We’ve seen (most recently here, citing six earlier discussions) that the New Haven Fire Department refused to promote anyone to lieutenant or captain because no blacks passed the required exam.
Now, thanks to Roger Clegg’s note on NRO’s Bench Memos Phi Beta Cons, I see from an article in the Washington Post that the College Board has dropped an Advanced Placement exam in Latin, explaining that its decision “was related to the number of minority students taking the exam.”
So, no promotions because not enough blacks passed an exam; then no exam because not enough minorities take the exam. If this principle is valid, shouldn’t cost-conscious colleges begin dropping courses, or maybe even whole departments, because an insufficient number of minorities enroll in them? Wouldn’t doing so increase the number of classes that are “diverse”?
If “diversity” is as essential as its proponents claim, after all, how can such un-“diverse” classes be worthwhile?
ADDENDUM
Now that I’m thinking about it (see, thinking about “diversity” is frequently a mistake), perhaps what colleges need is a new “diversity” distribution requirement. No, not the “diverse” subject matter that many of them already require (“Diverse People in American History,” “Race, Class, and Gender in Post-Colonial Aboriginal Societies,”etc.), but a requirement that a certain percentage of one’s classes contain a “critical mass” of, or at least a few, “diverse” students.
Of course such a requirement would force registrars to keep close tabs on the racial identity of students, but since that information is already heavily used by the admissions offices updating the computers shouldn’t prove that difficult.
ADDENDUM II
To have the most beneficial effect I think the new DDR (Diversity Distribution Requirement) would have to, in the manner and spirit of all “diversity” measures, treat the “diverse” and the un-“diverse” students differently. The un-“diverse” students would be required to take a certain number of courses in which there were also some number of “diverse” students. The “diverse” students, by contrast, would have a ceiling imposed on the number of courses they could take in which more than a certain number of “diverse” students enrolled, in order to prevent the academic self-segregation that so often occurs. This latter aspect of the DDR would have the added benefit of increasing the number of “underrepresented” minorities in math, science, and engineering courses, and hence being poured into the pipeline for possible careers in STEM fields.
True, the DDR would reduce the amount of choice and control over their courses allowed to students, but all distribution requirements do that. Moreover, the demand for “diversity” long ago established the principle that it is legitimate, or even required, to include, exclude, and otherwise distribute students based on their race.
I happen to think this is a good idea and should be extended throughout university curricula.
Since diversity in class is per se good, stringent requirements should be placed on the departments of women’s studies and black studies, for example. In order to maintain the rich diversity of culture that is everyone’s goal, black studies classes should be required to have a critical mass of non-black studients.
I’d also suggest that to make sure women’s studies is diverse such departments be required to have a certain number of faculty members who, say, reflect the fact that over half of American women favor some restrictions on abortion and a quarter of American women are evangelical Christians.
But that’s getting into the area of the utopian. I think making sure black students enjoy the rich diversity of non-black students in their classes would be a good start.
Clegg’s note was at Phi Beta Cons, not Bench Memos.
To give the diversity-mongers more to work with, perhaps they can extend the concept to gender diversity. They should cap the number of women allowed to study in subjects that are overwhelmingly female, such as early childhood education, and shift them over to physics.
I keep seeing the Title IX threats to the hard sciences, and I think it should be applied across the board for both sexes. If it’s bad for engineering to be overwhelmingly male it certainly can’t be good that women’s studies is overwhelmingly female.
Not sure if you saw this new proposed addition to the racial spoils system yet:
http://thehill.com/business–lobby/democrats-seek-financial-rescue-of-minority-owned-broadcasters-2009-05-19.html
Clegg’s note was at Phi Beta Cons, not Bench Memos
Oops. My editor should have caught that. I’ll have a word with him, if I ever find him….
Re Alex’s and meep’s idea to extend forced balancing to gender, why aren’t the diversiphiles already working on that? Couldn’t be because they really don’t accept the logic of their argument….
GD asks:
Not sure if you saw this new proposed addition to the racial spoils system yet:
http://thehill.com/business–lobby/democrats-seek-financial-rescue-of-minority-owned-broadcasters-2009-05-19.html
Just saw it. Will blog it soon….