The good sense, of course, comes not from an administrator but a student, Whitney Blake, an opinion columnist at the Cavalier Daily. Her column today, “The House That Diversity Built,” is well worth reading.
Her immediate topic was the handwringing in some quarters over residential “segregation,” and the efforts of a group called Students for Diverse First Year Housing to do something about it. Ms. Blake’s approach is suggested by her first comment:
… one has to step back and consider first if diversifying the dorms should be a mission that the University should actively promote, as well as examine the implications alternative options and the reasoning behind maintaining the status quo.
And, moving on, Ms. Blake’s comment on “diversity” in general puts the University’s “Chief Diversity Officer,” discussed two posts below (here), to shame:
This vision is slightly misguided. Is achieving a specific numerical percentage of different skin colors in every dorm an effective route to truly diversifying a dorm? What exactly is diversity? The word was applied in the meeting primarily to white vs. black tensions, but this definition fails to take into account all the other facets of one’s identity that bring a unique perspective to the table: religion, upbringing, political persuasion, special talents, interests, hobbies, etc. With this in mind, it is impossible to engineer a “diverse” dorm.
In my view this vision is more than “slightly” misguided, for it is equally impossible to engineer a “diverse” university by looking only at a few skin colors, a point that is recognized occasionally even by the agents of “diversity.”
Ms. Blake continues:
Additionally, dorm integration is not an issue that garners widespread support among African-Americans, a segment of the University population that the group is trying to assist. Aaron Blake, president of the Black Student Alliance, spoke with me in a telephone interview.
She commended the group for addressing diversity concerns but didn’t agree with the group’s focus on first year dorms. She said that the purpose was “almost like using blacks as an educational tool” and making blacks “guinea pigs for diversity.” She also felt that integration would lead to more disappointment of black first years in their first-year experience, and she was “very skeptical of who’s attempting to be educated and at what cost.”
“Diversity,” as I’ve argued here many times, is not “almost like using blacks as an educational tool”; it is using them as a tool. “Diversity” is based entirely on the assumption that being exposed to blacks is good for the exposees.
Insofar as “diversity” is the rationale for the preferential admission of minorities to selective institutions, it is for the benefit of the non-minorities who will be exposed to them. The minorities who are preferentially admitted to selective schools, after all, would receive whatever benefits “diversity” has to offer at many other less selective schools, but the non-minorities in the selective schools deprived of their presence would have far fewer minorities (no “critical mass,” etc.) to be exposed to.
““Diversity,” as I’ve argued here many times, is not “almost like using blacks as an educational tool”; it is using them as a tool. “Diversity” is based entirely on the assumption that being exposed to blacks is good for the exposees.”
Not true. Diversity programs today push to include numerous minority groups. Painting “diversity” as some contrivance to “expose white people to the blacks” is a gross mischaracterization and has not been true since the 70’s, if then.
Further, it’s ironic that the “liberals have no plans and no ideas” faction feels completely comfortable having no plans and no ideas to address the lack of diversity in many areas.
In this case, the group, Students for Diverse First Year Housing suggested that lack of diversity in housing is a problem.
Conservative’s answer?
It’s IMPOSSIBLE to have a diverse dorm, so screw the whole thing.
The fact that diversity in this context isn’t universally supported by African-Americans only bolsters the point that diversity should be about more than just black and white. If African-Americans aren’t interested in participating in “diversity dorms” that’s fine. But maybe other people who are interested in being exposed to different cultures ARE interested in “diversity dorms”.
The idea of arguing AGAINST having new experiences; arguing AGAINST being exposed to people from different backrounds; arguing AGAINST attempting to learn about another group; is wrong-headed.
No reasonable person should want to live in a a world where they are only surrounded by people who look like them.
And, in another irony, the minority who is preferentially admitted to a selective school is likely to find him or herself in a less “diverse” (if we define that solely based on skin color) environment than the school he or she would have attended absent the preferential treatment.
So we’ve increased the “diversity” for the benefit of the non-minority population of the school, at the expense of the “diversity” to which the minority student will be exposed. Brilliant!
Hull,
As long as Hampton University, Norfolk St, Virginia State, etc exist without any program to encourage diversity, then the rest of America see exactly what black-americans believe about diversity, new expereince, or a good education. If the rich white kids need blacks at UVa in order to get a better education then the blacks at Hampton need the same experience.
Hull:
Not true. Diversity programs today push to include numerous minority groups. Painting “diversity” as some contrivance to “expose white people to the blacks” is a gross mischaracterization and has not been true since the 70’s, if then.
I’m afraid the “not true” applies to your assertion. Virtually all “diversity” programs today are in fact limited to blacks, some Hispanics, and Native Americans. Universities, of course, often attempt to cover this fact with a fig leaf of discussion about sorts of diversity, but they show what they really mean by giving admission and in many cases hiring preferences only to members of those three groups.
Since the official, often stated rationale of racial preference in admissions is to promote “diversity,” it is, alas, most certainly true that the preferentially admitted minorities (those who would not have been admitted without the racial preference) are being admitted so that the non-minority students can be exposed to them. On some campuses a few more are admitted than are strictly necessary for this purpose (to the best of my knowledge no university has ever said how many are necessary) in order to achieve a “critical mass,” presumably so that the preferentially admitted minorities will not feel isolated once they arrrive, but this does nothing to change the fact that the “diversity” rationale means that minorities are necessary to provide “diversity” to the non-minorities who would be deprived of it under a regime of colorblind admissions.
True, those admitted because of their race also receive whatever benefits racial “diversity” can offer, but they would have received that same benefit had they attended less selective institutions, institutions that someone pointed out here have the presumed advantage of being even more “diverse.”
The fact that diversity in this context isn’t universally supported by African-Americans only bolsters the point that diversity should be about more than just black and white.
Of course it “should be,” but it isn’t. Notice that my objection here (and by “here” I mean on all my posts on this blog ) is not to “diversity”; it is to the use of racial discrimination to achieve it. If students want to live in a “diverse” dorm, by all means they should do so. But no public university should be able to assign students to dorm rooms by race.
Hull,
Having “diverse” dorms is trivially easy. Throw the names into a hat, and take what you get. If roommates quarrel, try to arrange swaps. AFTERWARDS, when they’ve had time to reconcile. What’s difficult?