Diversity: the world's new buzzword
Diversity is a code word for social excellence and progress these days. The aim of the U.S.: Have as diverse a population as possible. The aim of the professions: Get great diversity. And of television programming: Diversify. And of race relations: Get diversity. And religion: Diversity is better. Of schools: We need more diversity. On and on we could go with this objective of diversity.
And so we diversify. Mizzou today reminds one of Hong Kong where nationalities and races mill around together. Look at the athletic team players: the bastion of diversity. Look at the male-female representatives on the school and college faculties. About even, with women probably dominating. Not so much gender diversity in the administration, but it is improving.
Look at the restaurants in Columbia. Quite a diverse choice: Italian, Middle Eastern, Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, Spanish, Mexican, Mongolian — on and on. Plenty of diversity? What about Tibetan, Malawian, Chadian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Bangladeshi, Russian, Malaysian, Turkish, et al. Then, within each of the countries, there are regional and local delicacies that could be represented. Diversity is an open-ended concept.
Something is a little shady about a club, for example, open only to a certain class, or race, or gender. Girls should be allowed in the Boy Scouts. Women must be permitted membership in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. But wait. Is this enough diversity? What about “proper” representation of gays, cripples, geniuses, morons, the left-handed, the paranoid, the introverts?
Birds of a feather may flock together. But, as for humans, they should unflock, they must mix, they must integrate, they must always aim at diversity. In reality, outside the authoritarianism of the state or social arbiter groups, humans do in fact flock together. Women have their clubs, as do men. Religious groups establish ever more narrow and esoteric memberships. On fully-integrated campuses, blacks and whites gather in their discrete groups. As do Orientals and Latin Americans. Political correctness has gone very far, but it has not undone the naturalistic urges of kindred groupism.
As diversified as university faculties are in gender and race, I have noticed one area where there seems no desire to diversify. That is the political orientation. Ideological diversification does not seem important. And for the sake of the students, this is where the most important diversity should be. Faculties are predominantly liberal and the few conservatives that are found there are ridiculed, despised or ignored. They are not taken seriously, by and large, and have little or no voice in the hiring of new faculty — almost all of whom are liberal.
Conservatives in the university know what it feels like to be in a minority. Say little or nothing, for it will do little good to say anything. It’s a liberal world and the Liberal Establishment is busy indoctrinating little liberals who will take their places in the academic world.
You may ask how I know all this. I read, I observe, I discuss this with faculty members here and elsewhere. And I have been a faculty member at some eight universities in the U.S. And I know what I say is true. Sure, some of us conservatives survive and contribute to diversity of ideas. And some like Milton Friedman, Jean Kirkpatrick, and Robert Nozick rise to academic heights. But we conservatives cannot be claimed as diversity agents in the university.