As I noted immediately below, the Chancellor of the University of California at Santa Cruz has determined that “diversity” is “central” to the university’s mission … or at least it will be just as soon as a committee decides what it is.
They’re having a similar definitional problem at the University of Oregon, where a draft diversity plan caused such an uproar that university president David Frohnmayer said last Thursday that he and other administrators have “taken a step back from the draft plan, given the extent of the response.”
The draft plan, which was released this month, called for changing tenure and post-tenure reviews to include assessments of professors’ “cultural competency.” It also called for hiring 30 to 40 professors in the next seven years in several diversity-related areas, including race, gender, disability, and gay-and-lesbian studies.
How, I wonder, would “cultural competency” be evaluated? Who would do the evaluating, and who, for that matter, would assess the “cultural competency” of the “cultural competency” evaluators? Would those found deficient in “cultural competency” be sent to re-education camps in the city, or country?
In a letter to Frohnmayer 24 professors said the plan was “frightening and offensive.”
“I was hired to teach chemistry and do research,” said Michael Kellman, a chemistry professor. “I wasn’t hired to be evaluated and even interrogated about cultural competency, whatever that is.”
“Diversity” at Oregon seems to cause as much conflict, and Orwellian comments about the conflict, as it does elsehwere. The AP reports, for example (HatTip to Dave Huber), that just last week
a senior at the university filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education over the school’s policy of reserving 10 slots of selected math and English courses for minority students….
According to the Oregon Daily Emerald, the university’s Office of Multicultural Academic Support (don’t you just love these monikers?) administers a number of math and writing classes
in which the first 10 slots of the 18-student classes are reserved for minority students. Other students must meet with an OMAS counselor on the morning of the first day of class to enroll in the remaining slots. The classes, which allow fewer enrolled students than other sections of the same course, offer more individualized instructor attention.
Linda Liu, advising coordinator and academic adviser for OMAS, told the Emerald that during the seven years she’s been in control of enrollment for the classes there have always been spaces available after the initial 10 spots have filled for students willing to wake up at 7:30 a.m. and complete a five-minute pre-authorization process.
And how does the university respond to the charge that it engages in racial favoritism and racial class assignments?
University General Counsel Melinda Grier could not be reached for comment; however, the University administration released a statement Tuesday affirming that the University doesn’t restrict courses based on ethnicity but that it does have programs that “try to provide unique learning experiences for students,” including the one OMAS coordinates.
“This office provides services to minority students, including the coordination of class registration for a few specific courses, which attempt to create a critical number of minority students in some course sections,” the statement reads. “However, these sections are available to all students and any student may take the courses in these sections as long as space is available. Courses at the University of Oregon have space restrictions designed to balance access and cost with providing individualized educational experiences. We evaluate our student programs on an ongoing basis to ensure that all students have equal opportunities to participate in a University of Oregon education.”
Orwell is alive and well in Oregon.
Melissa Hanks, the intrepid Oregon senior who filed the complaint with the Dept. of Education, has a column in the Daily Emerald that expresses her point of view eloquently. Here’s most of it:
Diversity is more than skin color; diversity is of the mind. Try being white, conservative and heterosexual on this campus. I am devalued more and more every day when my feelings and experiences are ignored because of my skin color. Self-identified conservative students are still afraid to speak because of what may happen to their education, careers and physical safety.
I have a dream that one day, I can say something and not be taunted as a middle-class white girl. I have a dream that one day, I will be able to talk to people without being blamed for their problems. I have a dream that one day, my experiences will be recognized as equal to others and that classes at the University will be truly diverse in thought, not just in skin color.
I am white. I am a woman. I am conservative. There is no reason I should feel bad about that or face barriers because of my skin color. My rights to register for a class are equal. My rights to speak my mind are important. Stop segregating this campus into colored and white, Greg Vincent, and start being colorblind.
Greg Vincent was the Oregon “vice provost for institutional equity and diversity” who orchestrated the draft diversity report. In a move that is said to be unrelated to the current controversy, he is moving to the University of Texas in Austin, where he will “become vice provost for inclusion and cross-cultural effectiveness.”
Really! Shouldn’t schools using titles like these have to pay some sort of royalty to an Orwell memorial foundation, or something?
UPDATE
Fred Ray points to an Associated Press/Washington Post article on what it cutely calls the “diversity dustup” at Oregon.
