








s. The proponents of the new politics talk well of civil rights, equal opportunity, economic justice, and other beautiful themes. But the new politics, in distinguishing "legitimate" minorities (blacks Chicanos, native Americans) from "less favored" minor-
ities (Italians, Slavs, Orthodox Jews, Irish, etc.), has set up punitive and self-defeating mechanisms. The new politics has needlessly divided working-class blacks from work-ing-dass whites, in part by a romance (on television) with militance and flamboyance, in part by racial discrimination in favor of some against others, not because of need but because of color.
The second part of this response is that the politics of "the constituency of conscience" (as Michael Harrington, Eugene McCarthy, and others have called
it)-the politics of the liberal, the educated the enhght-ened-is less advantageous to blacks than is the politics of the new ethnicity. The new politics is less advantageous to blacks because it is obsessed with racial differenc , and approaches these through the ineffectual enses guilt and moralism. Second, it is blind to ences among blacks, as well as to cultural di e^n among whites; and sometimes these are si^unca ' Third, it unconsciously but effectively keeps blac s in position of a small racial minority outnumbere in population ten to one.	. .,.
By contrast, the new ethnicity notes many ot er sign:11 cant differences besides those based upon race, defines political and social problems in ways t a 1101 diverse groups around common objectives. In ' for example, neither Poles nor Italians are represente o the boards or in the executive suites of Chicago s op corporations in a higher proportion than blacks or a inos all are of one per cent or less.* In Boston, net white ethnics nor blacks desire busing, but this g y ideological instrument of social change is supporte m just those affluent liberals-in such suburbs as broo -line and Newton whose children will not be invo v The new ethnic politics would propose a sJate8y social rewards better garbage pickup, more ea y priced and orderly schools, long-range guaran ees home mortgages, easier access to federally insure  Wement loans, and other services-for neign boods that integrate. As a neighborhood moves from^say, a ten per cent population of blacks to twenty per c m re, integration should be regulated so that long- g community stability is guaranteed. It is better long-range to have a large number of neighborhoods intend up to twenty or thirty per-cent than to encour
 Cf/^---------
in the E J RePresentation of Poles, Italians, Latins, and Blacks The Instih^^6 bu*tes  f Chicago's Largest Corporations." ChicaBn w-e of urban Life, 820 North Michigan Avenue, 8 / Illinois 60611
37. New Ethnicity
age even by inadvertence a series of sudden flights and virtually total migrations. Institutional racism is a reality; the massive migration of blacks into a neighborhood does not bring with it social rewards but, almost exclusively, punishments.
There are other supposed disadvantages to emphasis upon ethnicity. Ethnicity, it is said, is a fundamentally counter-rational, primordial, uncontrollable social force; it leads to hatred and violence; it is the very enemy of enlightenment, rationality, and liberal politics. But this is to confuse nationalism or tribalism with cultural heritage. Because a man's name is Russell, or Ayer, or Flew, we would not wish to accuse him of tribalism on the ground that he found the Britons a uniquely civilized and clearheaded people, thought the Germans ponderous and mystic, the French philosophically romantic, etc. A little insular, we might conclude, but harmlessly ethnocentric. And if it is not necessarily tribalistic or unenlightened to read English literature in American schools, just possibly it would be even more enlightened and even less tribalistic to make other literatures, germane to the heritage of other Americans, more accessible than they are.
The United States is, potentially, a multiculturally at-tuned society. The greatest number of immigrants in recent years arrives from Spanish-speaking and Asian nations. But the nation's cultural life, and its institutions of culture, are far from being sensitive to the varieties of the American people. Why should a cultural heritage not their own be imposed unilaterally upon newcomers? Would not genuine multicultural adaptation on the part of all be more cosmopolitan and humanistic? It would be quite significant in international affairs. The Americans would truly be a kind of prototype of planetary diversity.
Some claim that cultural institutions will be fragmented if every ethnic group in America clamors for attention. But the experience of the Illinois curriculum in ethnic studies suggests that no one school represents more than four or five ethnic groups (sometimes fewer) in significant density. With even modest adjustments in courses in history, literature, and the social sciences, material can be introduced that illuminates inherited patterns of family life, values; and preferences. The purpose for introducing multicultural materials is neither chauvinistic nor propagandistic but realistic. Education ought to illuminate what is happening in the self of each child.
What about the child of the mixed marriage, the child of no ethnic heritage the child of the melting pot? So much in the present curriculum already supports such a child that the only possible shock to arise from multicultural materials would appear to be a beneficial one: not all others in America are like him (her), and that diversity as well as homogenization, has a place in America.
