Diversity: The Prized and Prejudiced

During training, we RAs were required to attend a special Diversity Training session. At first, I didn't think much of it, until I realized that it lasted four hours, whereas Public Safety was one hour, Academics was an hour and 15 minutes, and Drug and Alcohol Abuse combined was an hour and a half. Looking in from the outside, one might be tempted to conclude that Columbia thinks it's perfectly fine for its students to fail classes, turn into alcoholics and potheads, and get robbed-so long as white, black, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American students smoke pot and get robbed in racially representative proportions.

Of course, from the inside, we know it doesn't really work that way. The woman who opened the Diversity Training session started off with "I know the second I say 'diversity,' I'm going to see the eyes rolling into the back of your heads." Of course, we giggled. And why not? To many, "diversity" is a meaningless buzzword. It's worse than meaningless. Meaningless buzzwords prompt blank or bored looks. "Diversity" spawns gross cynicism.

But wait, you say, diversity is a great thing. I've been told every day since sixth grade how great diversity is. Well, what if it isn't? What is diversity anyway? As far as I can tell, to Columbia, it is equality in racial representation across academic and social endeavors. That sounds great, but take it one step further. What is the point of equality?

I really don't think the end goal of anyone here is to create a perfectly balanced racial mixture on campus, or anywhere. I think the end goal is equity. What's that? It's fundamental fairness on a personal, social, institutional, and national level. It's a state when there is only one race: the human race.

There are lots of arguments out there against "diversity," in that it might hurt a school's academic standing and integrity in admissions processes. What is far more important, however, is that pursuing "diversity" strictly in the racial sense ignores its own long-term goals, and worse yet, exacerbates a problem that it tries in vain to fix.

To begin with, it sets up double standards. My friend Sean Wilkes knows a man who grew up poor and destitute in Serbia. He immigrated to the United States and learned English while earning minimum wage as a janitor at a sports bar and as a mechanic in a car shop, all while raising a daughter. He earned his GED by taking night classes while working two jobs seven days a week. After working on some hand-me-down SAT prep books, he scored in the high 1200s and applied to an undergraduate business program. The kid who lived across the street from him slacked off in high school, graduated with a C- average, and had much lower SAT scores. Perhaps more importantly, he was classified as an "underrepresented minority." Guess who got in.

But, you say, you're missing the point. Individual anecdotes don't invalidate the whole doctrine of diversity. You have to take a principled stance instead of a situational stance. This is true. An anecdote from me pointing out problems with race-based diversity can be, I'm sure, matched by an anecdote from someone else pointing out clear successes with race-based diversity. That doesn't change the fact that problems still exist. How many "individual anecdotes" will it take to acknowledge that while some are undoubtedly helped, some are also hurt by a process which in its quest for equality undermines fundamental principles of equity?

Make no mistake, I like affirmative action, so long as it's applied equitably. Who doesn't? There is a legitimate and pressing need to provide for and assist the historically disadvantaged. But, you really can't get much more "disadvantaged" than to be born and raised in a war-torn post-Communist wasteland. If this man was ever considered as an individual, that obviously came after his race.

Pursuing equity doesn't require expensive public relations gimmicks or fancy buzzwords. It's a top-down process that starts with respecting and considering people on an individual basis. It's not a bottom-up process of tearing up and redefining individuals to fit a group concept of race and ethnicity.

Affirmative action, likewise, shouldn't be torn down. It should be reformed to aim for equity of opportunity instead of some rigid vision of equality of racial representation. The criteria for determining whether someone's condition is that of "disadvantage" should defocus on race and take other factors, such as a person's socioeconomic condition, into account, instead of looking through the assumptions of a racial lens. Perhaps that will eventually lead to this fuzzy vision of equality in racial representation; perhaps not. Certainly it's a less direct path. It makes no claims to establish equality, but it is equitable. Maybe it's just me, but I would take fairness over the appearance of fairness any day.