The villain of this piece, however, is neither what Chemistry professor Michael Kellman is quoted as calling the “Orwellian, totalitarian plan” of evaluating faculty on their “cultural competence” nor the fact that the administration reserves 10 of 18 spaces in a series of math and writing courses for minorities. On the contrary, the villain of this piece is the faculty itself, which in this telling is resisting this “push for more diversity” in a way that is compared, unfavorably, to Harvard’s new committment “to spending $50 million over the next decade on a range of programs for women — from mentoring to child care to safe, late-night transport.”
I realize it’s a side issue, but I do wonder which categories of students the University of Oregon considers “minorities” for purposes of this program. Or is the “underrepresented” now just understood?
I notice yet another reference to “critical number”.
This has probably been discussed on this site before, so just direct me to the appropriate archive if so, but what is the difference between a critical number and a quota?
Kiwi Dave,
“Critical number” (usually it’s “critical mass”) means that there are enough students of a given race or ethnicity on campus such that those who are there don’t feel isolated. Strangely (to me, anyway), the “critical number” for any given ethnicity seems to be approximately the same as the ethnicity’s proportion of the state’s population. I don’t know why Native Americans need less “critical mass” than blacks or Hispanics do, but there it is.
A quota system is just a little different, partly because quotas are really more-or-less fixed numbers, whereas “critical numbers” admit of considerable fudging.
Somehow, the quote about how history repeats itself seems appropriate: First as tragedy, second as comedy, and third time as farce.
Why don’t the white, conservative heterosexuals just give lip service to this nonsense, just like people living in any totalitarian system must?
If you must, mock them. They will likely be too stupid to know you are doing it. For example, in your required multicultural/diversity class, be the most enthusiastic about knocking white European culture. Especially knock such European concepts as gender equality and social equality. Read all about Votaire and Aristotle and then use your much superior knowledge of their writings to write detailed criticisms of their works. That will confound your professor, because he won’t know anything about such people.
Enjoy.
The question that has always bothered me is why a university that provides unfettered speech for its members through the practice of academic freedom attempting to institute the most repressive though control on those same members? Why would the professors demand academic freedom and then go about attempting to deny freedom of speech to everyone else? Why would an institution that is ostensibly dedicated to free inquiry demand that everyone think and act alike? What is it about a group of very intelligent people (at least as far as academics goes) that causes them to act like petty dictators? It would appear that a fruitful research project would be an examination of the dynamics of totalitarian regimes by studying how repression of free speech occurs at a university.
The University of Oregon will now become a re-education camp for PC orthodoxy.
This nonsense is allowed to continue because the public is too mind-numbed to raise their voices in opposition. As long as you don’t take away their six pack of beer and American Idol, they’ll let you do as you please.
Thank God for the PC movement. It was about time that MAJORITY of the country’s population, which is NOT made up of white heterosexual Christian males were given RESPECT.
–Cobra
Cobra.
“Were given respect” by whom? If you’re talking about white heterosexual Christian males, since they aren’t in the majority, why does it matter so much if all the other people “weren’t given respect” by them? Do w.h.C.m.’s somehow control how much respect non-w.h.C.m.’s give each other? How?
I believe that the PC movement has managed to create not only race, religious, gender, and class hatred but with the advent of things like Cobra probably the hatred of snakes as well.
Cobra, with asinine comments like that you make it very difficult to take anything you say seriously. It you don
Well, I’ll stand up for a few scattered items. The minority class slots, for example, should be administered on a need basis. But the truth is, if you set up any sort of race-blind student-in-jeopardy scale, certain groups will be way over-represented. The end result will be the same. And I’m totally mystified by the slam against child care and late-night transport improvements at Harvard, which certainly will be beneficial to more women than men, although they will benefit some men, too.
The gist of the diversity crusade is junk. OK? Just, watch out for the baby in that bathwater.
I think we’ve lost sight of the 14th Amendment in this debate. Equal protection of the laws was not meant to guarantee an equal result. It was meant to safeguard equal opportunity, where each individual is judged, using the same criteria, on their own ability. If UCLA becomes 90% Asian because of this, so be it. They’ve earned it.
To bring into the equation race, gender or any side issue over which the individual has no control only serves to embitter those who’ve actually done the work to earn a slot. So, let’s punish merit and hard work in order to achieve ‘proportional representation.’ Sounds like a great idea, which will bring harmony to the workplace and society in general.
