosophical orientation among Latin American philosophers, so the purpose of promoting their inclusion is not to promote a particular philosophical trend. However, their manifest absence from U.S. reading lists and the extreme infrequency of translations demonstrates a pattern of discrimination against this work on the basis solely of its geographical origin.

Philosophy of all types thrives in Latin America. The Committee does not take a position on the question of whether, despite this diversity, there is still a distinct and unique "Latin American" or "Hispanic" philosophy, in terms of method or philosophical preoccupation, as we speak in the U.S. of a distinctive "American" philosophy (despite the fact that it represents a minority view even here!). This is an important debate which merits serious exploration. But whatever the outcome of this debate will be, we believe that it is important to promote Latin American philosophy because it is clear that this work has been unfairly excluded from the U.S. curriculum. The prevalent opinion one comes across in North America that not much of philosophical interest is going on south of the border is not based on any direct knowledge. Those who know the work know better.

We also believe that the work of Latin American philosophers can make a special contribution to the profession in general, since it provides sustained considerations of questions about the relationship of philosophy to culture and history as well as questions about transitional justice, the critique of Eurocentrism in western philosophical traditions, and many more important issues. Thus, the introduction of this work in a more regular way will enhance the quality of philosophy in North America for everyone.

(3) Philosophical work on questions relevant to U.S. Hispanics should be encouraged, such as issues concerning Hispanic identity, race, immigration, transitional justice, global ethical concerns, nationalism, cultural identity, and so on.

Rationale: This rationale is similar to the one given in (2). The interests of U.S. Hispanic philosophers are as broad and diverse as the profession as a whole. However, there has been a pattern of neglect of these issues which should be remedied because (a) they have intrinsic philosophical value and (b) the development of good work in these areas will hopefully find its way into undergraduate philosophy classes and thus demonstrate to some of the Hispanic students that their interests of concern can be usefully addressed with philosophical methods.

(4) The APA needs to ensure that all of its program related committees have representation of experts in the fields discussed in points (2) and (3). To date, there is no advisory panel for Latin American philosophy in the Eastern Division, and the representatives for the non-Western philosophy advisory panel have no expertise in this area.

Rationale: Same as for (2) and (3).

(5) The APA Board needs to create a new standing committee whose mission will be to promote the representation of underrepresented minorities in the profession.

Rationale: The main work on diversity going on under the auspices of the APA has been the creation and support for the diversity committees and the newsletters that some of these committees have developed. This has been a crucial development in the profession, and no doubt shares the credit for the noticeable diversification at the conferences from the racial uniformity that existed just twenty years ago. But the problem we see is this: the work for diversity is being initiated and promoted by the diversity committees and other people of color in the profession. This exacerbates the sense some European Americans have that these appear as special interest groups clamoring for special privileges for their constituencies rather than organizations doing the work of the APA as a whole. Such views are apparent in the recent survey of opinions conducted by the Hanson Committee. In order to redress this problem, we believe that the creation of a Standing Committee would signal the association’s determination to develop diversity in the profession, as well as potentially provide concrete measures toward that end. Only Standing Committee chairs are members of the APA Board, and thus these committees have more clout.

The job of diversification cannot be left to the Diversity Committees, who have full agendas of their own. Though each Diversity Committee works to increase representation in some ways, these efforts need coordination and development. Most importantly, the APA itself should take responsibility to redress the problem of underrepresentation and not leave it to the very few minorities who have made it into the profession and who are often the most stretched members of college faculties because of the tremendous need for their services on committees, mentoring, and in other ways.

Conclusion

There is no reason to believe that the problem of underrepresentation cannot be solved. However, it is clear from our surveys that the problem will not rectify itself by a gradual process of evolution without active intervention. Some graduate programs like the University of Memphis have had astounding successes in faculty and student recruitment through the use of some of the methods mentioned here. The Rutgers Institute should become the nucleus of a national effort organized by the APA itself. The profession has an obligation to remedy its history of discrimination through an aggressive program of self-study and proactive efforts, and there is now ample reason to believe, based on some successful programs, that such efforts will have results.

At the same time, as Jorge Gracia has argued, Hispanics in the profession should not restrict their efforts to agitating for change in the profession as a whole, but should develop their own work on Latin American philosophy and philosophical issues of interest to Hispanics and work to create and sustain their own networks and their own scholarship. We can learn from the tremendous influx of feminist philosophy and African American philosophy in the last few years that a development of our own work can create and sustain a rich philosophical community.