Legal Commentary

?Diversity? Goes Abroad (Or Doesn?t)

It is well known, at least to DISCRIMINATIONS readers, that if you listen closely to the justification of ?diversity?-based racial preferences (But who does? Certainly not those who offer them) you will hear that ?diversity? is essential because whites (and implicitly, Asians) need to be exposed to blacks and Hispanics, whose ?difference? is what provides the ?diversity.? They (the ?diversity? providers), after all, would receive whatever benefits ?diversity? has to offer if they attended less selective campuses, but those of ?us? at the selective schools would be deprived of the benefits ? benefits said increasingly to be fundamental to the mission of higher education ? of being exposed to ?them.?

But what is the cause for overwrought concern if study abroad programs are not sufficiently ?diverse?? Is it really absolutely necessary for American whites (and Asians) to be exposed to a proportionately large number of American blacks and Hispanics during their six months or whatever in Antwerp or Bologna? Does the fact that ?about 65 percent of full-time college students were white? in 2007-2008 but that ?white students accounted for nearly 82 percent of all participants in foreign-study programs? really represent a disturbing problem that must be analyzed, explained, and corrected?

To see what I think about this question (as if you didn?t already know), take a look at my Diversity Goes Abroad (Or Doesnt) on Minding The Campus today.

Full post as published by Discriminations on September 23, 2010 (boomark / email).