Mar 25 2009

Seven Contradictions of Diversity

Category: diversity,higher educationharmonicminer @ 9:55 am

In the traditions of Six Contradictions of Marxism, I present Seven Contradictions of Diversity, because Marxism was invented by dead white men, and what’s so special about the number “six”?  Herewith:

Seven Contradictions of Diversity

*  Your college has an Office of Diversity — yet it isn’t diverse enough

*  It isn’t diverse enough —  yet it celebrates diversity constantly

*  It celebrates diversity constantly —  yet faculty of color are oppressed

*  Faculty of color are oppressed  —  yet they are constantly invited to speak their mind

*  They are constantly invited to speak their mind  —  yet they are marginalized and ignored

*  They are marginalized and ignored —  yet many are hired as faculty and promoted to important administrative positions to develop “diversity weeks”, “diversity courses”, and “faculty diversity committees” in order to promote people of color.

*  They attain unprecedented political clout focused on a single issue —  yet they’re still “speaking truth to power”

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Mar 17 2009

The Left At Christian Universities, part 9: the students’ parents are idiots

Category: diversity,higher education,leftharmonicminer @ 9:09 am

The previous post in this series is here.

As has been pointed out previously in this series, “diversity” is not in any sense politically neutral.  It always strongly favors the Left, and people who are big fans of “diversity” are almost always strongly committed to the Left in other ways.

Just to analyze one instance in a recent faculty discussion of diversity:  a professor of social ethics was disappointed that his students, having finished his course, had not come to the conclusion that the Iraq war is unjust.  Let’s unpack this.

First, he seems to believe that his comment is related to the discussion of diversity.  How would that be, exactly?  What relevance does the justice or injustice of a particular bit of foreign policy have to diversity at his university?  It’s clear that in his mind, diversity and general leftist thought are very much related, and since the discussion is about diversity, the floor is open to general leftist discussion.  He thinks he is at ideological home with his fellow travelers.   He has done this before, almost certainly, and been well-received.   This seems more and more common at too many Christian colleges and universities (especially the universities).

Second, he seems to believe that no other position on the matter of the Iraq war can possibly be held by a rational person, in possession of the facts, with a decent heart and Godly intent.  So his disappointment makes sense, in his very constricted world-view.

Third, he seems completely unaware that he has just hurled a deadly insult at the parents who pay his salary, because it is likely that his students reflect some of their parents’ perspectives on such matters, and he thinks those perspectives are morally and rationally indefensible.  To be blunt, he sees his job as taking parents’ money to teach their children to think that their parents are fools, or worse.

Yet there he is, in the middle of a discussion of diversity, knowing that heads around the table will nod sagely as he fires from the hip, without really having a target, other than those benighted souls of the world who do not subscribe wholesale to leftist thought.  Plenty of heads nodded, as if the comment were perfectly appropriate. He is a perfect example of what has been happening in Christian higher education, as we bring in more and more faculty who are so thoroughly indoctrinated by the Left in their graduate programs that they see themselves as being on a mission from God to disabuse undergraduates of their foolish traditional misconceptions.

Translation:  these kids’ parents have been doing a miserable job of preparing the kids for polite society, and we have to completely reorient them, as soon as possible.

The next post in this series is here.

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Dec 05 2008

The Left at Christian Universities, part 7: Speech codes

Part 6 in this series can be found here.

Speech codes limit campus freedom

Millions of high school seniors have started the process of deciding which college or university to attend in the next academic year. Prospective students will take into consideration cost, academics, social life, and location. And while many students will also look at schools that reflect their interests and values, virtually none will be thinking about the school’s speech codes or free speech zones. They should. Students at colleges and universities who articulate conservative and traditional views are at particular risk of bullying and indoctrination by campus administrators and faculty who are zealous ideologues.

Continue reading “The Left at Christian Universities, part 7: Speech codes”

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Nov 20 2008

Diversity quotas and lower standards for blacks in Law School Admissions actually reduce the number of black attorneys

Category: affirmative action,diversity,educationharmonicminer @ 9:13 am

This is not news, though it is papered over by the major media and academic administrators who care less about the long term outlook for minorities than they care about the short term appearance of politically correct admissions policies.

Continue reading “Diversity quotas and lower standards for blacks in Law School Admissions actually reduce the number of black attorneys”

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Nov 18 2008

Post-Obama, whither “diversity”?

Category: affirmative action,diversityharmonicminer @ 9:27 am

Ken Blackwell points out the obvious, that the election of president-elect Obama signals a Post–Racial Preference America.

Two things are evident from the 2008 election. The first is that the American people voted for change, embodied in President-Elect Barack Obama. The second is that this is still a center-right country, shown by the success of traditional values ballot initiatives. This center-right orientation will compel our new president-elect to make difficult choices next year, especially regarding racial preferences.

Read the article linked above.

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Nov 17 2008

The Left At Christian Universities, Part 6: You can’t post that HERE!

