Proponents of diversity have not done a good job explaining why diversity should be valued. Too often, diversity is taken to be an intrinsic good so that insitutions refelcting diversity are thought to be necessarily better regardless of context. I'm sorry, but given a choice of studying in a department composed entirely of Nobel prize-winning males of Western European descent, or a diverse faculty fully representative of the world's population, I'm not picking the latter. All else being equal, diversity is probably better than homogeneity-- but all else is rarely equal. I think there are better arguments for diversity than its intrinsic value:

In a democratic society composed of numerous and somtimes overlapping communities defined in multiple ways (e.g., ethnicity, gender, etc.) everyone's sense of justice requires that the best and brightest of their communities are able to attain desirable outcomes. Communities so denied will not long contribute productively to society.

It is well and good to believe that we should be judged on our individual merits (I wish it were so); but if no one who comes from your neigborhood, or who looks, acts, or believes like you ever succeeds, it is hard to believe that you have a chance. "Diversity" is valuable in a diverse society because it is necessary to motiviate people to positively participate in the larger community.

"Nobel prize-winning males of Western European descent" -- like Albert Camus, Nobel laureate in literature from France: "Pied-Noir" (literally, "black foot") born and raised in colonized Algeria on the African continent of a single-parenting, hearing-impaired Spanish mother, his French father having died in war a year after his birth.

Diversity has a habit of showing up in all sorts of unexpected places....

Too much of what we see in "diversity" initiatives at all levels tends to focus not on equal opportunity, but equal results. That's a page right out of the playbook of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, which frankly didn't work too well for most people.

Most of us advocating the need for "diversity" would welcome true "equal opportunity." However, that would require us to provide all women with equal access to good prenatal care, families with the time and education required to prepare their children for good pre-school opportunities, as well as safe and healthy neighborhoods to run and play and interact with other similarly well-provided children; strong pre-schools with well-paid and educated staff; schools and high schools with the funds and knowledge to provide an "equal" education to that of suburban high schools with a strong financial property base...Unless and until we can guarantee equal access to these essential elements of strong college preparation we will continue to expect super-human effort from those students of unequal socioeconomic background to make it to college, and succeed at enormous personal cost. Yes, I want to see equal results, because all too often the students who succeed in arriving at the doors of our institutions have fought incredible odds to make it and deserve something resembling a true equal opportunity to achieve equal results.

If the pseudo-self-reliant types really believed what they say about hard work, individual effort, etc., they'd be in favor of--and maybe even initiate legislation for--a 100 percent personal inheritance tax.* Call it the No Silver Spoon Left Behind Act. Everybody would start out equal on the proverbial level playing field. But the ones who shout loudest about no affirmative action, no government handouts, etc., tend to be the ones who already have jobs, health insurance, decent schools in their neighborhoods and the vast white-people-are-comfortable-hiring-white-people network on their side.

* OK, exceptions for medical emergencies and maybe a small grubstake for first-and-last and a security deposit on a small apartment or a trailer. But other than that little Steinbrenner, Trump, Buckley (and yes, Kennedy and Bush), you're on your own.

In response to the first commenter's "all else being equal" formula, it's true that "all else" is (almost by definition) never "equal," but part of the point of diversity initiatives is to examine the ways in which the traditions and conventions of academic hiring practices, admissions criteria, etc., systematically select for one particular set of success markers (which are more likely to be the birthright of white middle-class males than of female, gender-transgressive, non-white, or socioeconomically underprivileged candidates), and thus ACTIVELY blind selection committees to talent that shows itself in other ways.

In terms of concrete hiring practices, institutions have made a concerted effort to broaden and deepen the applicant pool for any given job (by, among other things, thinking creatively about advertising venues rather than relying solely on the main newsletter of the discipline in question) and to think in advance about their criteria for identifying a promising candidate. They avoid inadvertent bias in favour of privileged applicants (which militates against diversity) by sitting down ahead of time -- before looking at the applications -- to consider the ways in which various factors such as international experience, triumph over particular institutionalized hindrances, interesting work that defies easy categorization (and thus inclusion in "top" establishment journals) might serve as markers of professional success, as well as ways in which scholars in interdisciplinary or nontraditional fields might fit the bill as well as or better than scholars with a PhD in the "classic" version of the discipline.

