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About the Author
Mark Bauerlein is professor of English at Emory University. His books include Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (1997) and Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 (2001). His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, TLS, Yale Review, Partisan Review, Reason Magazine, and many other national periodicals. Topics he will cover include the ideological climate of the campus, knowledge and skill levels of U.S. students, and technology in the classroom.
About Brainstorm
Mark Bauerlein
Marc Bousquet
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Stan Katz
Michael Nelson, guest blogger
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
Brainstorm Alumni
Marty Nemko, guest bloggerBob Zemsky
Recent Posts
The Know-Nothing Party | Comment [5]
ACT Scores Are In | Comment [4]
Tom Wolfe on Larry Summers, Fiction, and Journalism | Comment [38]
The Race Gap | Comment [22]
The Kids Are All Right, but the World Isn't | Comment [2]
Featured Articles By the Author
Diversity Makes Us Smarter?
The word “diversity” has acquired so many psychopolitical overtones and undertones that a reasoned and evidence-based discussion of diversity policies is nearly impossible in public settings. One way in which proponents of diversity policies have gotten around the tension is to assert as a proven fact that diversity produces better learning, with students in multiracial, multiethnic, multiregional etc. classrooms enjoying greater intellectual benefits than do those in mono-classrooms.
For instance, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion in the Michigan affirmative action case accepted that “numerous studies show that student body diversity promotes learning outcomes.” In that case, too, Michigan insisted vigorously on the “educational benefits” of affirmative action policies, and university administrators echo the assertion all the time.
Here’s a new report, though, that questions the equation. The abstract lays out the basic finding regarding the “effects of ethnic/racial diversity among students and faculty on cognitive growth of undergraduate students”:
“Using objective measures of compositional, curricular, and interactional diversity based on actuarial course enrollment records of over 6,000 students at a public research university, the study finds no patterns of positive correlation with objective measures of cumulative academic achievement (i.e., final graduating GPA, GRE/GMAT test scores, graduate school enrollment).”
Precisely because diversity has become an ideological token, not a simple sign, studies like this one should enter into the debate. It is unfortunate, indeed, that it did not appear before Grutter v. Bollinger was heard.
Posted at 12:58:05 PM on December 5, 2007 | All postings by Mark BauerleinComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
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In other words, “diversity” works only to help students understand … “diversity.”
— John Rosenberg · Dec 6, 07:31 AM · #
From personal experience, having a class from diverse backgrounds makes liberal arts class discussions much more interesting, thorough, and informative.
— Dan · Dec 6, 10:21 AM · #
No surprise here. Diversity is a double-edged sword. It can result in a greater range of views based on ever-widening ranges of sources. Too often, however, it can result in PC-channeled discussions, self-censorship, and lethal group think. Worse, it is sometimes destructive of the souls of people who are muted by it. Both basic results are very common, sometimes within the same college or university.
— Edward · Dec 6, 11:04 AM · #
The outcomes of higher education are more than just the measures mentioned. Of course, it is easier to collect this data. Mission statements always mention other more intangible objectives that I believe are at least equal if not more important.
— Dodd · Dec 6, 11:14 AM · #
The report cited seems to misrepresent Astin’s findings, which he shared in the March/April 1993 issue of Change magazine: “The findings present a clear-cut pattern: emphasizing diversity either as a matter of institutional policy or in faculty research and teaching, as well as providing students with extracurricular opportunities to confront racial and multicultural issues, are all associated with widespread beneficial effects on students’ cognitive and affective development…the effects of emphasizing multiculturalism and diversity appear to be uniformly positive.” (pg. 48)
— Tomas de Cali · Dec 6, 11:47 AM · #
Unfortunately, the word “diversity” is, apart from its politically-correct connotation, nearly devoid of a meaningful sense. Too often the concept signifies nothing but improving enrollment statistics by having as many non-Caucasian faces on campus as possible, then, with the exception of a highly touted “Diversity Day,” abandoning them entirely to their own devices. Equally frequently, “diversity” is synonymous with a rather heavy-handed spreading of the “word” by teachers with extremely naïve and one-sided views on often very complex issues of race, religion, socioeconomic status, and, of late, nationality. The problem is compounded by an almost catastrophic divestment of US institutions of higher learning from exposing their non-history students to social, political, and cultural history of other nations in a manner that is not only intellectually meaningful but also illuminating. After all, it is extremely difficult to be even moderately successful in “diversifying” when the most essential concepts are either entirely alien or the entre idea is driven by nothing but the currently fashionable trend; I have seen a lot of “diversifying” directed at China and the oil-rich Arab world, but virtually nothing aimed at impoverished Caribbean, or the bottom-of-the-pit national skeletons left after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Surely, among the great contributors to the embarrassingly hollow ring of “diversity” are the university and college administrators themselves who, having changed mantles from the academic to increasingly more popular corporate ones, parrot each other’s shallow but appropriately sounding utterances that may please their peers, but slowly begin to grate the ears of both faculty and students. In the process, a truly great concept that could bring us together a little closer, that could help us understand what makes others “tick,” and that today could start building bridges the next generation will desperately need tomorrow, gets buried in the rubble of cynicism, and carefully hidden ridicule. At times is all seems like a meeting of members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (I had the pleasure of witnessing a few) where few believe, but, to survive, all proclaim the faith. As a complete aside, I yet want to see a VP for Diversity who happens to be a white male with Republican affiliations. “Nuf said, or is the lack of such specimen the consequence of him not understanding the concept well enough, or, to add insult to injury, he’d simply not be sufficiently “diverse”?
