For example, historian Roman Szporluk is looking at how Ukrainians came to think of themselves as Ukrainians and not Russians. As opposed to having everyone in ethnic studies at one site in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences so that everybody else can forget about the subject. Several departments have chosen to act, including Government, Sociology, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Afro- American Studies, and Music. And that suggests that the model of having discipline-based departments is good for generating new appointments and courses in ethnic studies. The second issue is whether it would make sense intellectually to have a department of ethnic studies.
Ethnic studies is a subject within a wide variety of disciplines.
And the way that most Harvard faculty do their work best is from within disciplines. If your interest is in ethnomusicology, you're probably very well served by studying in the Music Department. If you're interested in immigrant adaptation in communities, chances are you can do that best in the Sociology or Government departments. It's sort of like taking a fish out of water. It also would remove people from departments where they can interact with those who work on similar subjects in many parts of the world.