Monday, December 11, 2017

Diversity

Over a dozen years ago I wrote about diversity in a university setting. If I were writing it today I might revisit some of the things I wrote about learning styles.

My bottom line was that "diversity" is not a goal but a means to an end.

Note carefully: I am not saying that invidious discrimination is justifiable. That is a different issue. I am saying that "diversity" as such ought not be made into a goal.

Can you think of a single case in which diversity is not merely a means?

  • A diversity of ethnic restaurants : stimulate a jaded palate.
  • A diversity of research groups in a university department : sometimes you get cross-fertilization. Such groups have finite lifetimes, and if there’s only one group incoming students have no research to join when it dies.
  • A diversity of viewpoints on the jury : look at the question from as many sides as possible to arrive at the truth
  • A diversity of ethnicities in kindergarten : if that's what the neighborhood is—you want everyone to have a basic education
  • A diversity of ethnicities in a church : the church is catholic—everyone God made is called
  • A diversity of peoples on Earth : OK, this one is above my pay grade, but I suspect the reason was to have as many ways to display and share facets of God’s goodness as possible. We've messed the goodness part up.
  • Mandated diversity : full employment for the diversity professionals

Because it is a means and not an end, diversity can fail to accomplish the end, or even prevent it. For example, a completely diverse jury would include Mafiosi, and if you have too many research groups in a department they are too small to do any work.

When you confuse means and ends, you distort the ends and don't do a good job with the means. If "Diversity is one of our goals" in a research group, that tells me that they no longer care wholeheartedly about truth, but want to employ people on the basis of something other than understanding they bring to the table. They try to become a "full employment agency."

3 comments:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

You may be taking the meaning of the word diversity at real value and trying to make sense of it what people say about it. It has become a word of incantation, with more emotive value than logical. I don't find that African-Americans are much interested in other groups' rights, only using that as a club. As far back as the 90's we would have people come in from the feds (though sometimes at one or two removes, for disguise - federal money) to train us. They would pronounce the word "die-versity" and it just meant respect for black people. Everyone else was an afterthought.

Sam L. said...

Diversity of thought, however, is not appreciated. Not mandatory, and often discouraged...with force.

james said...

Yes, diversity of philosophy is not appreciated.

I hang out in Physics. The usual "diversity" goal of having African-American grad students proportionate to their fraction of the population isn't particularly relevant, though people do pay lip service to it. Nobody talks about the details, but the pool from which one might draw black physics grad students is quite small, and business or law or medicine are much more lucrative fields. There's plenty of emphasis on outreach to high school and grade schoolers, though.

So in practice, much more emphasis is placed on "diversity" as meaning having 50/50 men/women in the field.