In this talk, I tie together two veins of my scholarly agenda: Whiteness in Higher Education and Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies. In particular, I qualitatively explore the racial ideologies and experiences of White male undergraduates to understand racial socialization and its relation to college campus environments. I then juxtapose this with my extended involvement in the resistance to the state of Arizona banning Mexican American studies. Through this work, where I served as the lead statistician on the program’s efficacy (and eventual expert witness in the federal trial), I will offer both the need for and potential of this form of anti-racist education to address some persistent issues at the intersection of race and education.

Dr. Nolan Cabrera is a nationally-recognized expert in the areas of racism/anti-racism on college campuses, Whiteness, and ethnic studies. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona, and was the only academic featured in the MTV documentary White People. His book, White Guys on Campus, is a deep exploration of White male racism, and occasional anti-racism, on college campuses – a text Jeff Chang (author of We Gon’ Be Alright) described as “A timely, provocative, even hopeful book.” Additionally, Dr. Cabrera was an expert witness in the Tucson Unified Mexican American Studies case (Gonzalez v. Douglas), which is the highest-profile ethnic studies case in the country’s history.  He has given hundreds of lectures, keynote addresses, and trainings, throughout the country on challenging racism/Whiteness, working through unconscious bias, creating inclusive college campuses, and the expansion of ethnic studies programs. Dr. Cabrera is an award-winning scholar whose numerous publications have appeared in some of the most prestigious journals in the fields of education and racial studies. He completed his graduate work at UCLA in Higher Education & Organizational Change and Dr. Cabrera earned his BA from Stanford University in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (Education focus). He is a former Director of a Boys & Girls Club in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is originally from McMinnville, Oregon.