I've noticed that in the past couple of years, the word "diversity" has become somewhat like what "politically correct" had become by 15 or 20 years ago -- a term from elite-culture ideology that mainstream people find to be a useful and maximally concise summary of that ideology. They therefore use it sarcastically or satirically in expressing their dissent from that ideology.

In the online versions of my local (New York City) daily papers (not the NY Times, of course, most of whose readers are members of the elite-ideology congregation), I've noted in the last year or so that some commenters on local news stories will often comment on a crime story recounting an especially garish situation involving let's say less-than-optimal behavior by people not of northwest-European descent, by simply psoting the sarcastic four-word comment "Diversity is our strength."

I assume their point is that people who are rah-rah or sloganeer about what American culture calls minorities are koolaid drinkers who are out of touch with "how things really are." I suspect they also calculate that welloff, wellplaced people who champion "diversity" are basically signalling: "We don't care if middleclass Italian-Americans or Irish-Americans drop dead or do badly in their lives, because the overriding priority to us is that, as already-welloff people with status, we can now posture our supposed benevolence at minimal cost to ourselves by verbally advocating better treatment of the less welloff who are of different backgrounds than we are. We therefore show how openminded and caring we are. If we are ever in a position to fill a desirable job, we will if at all possible act on our verbal assertions, at no cost to our own status, by hiring or promoting someone from a non-Euro background, to the exclusion of people of European background with their own desires or ambitions. You people can drop dead, so I can look good, and feel good about myself. And of course that's *sooooo verrrry* different from the prejudices and exclusions and glass ceilings of decades prior to the 1960s."

Yes, it's hard to imagine why people of European background would support this mentality unless they are already more than comfortable in their own socioeconomic position, and it therefore seems to them that it's no skin off their nose.

When a given term has become a maximally concise reference point for criticism of the point of view it represents, my guess would be that it the rest of society has pretty effectively decoded it, and is no longer cowed by or under its spell. That means it's long past its sell-by date as useful propaganda, and really has lost its utility as a possibly argument-shaping or arguing-controlling card to play.

I guess I'm a tad disappointed by the framing of this post. I think I expected Dr. Jackson to present the issue in more - dare I say - intellectual terms. Starting the conversation with an opinion piece from such an anti-intellectual as Santorum really doesn't get the conversation anywhere. Santorum's piece us basically a test shot in an effort to use affirmative action as a scape goat for the tragedy at Fort Hood. Of course, the entire piece rides on the presumption that Hasan was "allowed" into the military for diversity reasons. So far I've seen no evidence that was the case. Most diversity initiatives in this country focus on the "traditional" American minorities (Black, Hispanics and Native Americans). That said, I know there's been a significant effort since 9/11 to recruit individual's of Middle Eastern decent largely for their knowledge of those linguistic and cultural specificities.

Dr. Jackson, if you really want to engage in a conversation about "what's happened to diversity in academe," perhaps you shouldn't start by pointing to the musings of someone who has no connection to academe - and in fact has spent the better part of is "career" being a slave to an extreme right agenda. Of course he's going to be against diversity, unless of course you're talking about Clarence Thomas or Michael Steele - but that wasn't a quota, that was picking the most qualified person.

rbrunson56 - actually outcomes is where the right consistent critiques so-called diversity initiatives. The locus of the debate is supposed to be on equal opportunity - which includes an equal opportunity to fail. This is where things get sticky around the ideal of a mismatch theory - that if you allow this underqualified minorities into higher ed, they're going to underperform, and therefore it's a waste of time. The counter point that McPherson and Bowen make in Crossing the Finish Line - so what if these kids graduate with less than 4.0's; they're graduating and ending up being rather successful in life, not to mention the value added to the institution (as articulated earlier in Shape of the River).

gmd1057 - I actually agree with you to a certain extent to how the use of "diversity" has in fact diluted it's power. I work for an organization where diversity has come to mean so much that it is essentially meaningless. What folks keep forgetting to talk about (usually intentionally) is race and racism. And yes, I agree that so-called diversity initiatives give elite Whites a salve for their own prejudices. That said, I think your point about the posters at the New York Post is actually evidence of an increasing willingness on the part of whites to use their own set of code words to camouflage their own racism. "Don't you see what 'those people' are capable of?" Which is essentially the same point that Santorum is making - if it weren't for affirmative action, then that (alleged) yahoo rag-head named Hasan wouldn't have had the opportunity to shot anyone at Fort Hood.

