Third World Liberation Front strikes of 1968

The Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) rose in 1968 as a coalition of ethnic student groups on college campuses in California in response to the Eurocentric education and lack of diversity at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) and University of California, Berkeley.^[1] The TWLF was instrumental in creating and establishing Ethnic Studies and other identity studies as majors in their respective schools and universities across the United States.^[2][3]

At the end of the American Civil Rights Movement, the combined determination of the Latin American Student Organization (LASO), the Black Student Union (BSU), the Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action (ICSA), the Mexican American Student Confederation, the Philippine (now Pilipino) American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE),^[4] La Raza, the Native American Students Union, and later the Asian American Political Alliance galvanized California and the rest of the nation with the first student strike, bringing to light the need for wider perspective within educational disciplines.^[5][6][3][7] The TWLF strikes for Ethnic Studies in California drew the attention of the universities' administrative leaders as well as the attention of the Governor of California Ronald Reagan. The student strikes to establish these courses started in 1968 and lasted for several months. The establishment of the first College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State, the first Ethnic Studies Department at Berkeley, increased hiring of faculty of color, and efforts to increase minority representation on college campuses all resulted from the actions of the Third World Liberation Front.^[7][8]