WHY DIVERSITY?:

Is Diversity Good? (Harry V. Jaffa, January 17, 2003, The Claremont Institute)

It was gratifying that President Bush came out firmly against the University of Michigan's versions of affirmative action, and that his Justice Department filed an amicus brief to that effect. Yet the President found it necessary—in today's climate of opinion—to pay lip service to the concept of "diversity." Yet however rhetorically fashionable this may be, it is nonetheless mindless. [...]

Ask yourself: if you or a loved one is to undergo brain or heart surgery, does it matter whether the surgeons who will operate had been selected for medical school for any other reason than their aptitude for medicine and surgery? Even if there were no quotas, should race have been "taken into consideration" in their selection? Consider the hairline life and death decisions that surgeons make all the time. Does not every consideration, however slight, apart from aptitude, dilute the qualifications of surgeons for surgery? The next time you are crossing a great bridge, do you not rely upon the qualifications of the engineers and builders to ensure your safety? What does the skin color of the classmates of doctors or engineers have to do with their medicine or their engineering? Is it not their professional qualification that matters, and not either the sameness or the differences from which they came? Is not the same true if we are seeking mathematicians, physicists, economists, or generals? In each case, what is apt for the end in view may be regarded as good, what is inapt may be regarded as bad.

"Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment to diversity, apart from the ends it may serve, is absurd.

Mr. Jaffa has a legitimate point, but there's one thing that seems to get lost in this debate. While state schools should not be allowed to consider race at all, there seems to be no good reason to require that private institutions be similarly color blind. If Harvard or whoever thinks that diversity is a good thing, by all means let them use race-based, rather than merit-based, admissions. The worst that could happen is that a formerly great school that no longer strives for excellence might begin to see its reputation tarnished and the value of its name on a degree diminshed. But if the folks who run Harvard don't care, why should we? We may find private racial discrimination of this kind distasteful, but it's never been apparent why the government should even take cognizance of it. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 21, 2003 12:19 PM