Looking for Diversity in All the Wrong Places

Few words are as loaded these days as "diversity." Columbia wants a "diverse" student body. Columbia just spent $15 million making sure the faculty is "diverse." Diversity is celebrated at least twice in every e-mail University President Bollinger sends out, and it is mentioned at least 17 times in every admissions viewbook. Yes, we agree, diversity is a Good Thing.

But what is "diversity" anyway? It has something to do with difference, right? Fine. Does diversity mean diversity in everything? The Office of Multicultural Affairs is a Good Thing. Grutter vs. Bollinger is a Good Thing. However, the second "ideological diversity" is breathed, or mentioned, or suggested, or implied, diversity stops being a Good Thing and turns into the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

Why is that? Because if the only way to see diversity is through the crude lens of ideology, then logic dictates that Columbia should, for reasons of diversity, hire Marxists for the business school and blood-letters for the medical school.

The Spectator's "Call for Conservatism" staff editorial (Nov. 9, 2004) and Professor William Harris' reply (Nov. 12, 2004) ran nearly 10 months ago. David Horowitz rolled into town four months ago to fire back in his annual vilification of the Columbia faculty. What intrigues me is how the topic just refused to die. I had to wonder, did anyone wonder what Harris meant in the first place?
Harris wrote: "The difficulty you experienced in thinking of good historians who are, in American terms, conservative, should have led you to ask why that was so. Is it possible that serious scholarly study of history tends to lead a person toward the left?"
When I read that, my first reaction was to be mortally disturbed. Is William Harris, a tenured and highly respected member of one of the best history programs in the country, suggesting that seriously studying history would make one liberal? Does that mean if I were to take classes with him and I didn't offer left-wing opinions, he wouldn't consider me to be engaged in a "serious scholarly study of history"?

It gets worse. Students who don't participate in serious scholarly study are usually bad students and come away with appropriate grades. Does it mean that history students who aren't headed left deserve an F? Call me naïve, but I have a hard time believing that any professor really thinks that.

Then I had to wonder why Professor Harris would say such a thing in the first place. Maybe he wanted to annoy David Horowitz. But the fact that he's a tenured faculty member probably pisses off David Horowitz. Maybe he wanted to draw a line in the sand against the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. But why would he want to completely shut out conservative students? The popular accusation is that leftist professors want to "seduce," "corrupt," "brainwash," and "mislead" their students, not alienate them outright. Finally, why would he add fuel to the fire? If there ever were a definitive argument for ideological diversity, he just gave it.

Then it hit me. He wasn't trying to alienate anyone. He wanted to stop the focus on ideological diversity. Ideological balance fixes nothing. First, it leads to a blind alley: faculty who are so obsessed with why their colleagues and students are wrong that they can't be bothered to explain why they are right. Second, it is intellectually dishonest. If we ever elevate political beliefs to the level of hiring criteria, we replace questioning academics with parroting ideologues who are indoctrinators first and scholars second, if at all.

The kind of diversity that should thrive is intellectual diversity. Professors shouldn't be hired based on where they stand politically. They should be hired because they are good instructors and researchers who know and expect that others will not stand with them on everything. The classroom's sole priority cannot be to serve as a battlefield. To be fair, it can't be a playpen for all-loving fuzzy-wuzzy Care Bears either. At the heart of scholarly work is disagreement, but disagreements don't have to lead to fights.

A few months ago, I wrote a controversial column about the riots of 1968. Eric Foner didn't like it very much-and he told his 245-person class just that. I had a near-heart attack when my friend text-messaged me, "OMG FONER IS TRASHING YOU IN CLASS RITE NOW!!!!" but I finally decided to visit his office hours. In the end, Foner didn't budge an inch. And I didn't budge an inch. But focusing on that misses the point entirely: neither of us had to budge at all. What was important was that Foner didn't sabotage my academic career, and that I didn't go off and film "Columbia, Unbecoming II."
Intellectual diversity doesn't threaten, but rather enhances the mission of the University. Ideological diversity, on the other hand, politicizes the professorship. That's just misguided.