Missing Boat On Diversity

The latest issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education features a supplement on Diversity In Academe that, like the industry it covers, gives a superficial treatment of the concept, at best.

The supplement features articles entitled:

• A Black Man Defies the Data;

• Why Male Students Chill and Female Students Stress;

• Women Are Everywhere**Except STEM fields; and

• Gender Equality: A House of Cards.

Grover City College professor Paul Kengor came closer to describing higher education today in an article which appeared in the journal Libertas. “Well, for one thing, college campuses are rife with words like ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism,’” Kengor stated. “In truth, these are empty slogans used selectively by liberals—that is, intolerantly.”

“They are applied in a notably un-diverse way—to secular sacred cows like gender, race, and sexual orientation and not at all to diversity of ideas. That, of course, is extremely ironic, given that universities, first and foremost, ought to be about the universe of ideas.”

Libertas is published by the Young America’s Foundation. “I could share story after story from distraught parents who have contacted me over the years, upset that their child of 18 years, who did everything from Boy Scouts to youth ministry at the church, came home that first Christmas break and informed them he supported Obama, or Kerry, or Gore, or Clinton.”

“I have heard tales of Thanksgiving dinner where mom and dad were baffled at the stunning new words emanating from the mouth of Susie, as if an ACORN community organizer or Planned Parenthood feminist had helicoptered onto the front lawn.”

Kengor argues that parents should stop rewarding bad behavior by giving money to institutions that provide this “training.” “To counter a Columbia or Cal-Berkeley, there is a Hillsdale College and Grove City College (where I teach), a Franciscan University (Steubenville, Ohio), a Thomas Aquinas College (Santa Paula, California), a Regent University (Virginia Beach, Virginia) and a few others,” Kengor advises. “Sure, there aren’t as many conservative colleges as liberal ones, but they are out there.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
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