I am way behind in clearing out my drafts folder and it looks like I will end up deleting entries about a lot of worthy topics due to their (now) lack of timeliness and/or my lack of time to complete them. But I did not want to miss the opportunity to post about the special Diversity in Academe section of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
This special section has something for everyone. Really. Lest you think "diversity" only means "race," there are articles on diversity of religious beliefs ("Some Evangelicals Find the Campus Climate Chilly — but Is That About Faith, or Politics?"), diversity of sexual orientation ("Gay Professors Face Less Discrimination, but Many Still Fight for Benefits"), diversity of marital status ("Make Room for Singles in Teaching and Research ," and diversity of social class ("Elite Colleges Must Give Low-Income Students the Tools to Succeed")--just to name a few.
Of course, the section also delivers on one of the things that the CoHE does best: documenting nationwide statistics. This article breaks down faculty race/ethnicity figures at 2,700 colleges.
One of my favorite articles in the issue is this one about a small group of African American female philosophers who have found each other and are getting together to meet face to face:
When the nation's black female philosophers meet for the first time next month, the auditorium at Vanderbilt University will have plenty of empty seats. Not because no one is interested in attending, but because fewer than 30 black women are known to hold full-time jobs in the discipline.The women — plus about a half-dozen black female graduate students — are getting together for the first meeting of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers. The gathering will be part pep talk, part networking opportunity, and part research seminar.
As part of my graduate minor in bioethics I took courses in the philosophy department. It did not take long for me to notice that I was only one of a handful of Black graduate students. Even though I have grown used to my Only status, it was even more apparent walking those halls. So I will be waiting with interest to see what these women will do with their new-found sense of not being Only.
The special issue is not all "pro-diversity," however. One article aims to explain "Why Diversity for Diversity's Sake Won't Work" while another claims that "True Diversity Doesn't Come From Abroad."
The latter article in particular is one that resonated with me, as it articulated well my increasing sense that "diversity" policies are being used as a bait-and-switch tactic to ignore social justice responsibilities. I wholeheartedly value an increasd emphasis on global understanding and experience--If my experience living in Germany for three years taught me anything it was that too many of us Americans are too ignorant about the rest of the world, and that we are bound to suffer greatly because of it. Yet, efforts at internationalizing our campuses and curricula should not be undertaken at the expense of addressing issues of racial disparities and discrimination within our own borders. From the Chronicle article:
Correcting the underrepresentation of minority groups, then, has little to do with international programs. The presence of foreign scholars — even those who are black, brown, or Spanish-speaking — does little to solve the problem of our universities' lack of success with Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, and black youth from across the United States. Foreigners should not count when we are talking about underrepresentation of American groups.Diversity initiatives began in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a way to solve broad, deep, race-based problems in American society. But with its shift in meaning, diversity today is a sort of red herring. We can deceive ourselves that we are taking the right steps to increase diversity when in fact we are ignoring what is still one of this country's most troubling issues: educating our minority youth.
I'm not sure about the term "red herring" the author of the above article uses. Dictionary.com offers a second definition of the term as "something intended to divert attention from the real problem or matter at hand." I think that the rhetorical frame of diversity, or diversities, is not so much a focus on "un-real" problems. It is more that talking about multiple differences--indeed, being able to frame virtually everything as a matter of an important diversity--we are able to diffuse attention, spead it out from race to cover other things that in some cases may not be so contentious. (And the greater problem is that we seem to be spreading out the same store of attention, the same time for discussion, the same pot of resources to cover all these new areas instead of investing in more to cover more.) In the process, with each switch of diversity focus we change around who the "oppressed" and "oppressors" are such that no one has to remain the "bad guy" and everyone gets to be the "good guy" at some point.
In this environment of Everything is Diverse talking directly about race can be exhausting and frustrating. As I put things in this previous SITBB post, for example:
...I bet I am not the only person who has had the experience of, as someone on a discussion board so brilliantly put it, bringing up race and feeling as if I had "brought stinky cheese to a potluck lunch." That is, instead of being rebuked, debated, or otherwise engaged in conversation about what I have said, the reaction is a polite--but firm--avoidance. Too well-mannered to chide me for my poor choice of dish, my fellow lunchmates nevertheless steer clear of it.This makes me think: Has "diversity" failed as a workable strategy in higher education?
In the more than two years since I first posed that question I am no closer to a definitive answer. But I have seen this trend toward multiple diversities continue to grow. I am also not close to deciding if this will end up being a good thing or a bad thing.
In the meanwhile, I am continuing to enjoy the...um, diverse perspectives in this CoHE special section. I also continue to be a fan of another higher education publication, Diverse Issues in Higher Education. This publication used to be known as Black Issues in Higher Education but it, too, was bitten by the diversity bug--Although actually, even when it was named Black Issues it covered issues related to other diverse groups, too... Well, at any rate the current issue of DIHE also is well worth the read.
Posted by perry032 at October 10, 2007 01:15 PM