The practical agenda that faces proponents of the new ethnicity is vast, indeed. At the heights of American
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7. ETHNIC LEGACY
group studying	 
In patterns of home ownership, family income, wor patterns care for the aged, political activism, authontar-fanism individualism, and matters of ultimate concern, group differences are remarkable. About all these things, more information is surely needed. Appropriate social policies need to be hypothesized, tried, and evaluated*
Ethnic diversity in the United States persists m the consciousness of individuals, in their perceptions, preferences, behavior, even while mass production and mass communications homogenize our outward appearances. Some regard such persistence as a personal failure; they would prefer to "transcend" their origins, or perhaps they believe that they have. Here two questions arise. What cultural connection do they have with their brothers and sisters still back in Montgomery, or Wheel-
ing, or Skokie, or Pawtucket? Second, has 1 assimilation introduced into the great Ameri ture fresh streams of image, myth, symbol intellectual life? Has anything distinctive! formed in them by a history longer thai years been added to the common wisdoi The new ethnicity does not stand for the of America. It stands for a true, real, multic politanism. It points toward a common altered by each new infusion of diversity, common culture has been relatively resist transformation; it has not so much arisen f of all as been imposed; the melting pot 1 single recipe. That is why at present the   seems to have become discredited, shattei able. Its cocoon has broken. Struggling t creature of multicultural beauty, dazzling and richer form of life. It was fashioned darkness of the melting pot and now, at time, it awakens.
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Article 38
Italian Americans as a Cognizable Racial Group
Dominic R. Massaro
Dominic Massaro is a Justice of the Supreme Court of New York. A "Grande Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana," he is chairman emeritus of The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian-American Organizations. In 1991 his treatise, Cesare Beccaria The Father of Criminal Justice: His Impact on Anglo-American Jurisprudence (Prescia: International UP, W, garnered Italy's International Dorso Prize. Justice Massaro is the representative of the American Judges Association to the United Nations.
Italian Americans are a cognizable raci	  .
poses of the scope and application of civi rig s This view is confirmed by the sophistication o soci cal definition and historical evidence, which in legal analysis and judicial interpretation. ere number of citations, quotes, and references to w ic allude, including a limited amount of previous s ship. Let me note at the onset that Italian me ' more often than not, take umbrage at beingTselaw minority group. Yet, a review of the releyan ca suggests that in no other manner can they  P success in advancing legal claims that allege 1S< 	.
tion on the basis of national origin. Traditional y rights legislation has provided virtually no pr0 against this form of discrimination. t e ecu Scelsa v. the City University of New York last November in Federal District Court in a hereinafter referred to as Scelsa accents t e s , steady erosion of the artificial distinction between and "national origin" that has heretofore giveni ethnic minorities, including Italian Americans,   different treatment under the law, as wnttenor As an aside, you should be aware of w a i tg
W view of Scelsa. In my position [as] Hum	bfr of
Commissioner, and in response to a growing complaints, I threatened mandamus against November 1971; that is, I mandated that it retease statistical breakdown of Americans o aia employed throughout the university sys e _ ojce Years later, while on the bench as a non-par is	by jerome
- ;n a Multicultural So&ew
This article first appeared in  aten	Reprinted by permission.
1994, pp. 44-55.   1994 by Forum italicum,
was invited to chair the Legislative Advisory Committee on Urban Public Higher Education. The Committee's central charge was to investigate and suggest redress for discrimination against Italian Americans at CUNY Its final report, rendered 12 September 1991, contained a series of recommendations utilizing the special expertise of CUNY's Italian American Institute aimed at "under-scorfing] the University's commitment to the richness of diversity." Within a year, as the Scelsa Court observed that CUNY sought "to sever the outreach, counseling and research aspects of the Institute . . . [and] shunt aside its
Director."
However, what I found particularly disturbing was that, despite two intervening decades, only negligible changes had been made to remedy the woeful underrepresentation of Italian Americans in the work force. The release of these earlier statistics became the underpinning for critical reportage, academic study, the designation of Italian Americans as an affirmative action category by CUNY (the so-called Kibbee Memorandum), and legislative inquiry. The latter culminated in public hearings and provided the backdrop for the establishment of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of CUNY in 1979.
From a purely legal perspective, Scelsa presents us with a precedent-making judicial grant of extraordinary relief to Italian Americans; not only did the case galvanize Italian-American organizations, it placed the Italian American Legal Defense and Higher Education Fund that handled the action in the forefront of civil rights activity. By its very nature, injunctive relief is an extraordinary remedy; it is grounded in equity; that is, it is responsive to the demands of justice and right conscience. The manner in which it was granted and the fact that it was granted by the Scelsa Court is significant. A colleague stated it rather succinctly; namely, that the decision "is a delight to those who are sympathetic to the plaintiffs' position and a nightmare to those favoring the defendants."
The petitioner, Dr. Joseph V Scelsa, filed the action in both an individual and representative capacity (as director of the Calandra Institute). As dual plaintiff, he sought to bar CUNY from accomplishing three things: (1) "from employment discrimination against Italian Americans";
Krase and Judith N. DeSena,
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7. ETHNIC LEGACY

