The Multicultural Education Debate in America America has long been called "the Melting Pot" due to the fact that it is made up of a diverse mix of races, cultures and ethnicities. As more immigrants come to America in search of a better life, the population naturally becomes more diverse. This gave rise to a great debate on multiculturalism. Some of the issues criticized are who benefits from education and how to present the material in a way that offends as few people as possible. There are many variations on these themes, as we will see later in this article. In the 1930s, several educators called for cultural diversity programs that encouraged ethnic and minority students to study their respective heritages. This is not a simple task, as there is great diversity within different cultures. A 1990 census shows that the U.S. population has changed more noticeably in the past ten years than at any other time in the 20th century, with one in four Americans identifying as black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, or Indian. America (Gould 198). The number of foreign-born residents also reached a record high of twenty million, easily surpassing the 1980 record of fourteen million. Most people, from educators to philosophers, agree that an important first step in successfully joining multiple cultures is developing an understanding of each person's origins. But the similarities end there. A problem lies in the definition of the term “multiculturalism”. When we take this simply to mean the existence of a culturally integrated society, many people have no problem. However, when you go beyond that and try to suggest a different way to achieve a culturally integrated society, everyone seems to have a different opinion on what will work. Since education is the root of the problem, it might be appropriate to use an example in this context. Although the debate at Stanford University was much deeper than I can hope to address in this article, the root of the problem was this: In 1980, Stanford University developed a program - later known as the “Multicultural Program at Stanford.” which aimed to familiarize students with the traditions, philosophy, literature and history of the West. The program included 15 required books by writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Thomas Aquinas, Marx and Freud..