On the 29th of April we wrote about the failure of multiculturalism in Canada. Here is a Times article about the failure of multiculturalism in Britain, specifically in Brixton which is a London neighborhood.
The voluntary segregation in a nominally integrated environment that he describes in Brixton is exactly what I have observed for decades in universities. Universities have made every effort to create a multicultural student group, to the point of setting up (off-the-record) racial quotas with quite different admission standards for each.
Oddly enough, once on campus the heterogeneous student group segregates itself when in those settings where the composition of groups is within student control. In class and other official university settings, students are integrated. Out of class, in the student union or in off-campus housing arranged by the students, resegregation is pretty much the name of the game.
I would walk into a student union (fancy name for cafeteria and recreation building) and see students grouped around tables. Here I see a table of African-American students, there a table of Asian-American students, maybe a table of Hispanic-American students, dotted among several tables of European-Americans (aka "whites").
Dormitories are university-controlled and thus integrated. However, typically when "dormies" form voluntary groups to look for off-campus housing together - rent an apartment or house - those groups are mostly segregated.
My conclusion: the appearance of multiculturalism can be coerced, but true voluntary multiculturalism is probably quite rare.
