Saturday, June 16, 2012

Diversity is a Code Word for Uniformity

Robert Fulford writes that a California university has an opening for someone with the right C.V.:
An executive-search firm is seeing candidates for a big new job, the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. In the language of education each of those three words carries about the same meaning, but repetition makes it sound more important. Besides, the new appointee will be expected to "implement a campus-wide strategy on equity, diversity and inclusion." UCSD also wants every student to study diversity and inclusion so that by graduation each will understand "her or his identity...through race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, language, ability/disability, class or age."
When discussing UCSD's progress in this direction, Heather MacDonald, the author of The Burden of Bad Ideas: How Modern Intellectuals Misshape Our Society, remarked: "Why study Cervantes, Voltaire of Goethe when you can contemplate yourself? Diversity is simply a code word for narcissism.
It's more than that. It's code for the "u" word in my headline. It's also a code word for mediocrity--the mediocrity inherent in Marxism and the self esteem movement.

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