One of the extraordinary phenomena in campus culture in the last two decades is the rise of “diversity” as a concept, condition, banner, and ambition. How is it that “diversity” went from being a routine term with no particular cachet into the notion/term of the moment. It appears everywhere from my son’s kindergarten classroom wall (“CELEBRATE DIVERSITY”) to high-level administrative office doors at universities everywhere.
Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy has an explanation in The American Prospect in an essay entitled “The Enduring Relevance of Affirmative Action.” Kennedy begins by recounting the numerous challenges to and the rising unpopularity of affirmative action in the 1980s and 90s, then asserts that the tide has shifted. People who don’t profit directly by affirmative action practices aren’t so angry about race-based practices any more, Kennedy writes, and for one reason major reason: “The amorphous and malleable idea of ‘diversity.’” While few private businesses wanted to defend “reverse racism,” Kennedy says, he recalls ”the 2003 University of Michigan affirmative-action cases when 65 major companies, including American Express, Coca Cola, and Microsoft, asserted that maintaining racial diversity in institutions of higher education is vital to their efforts to hire and maintain a diverse workforce.”
That illustrates how “diversity” transformed what had appeared to be a punitive or reparation-like process into a positive and productive and forward-looking one.
“The rise of the diversity rationale for affirmative action has not been costless, but it has ensured that appreciable numbers of racial minorities are in strategic positions, while dampening certain side effects that attend any regime of racial selectivity. Unlike affirmative action based on grounds of compensatory justice, the diversity rationale is non-accusatory. It doesn’t depend on an assumption of culpability for some past or present wrong, and it minimizes the anger ignited when whites are accused of being beneficiaries of racial privilege. Everyone can be a part of diversity.
“Many are drawn to the diversity rationale because it frames affirmative action not as special aid for designated groups but as a way of producing better services and products. Businesspeople love to say that ‘diversity is good for the bottom line.’ Many of them would be ideologically allergic to a business practice based solely on notions of justice or altruism but comfortable supporting a program that can be seen as reinforcing the principal mission of their enterprises.
“The diversity rationale also facilitates the evasion of prickly subjects—for instance, the fact that racial minorities selected for valued positions sometimes have records that, according to certain criteria such as standardized tests, are inferior to those of white competitors. The diversity rationale moves the spotlight from the perceived deficiencies of racial minorities to their perceived strengths. Unlike other justifications for affirmative action that seek to make exceptions to meritocracy, the diversity rationale is consistent with meritocratic premises. This is the most striking and historically significant aspect of affirmative action: It enables racial-minority status for the first time in American history to be seen as a valuable credential. Instead of the presence of blacks and other racial minorities constituting an expiation of past sins, the diversity rationale makes their presence a welcome and positive good.”
Precisely. When you talk about “diversity,” you don’t sound resentful, grievance-oriented, or paternalistic. No identity politics needed. It agrees with old American virtues of effectiveness and pragmatism, too. The evidence that a racially diverse classroom produces better outcomes is shaky, to be sure, but even if “diversity” signals only a rhetorical shift, it worked, and it will continue to work for a long time.
17 Responses to The Rise of Diversity in Campus Culture
arthist030 - September 19, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Does Kennedy really think that “diversity” is widely supported by all Americans? It really has the character of the primary article of faith in the orthodox church of liberal politics. It leads to all sorts of barely defensible quota-mongering maneuvers, defensible only by tremendous feats of intellectual gymnastics. Whatever Kennedy thinks, Asians and whites aren’t actually too stupid to recognize “diversity” for what it is — lower standards for the children of black and Hispanic lawyers, than for the children of Vietnamese boat people and Appalachian dirt farmers.
