Universities and colleges are permitted by the courts to consider race, ethnicity and orientation as one factor in selecting students, with the goal of a more diverse student body. Federal law applying to hiring does not permit them to use these factors in selecting faculty, when what is desired is a more diverse faculty.
Once the selection process has begun, however, Title VII prohibits any consideration of a candidate’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This limitation on the use of race and sex in the selection process is reflected in the typical ads for academic positions that state that the university or college is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and that women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply.So-called “grievance studies” programs have proliferated.
These legal restrictions mean that to diversify their faculties, universities must create new positions that would appeal only to women or minority scholars or for which women and minority scholars are likely to be the most qualified candidates. The surest way to do this is to increase the number of positions in women’s studies, critical race theory, LGBTQ studies, and other cultural identity-based programs.And the result:
To the extent that a university lets its desire to increase faculty diversity drive this decision, it converts the means into the end. The drive for diversity now diverts the development of the university’s curriculum away from the path dictated by its educational values, needs, and goals.Plus “grievance studies” programs encourage students to major in navel-contemplating fields for whose graduates there will be few or no career opportunities. This lack of opportunity serves to create even more grievance to be studied and obsessed over.
Call this the diversity distortion. When the quest for diversity drives the proliferation of cultural studies programs beyond their academically justified level, it distorts universities’ curricula in ways that are detrimental to their educational missions.