— Dag von Lubitz · Dec 6, 03:25 PM · #
RE: comment #5, the study (p.5 of pdf version) refers to Astin’s seminal book “What Matters in College: Four Critical Years Revisited” (1993), specifically page 362 summarizing the effect of racial composition in the peer group: “With few exceptions, outcomes are generally not affected by these peer measures, and in all but one case the effects are very weak and indirect.” Astin’s summary of the effect of curricular diversity (referred to as “progressive offerings”) on pp. 332-333 states: “With the exceptions noted next, none of the effects appears to be directly attributable to this curricular variable. The three exceptions are positive effects of progressive course offerings on perceptions of strong diversity orientation and resources and reputation emphasis, and negative effect on perceived trust in the administration.”
— S. Herzog · Dec 7, 03:39 PM · #
The inability of Americans to be civil to each other and to each other’s ideas when discussing diversity constitutes anecdotal evidence that contemporary Americans and their culture are intolerant of differences in spite of a “melting” potpourri in their traditional self image. Traditional measures of academic outcome, as others above pointed out, should not capture the benefits of diversity. Scott Page’s The Difference book lays out elementary findings from six academic fields, specifying a bit more exactly what sorts of tasks particular sorts of diversity would logically and empirically be expected to positively impact. The nice thing about bloggs is they are only as interesting as their reading is current—opinions, however finely expressed, without a basis in really recent readings are unlikely to sway anyone in academia. People who discuss “diversity” without specifying the type of diversity they consider, and without specifying the type of task they are considering the impact of that type of diversity on, are, technically speaking, babbling. Babbling is fun and allows us all to posture as “smart” but it is meaningless if a group is seeking any sort of truth beyond mere impression building. Celebrity is nice in its own way but it does not further truth.
The creativity research literature, among many others, is contaminated by the lazy assumption that creating is one thing, not 60 diverse things. Diversity is not about race alone, or bigotted political factions alone, it is about whether environments that “support creativity” actually support one thing or 60 things or support 2 of those 60 while hindering greatly 14 of those 60. Diversity is taxing to the memory, short and long term, requires effort, and all too often those proclaiming to know a lot about it, evince little of it in the core concepts of the research articles they publish. You could look at it the way it appears to human babies—the universe is very big, very scary, and life is composed of constant, inevitable, encounters with diversity—whether you like or benefit from it or not—to pretend otherwise, for my example, to pretend that creating is one process not 60 diverse ones, is to be a creativity research bigot, good preparation for bigotry in all the other more casual domains of life.
Encountering a difference—what a minefield! If I brush my teeth next to a difference, disagree in classrooms with a difference—I have “encountered” it, to be sure, but to a level and with an impact considerably shallower than, say, getting that difference to lend me $60,000 of its/his/her own money in its/his/her own nation, according to its/his/her own laws for a business or other venture I engage to do. Encountering a difference in a way sufficient to elicit such trust, with real financial size at stake, is a bit different than what colleges usually settle for as “encountering” a difference. We need not get all that hot and bothered about the shallow, not to say, petty forms of “encountering” differences achieved on the usual self satisfied college campus. The real work of “encountering” differences is far heftier and available to being taught by tiny fractions of the total professoriate who now proclaim lots about “differences” and “diversity” and their “encounters” with it.
— Richard Tabor Greene · Dec 11, 09:48 AM · #