luther_blissett - September 19, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Mark, is there any long-term, across-the-board study that proves that in the majority of known cases, affirmative action resulted in a less qualified candidate of color being selected over a more-qualified white candidate? This is a real question. It seems we assume that’s the case, even those of us who still defend affirmative action. But when I’ve seen hiring committees actually operate, the top 30 candidates are usually ethically diverse and rather equal on paper. Plenty of folks pride themselves on hiring out of that pool based on a feeling, a hunch, or some intuited sense of a candidate’s charisma or mensch-ness or chutzpa or whatever. I know there are well-publicized cases, like the CT fire fighters, in which test scores are manipulated for candidates of color. But there are also well-publicized cases in which minority candidates are not hired out of racism or perceived cultural difference or some claim about “fit” that really means “won’t fit into our culture of demeaning racist humor” or whathaveyou. And given that we’re at a higher education blog, you might want to come out against “legacy” admittance at universities and admissions decisions made in direct proportion to amount of $$$ donated.
markbauerlein - September 20, 2010 at 9:07 am
When “minority candidates are not hired out of racism,” then a violation of Federal law has occurred and the employer is up for some serious litigation. I don’t know of any long-term studies you ask for (you can imagine the difficulty of acquiring that info), Luther, but I have surveyed some of the “learning outcomes” research related to diversity and it’s pretty dicey. I agree with you, of course, about admissions based on money and legacy, and I don’t know of anybody who comes out and defends them openly.
gplm2000 - September 20, 2010 at 10:05 am
BAURERLEIN: “That illustrates how “diversity” transformed what had appeared to be a punitive or reparation-like process into a positive and productive and forward-looking one.” Not exactly. Racial preferences are never forward-looking or productive. They are self-defeating and lead to cultural chaos, i.e. American Negro culture. Instead of earning respect and integrating into American society, the special class of people thinks they are entitled to…
chuckkle - September 20, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Bauerlein: “I agree with you, of course, about admissions based on money and legacy, and I don’t know of anybody who comes out and defends them openly.”This is truly an astonishing and self-serving statement. If no one defends them, how is it that they persist? Especially at Emory? May I suggest that Mark simply poll the board of trustees at Emory, one by one, and if no one defends the practice, propose to them to abolish it? If “no one” defends it, it should be easy to change it.Chuck Kleinhans
markbauerlein - September 20, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Note the word “openly,” Chuck. Please let me know of any speech, article, op-ed, or book that does so.
chuckkle - September 21, 2010 at 8:20 am
Nice try, Mark, but no cigar.If no one will “openly” advocate for it, then please ask the Emory Board of Trustees to take a stand on the issue and remove legacies. After all, if they won’t advocate for an existing policy, then they should be willing to change it, right?I’ll bet you, say $100, that all of a sudden the discussion will become “open.”Are we on? Will you start the queries?Chuck Kleinhans
oaachron - September 21, 2010 at 9:24 am
Mark – is the outcomes research on the benefits of diversity really “dicey”? I think the same 2003 Michigan case produced research that swayed enough justices, including Gurin et al. (see Defending Diversity), which was co-written by Earl, by the way. Would Earl think the outcomes research was dicey? No matter.Also Scott Page has written a really remarkable book on across the board benefits of diversity. See “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies”.These are just two, but there is more.Phil
dank48 - September 21, 2010 at 10:43 am
Nobody openly defends admissions based on money and legacy, for the simple reason that they’re indefensible. That’s why these policies are so thoroughly camouflaged with the exuberance over diversity at “elite” schools, which are the safety nets our masters have maintained for their children, so they won’t have to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi.The Ivy League and associated institutions are in fact the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual rottenness in our ruling class, which knows perfectly well that their inbred hothouse flowers would not survive in the hustle and bustle of state schools. Without these special schools–hard to get into, not particularly hard to graduate from, once you get under the tent–the younger generation of our financially founded aristocracy wouldn’t have a chance. Diversity is the tithe our rulers (and of course the rest of us) pay to keep the barbarians hopefully, for now at least, and maybe a little while longer, outside the gates. It’s futile, of course, but that’s nothing new.