I anticipate posts that will argue against so-called “legacy admissions” and “legacy hires.” Guess what? We should abolish these practices, too. Plato wrote in ‘The Republic’ that people tend to do that which the community honors. If we honor a lower standard for some based on race or gender, we shouldn’t be surprised when academic performance suffers with respect to these groups. We shouldn’t lower the bar for some and raise it for others in the name of “diversity.” I thought the point of the Civil Rights Movement was to hold everyone to the same standard, but now that ideal has morphed into George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Cicero, you make very good points. Pro AA people always bring up legacy admissions as a reason why we should have AA. Of course it is not a very good argument because it says that if the other side is effectively able to discriminate then so should we. Obviously their argument should be to do away with legacy admissions if it is wrong and not use it as an excuse to do something else that is wrong.
The question is, why does the practice of legacy admissions exist? One would think that the University would be the last institution to discriminate in favor of whites. Don
Laura writes:
>>>Do w.h.C.m.’s somehow control how much respect non-w.h.C.m.’s give each other? How?”
W.H.C.M’s somehow control America. I see that manifested in Government, Industry, Higher Education, and Land Ownership. If you control the messenger, you control the message.
Richard writes:
>>>Cobra, with asinine comments like that you make it very difficult to take anything you say seriously. It you don
Cobra, you really let w.h.C.m.’s tell you how much respect to give another black person? Please.
Cobra, it is not your support of political correctness I object to, it is your racism.
Richard writes:
>>>Cobra, it is not your support of political correctness I object to, it is your racism.”
Now what would make you say such a thing? Look at the topic at hand.
John believes that Oregon Senior Melissa Banks’ collumn in the Daily Emerald is “eloquent.”
>>>I have a dream that one day, I can say something and not be taunted as a middle-class white girl. I have a dream that one day, I will be able to talk to people without being blamed for their problems. I have a dream that one day, my experiences will be recognized as equal to others and that classes at the University will be truly diverse in thought, not just in skin color.”
Now, whether these experience actually happen to Banks, I don’t know. However, I don’t automatically assume she’s a “racist” because she voices these complaints, whether I agree with her or not.
Laura writes:
>>>Cobra, you really let w.h.C.m.’s tell you how much respect to give another black person? Please.”
C’mon, you’ve read my posts here for a while now. How much do I let ANYBODY tell me how to think on ANYTHING? ;-)
But it’s not for lack of trying. I’m sure you can point to any number of posts on Discriminations where anti-affirmative action blacks are held up by posters as “role models.” It’s certainly within their rights to so, but the facts are clear.
–Cobra
I think part of the problem is that Cobra never attempts to explicitly state his position. If he did state his position, I suspect it would be something like:
“Because members of the group WHCM (white, heterosexual, Christian, male) are disproportionately over-represented amongst the rich-and-powerful, therefore every WHCM should be discriminated against in college admissions.”
Now we can’t call Cobra racist for this, since obviously W,H,C,M are all fair game. After all, it’s not as if he said WHJM. Nonetheless, once this position is explicitly stated, it becomes obvious that there are a number of problems with it. The most humorous one: according to this position, what exactly is wrong with Jennifer Gratz?
LTEC writes:
>>>Now we can’t call Cobra racist for this, since obviously W,H,C,M are all fair game. After all, it’s not as if he said WHJM. Nonetheless, once this position is explicitly stated, it becomes obvious that there are a number of problems with it.”
Now you’re putting words into my mouth, when if anything, I write PLENTY of text on this blog to prevent the need to do so. I’ve been down the road of trying to explain American history in regards to White America before. Go and search back if you have to, because it’s not neccessary for me to do so again.
>>>I think part of the problem is that Cobra never attempts to explicitly state his position.”
Again, I do so all the time. There are many on this board who DISAGREE with my position, and you know what? That’s ok, too. You’re entitled to your own opinion. You’re not entitled to your own facts.
>>>The most humorous one: according to this position, what exactly is wrong with Jennifer Gratz?”
Trust me, I’ve laid out my opinion on Gratz thoroughly on many different threads on this blog. I don’t need to do so here on this thread, especially when I have Melissa Hanks to talk about:
>>>Try being white, conservative and heterosexual on this campus. I am devalued more and more every day when my feelings and experiences are ignored because of my skin color. Self-identified conservative students are still afraid to speak because of what may happen to their education, careers and physical safety.
I have a dream that one day, I can say something and not be taunted as a middle-class white girl. I have a dream that one day, I will be able to talk to people without being blamed for their problems. I have a dream that one day, my experiences will be recognized as equal to others and that classes at the University will be truly diverse in thought, not just in skin color.”
Hmmmm….it would APPEAR to me that Melissa Hanks feels that her “political sensibilities are being offended.”
She does indeed claim to have been “taunted” for being a “middle class white girl”, and a “heterosexual conservative” at that. Apparently, she is “DREAMING” about the day where her own political sensibilities are not offended by the speech of others.
