Williams Does Diversity, Part One
K.C. Johnson, Brooklyn College—CUNY

On EphBlog, I’ve been following the debate at my former institution, Williams College, which is in the process of launching a new “diversity” initiative. This is “diversity” defined very narrowly: as college president Morton Shapiro explained, ideological or even religious diversity “are considered to be a characteristic that is acquired rather than intrinsic,” so this initiative will focus exclusively on race. Among the initiative’s chief recommendations: “Continue to allocate FTE to curricular areas in which we are likely to attract minority candidates.” In other words, the skin color of the likely applicant pool will play as important, or even more important, a role as curricular or pedagogical need in allocating new lines. This is a disconcerting revelation.

For an outside perspective on faculty issues, the college turned to Professor Evelyn Hu-DeHart director of Brown’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Hu-DeHart last published a scholarly monograph in 1984; since then, she seems to have devoted herself almost full-time to administrative tasks geared toward championing a peculiar vision of higher education. Hu-DeHart seems to believe that on issues associated with “diversity,” people of good faith cannot disagree. Scholarly critics of the diversity agenda, she has contended “provided cover for white supremacists to oppose affirmative action,” while subjecting African-American and Hispanic students to “oppressive public scrutiny” and “extremely harsh attacks.” And what typified this “oppressive” activity? Publication of Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom’s America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible. In Hu-DeHart’s academy, apparently even scholars of the prestige and talent of the Thernstroms cannot explore issues related to race and ethnicity in America unless they affirm Hu-DeHart’s conclusions.

While Hu-DeHart has absurdly labeled scholarship questioning some of the foundations for affirmative action as an “extremely harsh” attack on students of color, she herself has demonstrated a tendency to issue blanket statements based on race or ethnicity calling into question her ability to envision a campus in which all students can do their best. To provide one example: in fall 2005, talking with students at Wesleyan College, Professor Hu-DeHart wondered why more people didn’t question the objectivity of “all these dominant white professors [who] are studying European history or the [history of] white Europe.” Can a scholar’s objectivity be questioned solely on the basis of the color of his or her skin? Imagine the (appropriate) outrage if a white professor leveled such a condemnation of “all these minority black professors who are studying African history or the history of black Africa.”

On curricular matters, Hu-DeHart has championed the Curriculum Transformation Project -- an initiative that seems to have more to do with imposing a specific ideological perspective on all classes rather than on “diversity” as commonly understood. The CTP’s “curriculumt [sic] transformation” website urges colleges to utilize “the classroom as democratic space in which students can dialogue about and practice new ways of relating across race, class, and gender.” (An education in the traditional disciplines of the liberal arts, apparently, does not allow for a sufficiently “diverse” perspective.) The CTB’s first “resource” is a guide to “teaching about Hurricane Katrina,” developed by the New York Collective of Radical Educators. The site urges professors to focus on how Katrina illustrates “the criminalization of poor people of color”; “the capitalist interests that govern public policy”; “militarism”; and “consumerism and related environmental degradation.” Such analysis was last fresh around 1969.

These curricular proposals all revolve around what Professor Hu-DeHart terms the “social action approach,” in which courses identify “important social issues and take actions to help solve them.” This concept, she maintains, is “central to the values of a liberal arts education.” Literally and theoretically, though never in practice, Williams could define a number of causes as “important social issues,” and “take actions to help solve them.” Perhaps the diversity curriculum could champion Israel’s right to self-defense, so as to defend innocent civilians against suicide murderers; or celebrate a Roman Catholic anti-abortion initiative, so as to promote justice by preventing the destruction of innocent life; or oppose affirmative action, so as to achieve a socially just, color-blind, legal code. We all know, of course, that Professor Hu-DeHart does not have such initiatives in mind.

These ideas, while extreme even among “diversity” advocates, might not distinguish Hu-DeHart from the roster of consultants from which a college might choose when seeking to embrace the “diversity” approach. But Hu-DeHart also has an administrative record of translating her ideas into action. Before coming to Brown, she chaired Colorado’s ethnic studies department for more than a decade. Her highest-profile hire was none other than Ward Churchill. Indeed, in April 2005, Hu-DeHart described Churchill as “her hire.” Most observers consider the hiring, early tenuring, and finally promotion of Churchill, who lacked a Ph.D. and has faced credible charges of massive plagiarism, weak scholarship, and lying about his ethnic heritage, as an example of exactly how institutions of higher education ought not to function.

Moreover, Hu-DeHart has been less than candid about the relationship between her “diversity” ideas and Churchill’s career. To a reporter at Brown, she claimed that no special considerations relating to “diversity” helped Churchill get his job. But this assertion that was directly contradicted by internal documents recently released by Colorado, which showed that the then-chair of the Communications Department, which originally hired Churchill, listed two reasons for doing so: Hu-DeHart’s request, and how Churchill’s claim that he was a “Native American” would improve the department’s diversity. Ironically, one of Hu-DeHart’s final acts before leaving her department chairmanship at Colorado in 2002 was to put in motion the first of four merit-pay raises that Churchill received between 2001 and 2005.