A very interesting article, indeed. Thanks for providing a forum for civil conversation. It leaves me with two key questions: Is diversity "the problem" or is the challenge related to the fact so many highly educated people currently lack the appropriate skill sets to manage cultural conflict and differences.

If we view this challenge through the lens of competency, higher education is at the center of the debate. (What do we need to know about each other? Why haven't we taken time to learn it?)
Two years ago I took a rescue dog home from the shelter. The dog was misbehaving terribly (terrorizing me, if you will) so we enrolled -- together - in a dog training class.

If we use the diversity critics' favorite argument, we would say rescue dogs are a big problem. And then we would talk endlessly about what a great problem they are. A cultural competency advocate, however would suggest to me my lack of skill and understanding of dog behavior might have contributed to those mishaps.

So my dog and I went to school. I learned how to talk to my dog dog and my dog learned how to listen. My mixed chow-chow now has a vocabulary of more than 60 English words. (I'm teaching her Spanish because we live in Texas.)

Let's apply these lessons to the military. Was the Army's key breakdown related to the fact it seeks and values diversity of thought and experience? Or was it related to the fact some of its executives lacked the skills to manage diversity and evaluate intelligence well and wisely? The investigation will make that determination.
Dogs, which are said to have the intelligence level of a 2-year-old, can learn human communicaton, read our body language and tolerate our differences.
No doubt college-educated executives are capable of meeting this challenge as well. Education is the answer to so many of our diversity difficulties.

Part of my point was that if one (e.g., the current educated elite) lives by the shallow selfserving slogan, then one really can't complain about dying by the shallow selfserving slogan. Generalizations (whether pro-"diversity", or for or against any given group(s)) are all flawed. Their goal is to encapsulate a simplified or reduced tendency, and use it to achieve goals, manage perceptions, or (may I ironically employ elite-ideology "theory" jargon?) police discourse.

But since any recognized (and, in fact, socially constructed and hence somewhat subjective) "group" is made up of many individuals with many different traits, it follows that to get closer to how things are, in the sum total of their detail, one has to deal in more nuanced fashion with aggregate empirical reality.

If one really wishes to approach more closely to the totality of how things are among 300 million Americans (all of them with major overlaps, but no two identical), let alone billions of people worldwide, look into would-be fair (not agenda-ized) statistics, rather than sloganeering that "all diversity is good", or "minorities co-called consitute social problems." CSNY lyric: "Singin songs and carryin signs, mostly say hooray for our side."

The point of being an academic as a unique and necessary social role is to try to help understand things less imperfectly. If you are rooting for and against socially constructed groups (whose definitions and prominence academics have in fact greatly contributed in the last half century, as part of their llok-good agenda), then functionally you aren't an academic ( = you're not wissenschaftlich, to use the German terminology at the root of modern academia).

Instead, you are a just a wannabe politician who would like to have soi-disant "benevolent" control over masses of other people, while meanwhile being unfortunately lacking in the charisma, or stamina, or even basic decisivness, to run and win an election.

I think that diversity can be taken to extremes. My daughter is a freshman in college. She had HS classmate who was originally from South Africa (white family) who moved to Mexico for 2 years and then moved to US. This student put down on college application she was African and Hispanic. There seems to be no checking to see if an applicant is just taking advantage of the need to have diversity to get admitted into schools that might not have normally accepted her.

"What's wrong with diversity?" as one poster above asked? Nothing. The problem starts when it becomes a quest, and is treated as a virtue. There is nothing wrong with diversity, it's only when we start "working for it," striving for it," or "making it our number one priority," as a local college president said recently, that it becomes silly, stupid waste of resources.