Category: diversity,higher education,left,multi-cultural,politicsharmonicminer @ 1:32 pm

If you missed it or want to read it again, Part 5 of this series is here.

At Pepperdine, students aren’t allowed to post signs announcing meetings that might be critical of Obama. And they have a “Director of Intercultural Affairs” to enforce the rule on 18 yr old freshman Republicans, too. After describing the de facto censorship of the the College Republicans at Pepperdine, Mike Adams delivers this assessment of one of the players:
Continue reading “The Left At Christian Universities, Part 6: You can’t post that HERE!”

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Oct 25 2008

African American Male Interaction

Category: diversityharmonicminer @ 9:03 am

Mike Adams describes a new college course called Effective Interactions With African-American Males.  Here’s the catalog description, and you can read his comments at the link:

Using an African-centered philosophical worldview and a racial socialization framework, this class will use participatory education to equip undergraduate and/or graduate students, to “better” understand and effectively work alongside and with young adult African-American men. The core tenets underlying this class are racial oppression exists, matters, is ubiquitous and pernicious and that those most affected are often ignorant of this reality.

Adams asks several questions about the course and its content, some funny, some tragic, and worth reading.

Continue reading “African American Male Interaction”

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Sep 28 2008

Some inconvenient truths about racial preferences and affirmative action/diversity policies

Here are the first few paragraphs of a scholarly paper presented at “Race and Gender Preferences at the Crossroads,” a conference organized by the California Association of Scholars and cosponsored by the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) and the Center for Equal Opportunity, held January 19, 2008, at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. The title of the paper is The Effects of Proposition 209 on California: Higher Education, Public Employment, and Contracting 09/25/2008 Charles L. Geshekter

In 1996, Californians overwhelmingly approved Proposition 209 that prohibited all state agencies from using anyone’s race, ethnicity, or gender to discriminate against them or give them preference in university admissions, public employment, or competition for a state contract.

Those who opposed Proposition 209 predicted that ending racial or gender favoritism would result in sharp declines in black and Hispanic college enrollments, setbacks for women in public employment, reduced funds for cancer detection centers and domestic violence shelters, or other alarmingly negative effects.

Continue reading “Some inconvenient truths about racial preferences and affirmative action/diversity policies”

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Sep 23 2008

California Supreme Court: restrained when it suits its political positions

Category: affirmative action,diversityharmonicminer @ 1:40 pm

An earlier post discussed the issue of Richard Sander’s attempt to get bar association records to evaluate the efficacy of affirmative action in law school admissions. It would seem that the California State Supreme Court, in an uncharacteristic display of judicial restraint, has decided not to consider Sander’s request for an order to release the records.

If UCLA law professor Richard Sander gains access to California Bar exam data for his own study on racial preferences, he’ll have to start somewhere other than the California Supreme Court.

Last week, that court denied Sander’s request for an order compelling the State Bar to cooperate with him. The justices didn’t rule on the merits of the request — which had been filed with the Supreme Court early last month — but rather indicated Sander should refile “in an appropriate court.”

This is, of course, a pure stalling action. They hope that Sander will just give up at some point, run out of money to pursue it, etc. They hope that somehow a resolution can be found for the matter that won’t require them to go on record as opposing public access to such records on the one hand, or appearing to support research that might undermine affirmative action on the other.

Our black robed masters are so courageous, whenever they can rule in favor of the extreme Left, but curiously gutless when it comes to upholding public access to what should be public records.  Of course, this is probably just a case of attorneys protecting attorneys, the jurisprudential version of professional ethics.

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Sep 20 2008

If you doubt the validity of affirmative action, you must be a racist

As usual, anyone who tries to scientifically study the actual effect of affirmative action is accused of racist motives.

In his 19 years as a law professor at UCLA, Richard Sander has pondered a nagging question: Does affirmative action help or hinder black people who want to become lawyers?

Two years ago, he published research suggesting that racial preferences at law firms might be responsible for black lawyers’ high rate of attrition and difficulty making partner. He hypothesized that, in the interest of promoting diversity, law firms sometimes hire black lawyers that are under-qualified, and that when there is a “credentials gap” between black and white lawyers at a firm, black lawyers often fail.

The research stirred debate throughout the legal community, and Sander said he was surprised at the vehemence with which people attacked his motives. A former Vista volunteer, fair-housing activist and campaigner for Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, Sander insisted he was simply trying to examine an important question.

Now the law professor has waded into another controversy. Sander says his goal this time is to examine whether law schools set up many affirmative action beneficiaries for failure by admitting them into rigorous academic environments in which they are ill-prepared to compete. He proposes to study almost 30 years of data on California Bar Association exam-takers. In the end, he hopes to explain why, as reported in a Law School Admission Council study in the 1990s, blacks are four times as likely as whites to fail the bar exam on the first try.

Continue reading “If you doubt the validity of affirmative action, you must be a racist”

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