Melissa Hanks is then, by definition, a supporter of political correctness.
How that reality escapes the posters on this thread, I don’t know.
–Cobra
Self-identified conservative students are still afraid to speak because of what may happen to their education, careers and physical safety.
Cobra, since you included the about quote in your response, you should realize that is it not just her feeling that Melissa Hanks is worried about.
By the way, it is really not necessary for you to respond to every comment. Your posts become very tiresome when you do so. You made your point and so did others. Do you think that by having the last word you won the argument?
Richard,
With respect, knock it off. Someone’s talking to Cobra; why shouldn’t he respond? I would (and no doubt I get very tiresome too, to myself and others; I often find myself posting what I imagine to be clever retorts and discovering after a day that no one’s reading the thread any more), but if you’re just not interested in what he has to say, the best response is just not to read it. No one’s got a gun to your head, have they?
political correctness : conformity to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities should be eliminated
“…language…which could offend political sensibilities should be eliminated”.
That is a disemboweling of the 1st Amendment. In other words PC is by definition anti-American ideology. And if it’s not American ideology then what is it? …a quick check of history tells us the concept of political correctness first appeared in the – big surprise – the USSR.
“…practices which could offend political sensibilities should be eliminated”
Stalinists are very comfortable with this. They are psychotically insecure and need their intellectual environment totally regulated. This is political infantilism.
On the other hand Americans exalt liberty. They can handle the concept that some will offend and others will be offended. This is political maturity.
IDIOCY IS A FORM OF INTELLECT.
The powers that be at the University of Oregon have taken the Diversity Boondoggle to new extremes. First there are the courses …
Cobra,
The question I have is do you support an enforcement of political correctness by the government?
If you simply wish others to voluntarily accept the PC line, then I don’t think most conservatives would have a problem with it — at least I wouldn’t. However, it seems you want the government to enforce the PC line. This becomes a problem. Free speech is meant to encompass all because if it doesn’t then acceptable speech is left up to whoever happens to be in power. This should be just as alarming as it is to conservatives as it is to you.
Andrew,
That’s a good question. I think a balance has to be maintained regarding speech in America. Truth be told, the First Amendment does NOT allow somebody to say “anything they want.” Direct threats of violence are not protected by the Constitution. Incitement is another slippery slope that has seen many Supreme Court decisions turn upon.
I agree with you Andrew, that I don’t think government should be enforcing political correctness. However, if people are for “color-blindness” in concert with anti-affirmative action policies, the LAST things they should advocate are “speech and practices that offend the political sensibilities,” particularly on race, ethnicity and gender related issues.
–Cobra
Cobra,
Boy, am I late to this one. Sorry.
political correctness : conformity to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities should be eliminated.
Cobra, that’s the lamest definition I ever saw, even if it is from an allegedly reputable dictionary.
How do you talk about politics at all without using “language which [NB: should be “that”] could offend political sensibilities”? Your “language” often “offends” my “political sensibilities.” I don’t doubt that mine often “offends” yours. As for “practices,” is it now “PC” to refrain from wearing a “Hillary in ’08” T-shirt anywhere you might meet a Republican (or for that matter a Howard Dean supporter) for fear of offending some political sensibilities? Is it un-PC to drive through a neighborhood in a car bearing a “No War In Iraq” bumper sticker if someone might see it who supports the war? It would be un-PC even if no one saw it, because this is about language and practices that “could” offend, not those that actually do, yes?
And I have to say that that “should be eliminated” does have a Stalinist vibe to it.
Michelle,
This latest news story out of San Francisco is a good example of what I’m referring to.
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/sports/article.adp?id=20050601161909990012
This is a case where a San Francisco 49ers “training film”, that according to reports, contained nudity, soft-core lesbian porn and Chinese racial slurs. Now, the argument can be made that this tape was “leaked” out to the media. Unbelievably, this training film, starred the team’s public relations director:
“The video was shown to players last August during training camp in Santa Clara, where it was part of a DIVERSITY workshop.”
I can’t make this stuff up! Now, the PR director was fired, and the team, and NFL took action, releasing statements, condemnations, etc.
Now, the question rises, that since the video was “in-house”, and not officially for public consumption, do you believe firing those involved with this tape by the team was justifiable (notwithstanding morals clauses, etc), or is this a defensible First Amendment issue, or would this be a case where “political correctness” is well deserved?
–Cobra
The letter of the UO faculty is at
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ncp/Temp/Letter.html
[…] encountered “cultural competence” before (see here and here), but Ms. Kabbany skewers it better than anything I’ve […]