(Dreamstime)

It has been quite a long time since America’s education sector excluded anyone who was a capable teacher/scholar. But that isn’t good enough for the many “diversophiles” (as Peter Wood calls them) in our midst. Those people can always find some reason to complain that we don’t yet have enough diversity and that some group is “underrepresented.”

Two such academics are Abigail Stewart and Virginia Valian, who have written a hefty book entitled An Inclusive Academy. Their goal is to persuade everyone that more diversity is always good.

In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Charles Geshekter examines their book and finds it to be very lame. He writes:

This study confirms the tenacity of diversity activists and bureaucrats whose ‘numbers game’ continues to embroil universities. For any contemporary campus, the authors find so much diversity to consider to achieve genuine inclusivity—’race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, rank, ability status, age, dependent care demands, partner status, health, and more.’ Even more?

One obvious problem with the book that Geshekter exposes is that the authors cite all kinds of research purporting to show that “diversity” makes for better results, but never once consider any of the counter-arguments that have been made against their beliefs.

Another glaring weakness in their case is that the authors see the world in terms of homogenous groups rather than unique individuals. Geshekter again:

In pursuit of inclusivity, Stewart and Valian embrace stereotypes. They homogenize women and ethnic minorities, claiming they’ve suffered under a capricious yoke of white males that precluded them from being evaluated on merit. They portray today’s campus as a place where women are constantly the target of sneers, putdowns, and derogatory remarks. That’s completely at odds with what I’ve witnessed over the past 40 years at a state university. Some feminists declare that simply being a woman in 2019 qualifies them as a historically underrepresented minority.

And how would the authors bring the academy into the Nirvana of Inclusivity? They want “diversity minders” hovering over all personnel decisions. What a waste of money. And what a way to exclude outstanding candidates on the grounds that they don’t check off one of the increasingly numerous diversity boxes.

Alas, almost every upper-level college administrator in America would nod at every assertion Stewart and Valian make. The diversity obsession is likely to get worse before it starts to recede.