That’s according to the University of California, an arm of state government, as Ace reminds us. I don’t get it. Since when does government dislike meritocracy?

More microaggressions per U of C: “America is a melting pot” and “America is the land of opportunity.” We’re very close to the end now, my friends.

Here’s a bit from the UCLA diversity handout. On the left is what “microaggressors” say, on the right is what they supposedly mean:

My favorite is “gender plays no part in who we hire,” a policy feminists have spent decades demanding from American businesses only to dismiss it now as aggressively sexist, a self-delusion promoted by the corporate world to disguise their bias against women. Gender inescapably plays a part in who they hire; the only way to cure the bias is with quotas. That explains why “I believe the most qualified person should get the job,” an anti-quota philosophy, is microaggressive. But … if you hired a women and emphasized that you don’t necessarily think the most qualified person should get the job, wouldn’t that be microaggressive? Show of hands, ladies: Who wouldn’t be insulted at being told by your new boss that you were brought on in the name of “social justice,” not because you were the best candidate who applied?

I like this too, from the “pathologizing cultural values/communication styles” section:

Encouraging Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans to speak up more in class seems much closer to fulfilling the goals of campus diversity than “respecting their cultural silence” or whatever. If anything, it seems microaggressive to assume Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans would be disinclined to speak up in the first place. The funniest one, though, is the bit about blacks speaking too loudly because of “cultural baggage,” and that asking them to lower their voice shows no “room for difference.” It’s always racist to think a guy who’s speaking at volume nine when the environment calls for three or four should pipe down? Or is this just U of C delicately offering whites tips on what to expect if they catch a flick at a movie theater in a black neighborhood? (That was microaggressive. Sorry.)

Eugene Volokh notes that while these aren’t hard and fast rules for faculty at U of C, they’re also lines that an untenured prof who values his job and the prospect of eventually being granted tenure might be unwilling to cross. I’d add to that that I think righties make a mistake in treating this stuff as a campus curio, something that Ivory Tower A-holes obsess over to flatter themselves about the extent of their enlightenment but which they’ll be quickly disabused of when they graduate and need to survive in the real world. Remaking “the real world” is the point here. If they spend enough time inculcating the idea that the melting pot is “microaggressive” in enough students, it’ll gradually take root among the general public. They’re playing for big stakes. They always do.