willynilly - September 21, 2010 at 11:02 am
To Chuckkle: Bauerlein will not take your challenge. I have issued him several in the past. He is all talk, but no action. As he takes his daily walk in the gutter, he looks for discarded trash that will allow him to write an inflamatory essay about an issue he hates with a passion. “The American Prospect” is a far right Conservative rag. Kennedy is known as an extreme, brain-cramped right-winger. His useless essay was too much for Bauerlein to ignore. Mark thrives on attempts to revive and rekindle old hate issues. But he always does so in the name of research. This time it is Agricultural Research. He is attempling to learn how dead a horse must be, before one stops beating it.
markbauerlein - September 21, 2010 at 11:44 am
The Gurin research wouldn’t pass for scientific, oaachron, and besides, it wasn’t what swayed O’Connor. Rather, it was testimony from leaders in the Armed Forces and corporate America that did the job. (Her decision on the Michigan case contains some dicey contentions as well, including her 25-year deadline.)And chuck, you haven’t provided any examples of open arguments for legacy admissions.
jamary - September 21, 2010 at 12:28 pm
What no one seems to say about legacy admissions is that it is a “self-correcting” proposition. To the extent that ‘diversity’ grows in numerical reflection in the distribution of graduates, ‘legacy’ will benefit the beneficiaries of diversity. It might take a few years for the children of a preponderance of dread ‘Euro’ white males to age past college years, but change is already written into the program. It would suit sociological discussants to be conversant with the notion embodied in rates of change, in differential equations (which, after all, lie in the infrastructure beneath multivariate regression analysis).Scrap the ‘males’ designation; all children are born of woman. And to the extent lower scores may admit a ‘diversity’ applicant, who carries on to the finish, his or her children will benefit as well, from ‘legacy’ and ‘diversity’ both.This is not an argument why legacy admissions should exist: certainly one can be made, if only as a coupon for return patronage of the institution. Arguments can be made against as well. My point is that legacy need not be seen as inherently and ineluctably unjust.My argument is also that: one must consider the dynamics of change and the time for it to take place in socio-cultural critique. Most often, however, this aspect is not considered, and this is, frankly, a facet of the anti-rational, anti-empirical, anti-scientific frame of modern social criticism, not to mention of quantitative illiteracy.
chuckkle - September 21, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Bauerlein:”And chuck, you haven’t provided any examples of open arguments for legacy admissions.”Mark, I guess you don’t understand your own argument. You said: “I agree with you, of course, about admissions based on money and legacy {that is that they are bad, indefensible], and I don’t know of anybody who comes out and defends them openly”OK, if you agree they are wrong, and no one defends them, then it should be easy to change them. I invited you to put your shoulder to the wheel and do something about it at Emory. UNLESS you are saying that “gentlemen’s agreement” versions of class privilege, racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism are just fine and no one should rock the boat by asking questions that might reveal the underlying ideology and policy. What will it be Mark? Meritocracy or Legacy?Chuck Kleinhans
chuckkle - September 22, 2010 at 1:49 am
Oh, BTW, if you Google:legacy admissions are defensibleyou will get 30,000+ hitsJust the first 50 or so give you lots of examples of “open” arguments.Chuck Kleinhans
dhenderson46 - September 22, 2010 at 8:15 am
I cannot imagine that anyone familiar with college campuses these days believes that “diversity” has somehow muted or eliminated identity politics or attacks on various allegedly “privileged” groups. “White privilege” and “male privilege” are still the coin of the realm in many quarters. Many white male graduates learn in their time on campus that they are, as one recent law school graduate described to me, responsible for most of the ills and evils of society. Diversity may be a feel-good veneer, but it has not really produced a non-accusatory environment.
markbauerlein - September 22, 2010 at 10:34 am
Yes, dhenderson, identity politics continues on campus, but from what I see and hear it is a lot less audible than the celebrations of diversity.
redweather - September 23, 2010 at 6:40 am
Good article on legacies:http://reason.com/archives/2008/02/19/legacies-of-injustice