I&#x27;m inclined to think that university departments are really sets of social norms: agreements about what the canonical texts are, ideas about what methods and tools should be used, and, of course, the kinds of phenomena they study. Among other things.<p>So it&#x27;s hard turn up at the philosophy department and insist they start teaching Indian philosophy because no one there will really know about it. It&#x27;s not the intellectual project the staff at the department have elected to study.  You could, and I think should, nudge them to broaden their cultural horizons where possible. Links with other cultures should absolutely be explored. (This is a lovely short podcast on Hume and this possibility he was responding to Buddhist thought - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;philosophybites.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;09&#x2F;alison-gopnik-on-hume-and-buddhism.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;philosophybites.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;09&#x2F;alison-gopnik-on-hume-and...</a>)<p>At the same time, philosophy departments have a problem because - at least for analytic philosophy - it&#x27;s a huge hierarchy of interlocking thoughts that you can only access by learning a large body of fundamentals. So any attempt to broaden the curriculum will necessarily prevent students getting to many of the most interesting ideas within the discipline. Especially because such a wide variety of though is colloquially designated philosophy. What is the connection between the Bhagavad Gita and Russell and Whitehead? Students would end up knowing virtually nothing about everything.<p>As for gender equality in philosophy departments - that&#x27;s a whole other issue. Of course they should strive for gender equality. But they can&#x27;t stop teaching the thoughts of dead white men to achieve it any more than the physics department ought to stop teaching Newton to increase diversity. You can&#x27;t ask a whole subject area to radically shift it&#x27;s focus to ensure balanced demographics in the students taking it. That&#x27;s not fair to anyone.