In the US American schema, the smallest minority is the self, but diversity proponents argue that the smallest minority are collectives (cultural groups, sexual orientation groups,religious groups, ad infinitum). True, some cultural groups have a self-concept that includes others, but not all do. Trying to enforce the same schema on all members of society inherently is unfair to some people.

The US experiment is about the individual being the smallest minority. Like the army of one, the smallest culture is one. This is where our notion of egalitarian treatment becomes an obsession.

Too often, diversity means minimizing differences so that we all see how we're the same on the inside. That's a load of bupkus. Every individual is different, even within cultural groups.

IS THE QUESTION HOW DO PROPONENTS OF DIVERSITY COUNTER DETRACTORS OF DIVERSITY?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, why should advocates of diversity be "countering" (or be in a reactive mode)? Generally, strong proponents of strong, nutritious ideas or hypotheses state or propose them proactively.

Jackson says, "We know what the detractors think, but how do diversity proponents counter. Santorum lays out a version of diversity's defense in his piece, a version that seems pretty accurate to me (and woefully, as Santorum would agree, insufficient)."

In other words, Jackson regards the former US senator's "version of diversity's defense" as seemingly "pretty accurate" but "woefully" "insufficient."

In light of the preceding statement, one would then expect Jackson to provide a supplementary (or perhaps, a "complementary") "defense" of diversity, but he does not.... What follows instead?: a series of strategic or surrogate rhetorical questions, which appear to cloak a need for a positive or strong and direct analytical "defense" of diversity? Is this ironic strategy part of the fear to be who or what one is? Isn't the fear to assert what something is or who one is an admission of the weakness of the what or the who? Yes, the diversity question centrally involves politics but its intellectual or academic analysis should not proceed just politically. At its best an analysis of diversity should encompass and surpass the politics of diversity, especially politics that sublimates. The academic or intellectual matrix of diveristy, not the politics, should drive the engine of diversity for diversity to have an enduring, productive role in the academy. Such a matrix of diversity co-opts intellectual diversity. Otherwise, the "defenders" of diversity will continue to wage their battles seasonally or ad hoc (everyday, every night, every month, year after year). (Dr. okhamafe).

Re #14:

You know, I plumb forgot that the "US experiment" (not to be confused with the Tuskegee experiment) is all about individuals. As in the original Constitution, when some individuals were deemed to count as 3/5ths of a person--and the Framers named them all! Or when the Emancipation Proclamation named each and every slave to be freed. Or when the Asian Exclusion Act--the longest piece of legistlation in U.S. history at 346,079 pages--named every one of the Chinese who weren't allowed to enter the country. And all those years up to 1920, when individuals with vaginas weren't allowed to vote, the Government kept a list of them, and examined each name before every single one was denied suffrage. (Just a coincidence that there were so many Dorothys and Samanthas and no Jebs or Ebeneezers.) Or as in the South, up until the mid-60s, when certain "individuals" were required to use certain drinking fountains. Why, even now, the Government grants limited extra sovereignty to certain "individuals" living mostly on reservations in the West. And many individuals aren't allowed to marry because, well, individually they don't have the right.

The only thing we should tolerate is meritocracy. A person either has the mental horsepower or a person does not have the mental horsepower.

Diversity is a lot like happiness. It's not something you should actually seek. You can - and should - do everything you can to insure that nothing prevents it, but that's about as far as it goes. Diversity only has value and importance when it occurs naturally. If diversity is the number one goal of an educational institution, then what happens to teaching and learning? Is there anyone here who thinks teaching and learning should be anything less than number one? If diversity is the number one priority of the military, then what happens to national security? The mistake, as I said, is trying to create or force diversity.

For Gox. . . You're a hoot! Your posts on this thread read like a progressive handbook. All the same, tired whining. It's pretty sad. I mean, the only thing you haven't complained about was the Flu Pandemic of 1918. Same tired nonsense. And btw, us self reliant types also believe in property rights, so your redistributionist death tax nonsense from #5 doesn't play.

