Discriminations

As I mentioned yesterday (here), the University of Virginia is concerned that its faculty is not “diverse” enough. That post described ways the University is attempting to fund minority scholars without, well, funding minority scholars, which would be presumptively illegal.

Today the Cavalier Daily reports on other steps the University is taking.

Bill Harvey, vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity, said the University is ranked 12th among 61 institutions in the American Association for American Universities in terms of the number of black faculty members.

“That sounds better than it is,” Harvey said. “We have work to do, absolutely.”

The work of “diversity” is of course never done, but I wonder exactly why or how being ranked 12th of 61 presumably comparable institutions “sounds better than it is.”

Oh well, never mind. Moving on,

Harvey said the goal is to make prospective faculty members feel appreciated when they come to the University.

Well of course. But I still wonder: since public institutions have an obligation to treat all races equally, is it legitimate to be more concerned with minorities feeling appreciated than non-minorities? Shouldn’t universities be “welcoming” without regard to race? If there is an "appreciation gap" these days, who do you think is on the short end of it?

Oh well, another never mind. So, still moving on...

On the hands-on level, faculty hiring is done by faculty usually at the department level, so we have to help those departments as they make their decisions,” Harvey added.

Hmm, I wonder what kind of “help” Harvey’s office can provide. Or rather, what kind of help that would be consistent with not discriminating on the basis of race or gender. Maybe this is a clue:

“At least with women and African-American faculty, we are learning how to create offers [and] to host candidates at the University to convince them that U.Va. is the place [where] they want to work,” [vice provost for faculty advancement Gertrude] Fraser said. “We have been very successful in making the case for U.Va. among the highly competitive, highly-recruited candidates, and I think that's extremely important because we're competing with the top schools for top individuals.”

Sorry, but I’m still wondering: you’d think that since Mr. Jefferson’s day the University would have long since learned “how to create offers [and] to host candidates at the University....” Do you think it’s possible that the University has learned that in order to attract “top people” — obviously she means top minority and female people — who are also being feverishly courted by other “diversity”-seeking institutions UVa has to pay its “diversity” hires more than it would if they were not “diverse”?

That is, I wonder if the “help” provided by Mr. Harvey’s office is to allow or encourage or require departments to pay more for “diverse” new hires than they are allowed to pay for non-“diverse” hires.

That would have been a good question for an enterprising student journalist to ask.