Who wears the “A”?
Despite the gains for the Civil Rights, Women’s, Chicano, and Gay and Lesbian Rights Movements in this country, many groups are still marginalized by mainstream culture.  In our schools and communities, people are still held back by barriers due to their ethnicity, race, religion, gender, age, immigrant status, educational status, physical ability, and/or sexual behavior.  Students will read about one example of this in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1.1.11, 1.3.11 A-C, F). Other works highlighted in this course also explore the theme of institutionalized discrimination – Lorene Carey’s The Price of Child (racism) and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (gender and sexual behavior as well as its allegorical references to political discrimination.)