I would think that a figure who played the key role in rewarding Churchill with a lifetime position would not be in a position to supply guidance on academic policy to other institutions. In my next post, I’ll take a look at the “diversity” program that Hu-DeHart recommended for Williams -- a program that eerily parallels the program she helped put in place at Colorado.

NAS2:08 PM

The Character of a Campus
Thomas C. Reeves, The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

Colleges and universities in this country receive about $35 billion annually from the federal government. Almost all campuses enjoy the showering of cash. For starters, more than half of all college students receive federal loans, and about one in three receive grant aid. In return, the campuses accept politically correct “diversity” requirements about ethnicity, race, and sex without complaint. But one wonders if that commitment is sufficient. Shouldn’t the acceptance of tax dollars require campuses to conform to even higher ethical standards, assuring the public that their considerable investment in higher education is wise, fair, and useful? Isn’t this doubly true given the fact that campuses are dominated by “progressive” professors who eagerly and loudly proclaim themselves intellectuals committed to universal literacy, compassion, peace, and justice?

Three steps come to mind by which college and university faculties and administrators might prove their devotion to the high principles they routinely espouse, endowing each campus with a glow of good character that might win untold public support in the future.

In the first place, taxpayers could be supplied with solid information on academic standards. A great many campuses today boast of their rigor and high reputation for scholarship, denigrating their for-profit competitors on the Internet as soft and undemanding. But virtually all college and university catalogues are jam packed with nonsense and propaganda courses, huge survey sections abound, the use of ill-paid ad hoc professors and graduate students in the classroom is routine, grading is often sky high, and graduation requirements are minimal. How is the public to know if their young people are being truly educated in a demanding environment that requires genuine skills in a variety of solid disciplines? A reasoned explication of an institution’s educational philosophy (as opposed to a pretentious and meaningless mission statement), a full report on the activities and qualifications of its faculty, a survey of grading practices, clear and detailed descriptions of courses, and the installation of graduation examinations would help all of us understand the character of a campus. If little more than drinking, carousing, and football are offered, the taxpayers should know that too, honestly and in detail. Many young people will prefer a campus of that sort, of course, but why leave the decision to word of mouth? One might call this simply truth in packaging.

Second, campuses might begin immediately to limit classroom indoctrination, from both the Left and Right, by declaring their full support of some form of the Academic Bill of Rights, a version of which was recently adopted by Colorado’s public institutions of higher education. Intellectual diversity on campus is a good thing, and the public ought to be confident that at least two sides of an issue, along with the best available facts, are being presented consistently, responsibly, and as objectively as possible. To keep federal authorities from being intrusive in academic matters (no one wants government bureaucrats looking over the shoulders of professors or desires “thought police” in any form on campus), colleges and universities could oversee this matter themselves, assuring everyone in periodic public reports that authentic scholarship and fairness were paramount at all times. To begin with, a campus could list the political proclivities of its faculty, assuring all that every effort was being made to secure intellectual diversity. Then the spotlight could be placed on hiring, and with detailed data all could be assured that objectivity dominated the process, and that all forms of discrimination were rejected. Public reports on assigned classroom reading might also be helpful, giving the educated public an opportunity to see just how balanced courses are.

Third, many campuses might show their social compassion and generosity by spending some of their vast endowments to help the poor. This would not only be a good thing in itself but would also show gratitude to the taxpayers, relieving a bit of their financial burden for the unfortunate. There are many extraordinarily opulent campuses still clamoring for federal dollars. In mid-2004, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton had average endowments of $14.9 billion. Grinnell’s endowment amounted to $1.2 million per student. Think how many displaced poor people from New Orleans could be helped out by, say, the spare change from the endowments proudly sported by Amherst and Williams.

Then too, as suggested by Robert M. Dunn, Jr. in the online edition of The American Enterprise, why don’t rich colleges and universities help out poorer campuses? Dunn writes, “Are we to believe that graduates of Yale are so narrow-minded and selfish that they only want to help Yalies? Surely Yale, Princeton, Williams, and Grinnell alums will give just as freely knowing that their gifts are helping students at poorer schools, particularly since they were taught primarily by liberal professors devoted to income redistribution.” Every Harvard dollar sent to, say, California State University at Dominguez Hills, would surely save the taxpayers some money. And what a statement about caring and sharing!

Today, colleges and universities are ranked in a number of ways. How about a category for character, weighing honesty, solid academic standards, and generosity into the mix of donor giving, ratio of students to faculty, and so on? A top ranking school in this measure of achievement would be honored for putting substance into the rhetoric of high ideals and might well win the gratitude of alumni, students, and taxpayers in general.

NAS11:27 AM