Re #18:

That my "posts on this thread read like a progressive handbook" is, I assume, supposed to be an insult. But it's not, just as my saying that livefreeordie2's comments "read like a conservative handbook."

There's no whining in either #5 or #16. They're both criticisms of pseudo-self-reliant conservatives who, down deep (or maybe not so down deep) fear a level (or leveled) playing field for "individual effort" almost as much as they fear a public option in health care.

#5 merely proposes that everybody start at the same starting line with roughly the same equipment and that the outcome of the race actually be determined by "individual effort" and not by inherited head starts. It would honor property rights--you can do whatever you want with your property as along as you're alive--but you couldn't, to mix my sports metaphors here, have your kid born on third base so he can claim he hit a triple. Of course, it's a Swiftian proposal, with no chance at all of ever being enacted. It's meant only to expose the hypocrisy of pseudo-self-reliant conservatives who think they've autonomously "earned" everything they've got. And to make the likes of livefreeordie2 rise to the bait, which he ever-dependably does.

#14 merely specifies some of the ways in which this country has decided, and continues to decide things, not on the basis of "the individual," but on the basis of class--race, sex, and sexual orientation being primary among them. (I should have included how "The Greatest Generation" in America fought the biggest war in the history of humanity with completely segregated armed forces). No whining there, just a sardonic recounting of history to rebut #14's rather rose-colored view of "the U.S. experiment [being] about the individual being the smallest minority."

falzf - Is that you Gox? Change your name, eh? Well, good for you. I like it. . it's so much more - I don't know - descriptive of your ideas.

Like all modern liberals, you judge everything by status or by possessions or by group membership. You don't understand that it's not who you are when you start out, but who you become that's important. For you, it's always about watching everyone else and seeing what they have or who they are and feeling like they had the advantage over you and isn't life so unfair. It's really too bad. . .

Now, now, children (how's that for paternalism) ... Provocative piece, that has provoked discussion, debate, and ... passion. The trouble with 'diversity' is ... it is too often used as 'code,' divorced from any straightforward meaning. Diversity doesn't mean true diversity of viewpoint, it means ... affirmative action, or ... you name it. And it has become dangerously deceptive when it is identified as the 'number one' goal of any institution -- as already noted, education should be number one for an educational institution, military/defense should be number one for a military/defense institution, and so on. Others have commented elsewhere that colleges in the US are among the least diverse on one metric -- political affiliation. The split among the general population is approximately 1/3 registered Democrat, 1/3 Republican, and 1/3 independent/other. And yet, surveys consistently report that academia is overwhelmingly registered as Democrats -- in many departments, there isn't a single registered Republican! Whatever happened to independence of thought? Disclaimer - I was a registered Democrat for many years (previously Peace & Freedom Party in California), and have just announced my independence by registering as an Independent. If academia truly reflected the US populace, we would have rich & poor; black, white, red, yellow, brown skin colors; a roughly equal number of men & women (now 40/60 in undergraduate level); and ... roughly equal numbers of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents/other. Not until then can academia make any supportable claim for diversity ... as opposed to lip service.

#16 and #19: My view is neither rose-colored nor ignorant of the disparity in who we've called individuals in US American society. It is simply that "e pluribus unum" is an experiment that has not worked, despite both well-meaning and ill-meaning intentions. Whether we push for egalitarianism amongst individuals or between representatives of cultural groups we lose sight of one important detail: We are all different as night or day.

Diversity, in it's mainstream sense, is not bad in intent, but in execution. So, yes, it is currently a dirty word.

" I'm sorry, but given a choice of studying in a department composed entirely of Nobel prize-winning males of Western European descent, or a diverse faculty fully representative of the world's population, I'm not picking the latter."

That's a very clever way to frame the debate. Now riddle me this: how is it that the vast majority of Nobel prize winners in any field have tended to be males of Western European descent in the first place?

Hey, livefreeordie2: gox's posts may read like a progressive handbook, but yours read like the minutes of an Objectivist Club meeting.

(And yes, that's meant to be pejorative.)