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Are We Really Becoming More ?Diverse?? Does It Really Matter?

This morning Inside Higher Ed notes the publication of yet another report calling for more ?diversity? in higher education, this one from the Council of Graduate Schools.

?Our nation is becoming increasingly diverse, yet Hispanic and African American students are highly underrepresented in graduate schools, particularly in fields such as science and engineering, where each group makes up less than 10 percent of graduate enrollment and approximately 5 percent of new Ph.D.?s,? the report says. ?While women are the fastest-growing group in graduate education, they too remain underrepresented in some key fields. These demographic trends present long-term challenges that can be overcome only by a national commitment to developing all our country?s talent.?

You (especially you here) hear this a lot. Indeed, I suspect we hear that we are ?becoming increasingly diverse? so often that we no longer hear it at all. But is it really true? There are certainly more Hispanics, especially Mexicans, here than there used to be, but does the presence of more and more Mexicans really make us more diverse? Does a graduate program really become more diverse if the percentage of Hispanic students increases from, say, 7% to 11%? And blacks as a proportion of our population are probably staying relatively constant, perhaps even declining. If so, wouldn?t that make us less diverse? Just asking.

Thus it seems to me that this plea for more ?diversity,? based as always on the assertion that we are more diverse than we used to be, is not only not about actual diversity (again, as always); it?s not even fundamentally about pigmentary ?diversity.? All it is is a plea (once again, as usual) for proportional representation.

?The face of higher education does not mirror the face of our nation,? the first sentence of the Executive Summary of the Council of Graduate schools report ponderously intones. Even though the proportion of students from ?underrepresented groups? has been increasing, the Executive Summary continues, ?not enough students from underrepresented groups get their degrees, and not enough go on to graduate school.?

?Enough? for what? Why should ?the face of higher education ... mirror our society?? If it should, shouldn?t the faces of accountants, middle managers, automobile workers, tobacco farmers, etc., etc. also ?mirror? our society? Again, just asking.

?Focusing on the increasingly diverse domestic talent
pool must be a national priority,? the Executive Summary commands.

Diversity and inclusiveness are about more than gender and race; these concepts include socio-economic status, age, people with disabilities, international students, immigrants, and those who are the first generation in their family to pursue higher education.

But wait. Haven?t there always been people who are rich and poor and middle class, old and young, able and disabled, foreign and domestic, etc.? Again, if ?diversity? is really ?about? all these groups, and they?ve always been among us, how are we becoming ?increasingly diverse?? Just asking.

Finally, no matter whether or not ?the increasingly diverse domestic talent pool? really is becoming ?increasingly diverse,? there are still only a finite (not infinite) number of ?diverse? people in that talent pool. If more of them are lured into graduate schools, wouldn?t there be fewer of them available to become engineers and insurance salesman and, even, lawyers? Wouldn?t we then have to endure more reports like this one lamenting that the ?faces? of those professions do not ?mirror? our society? Just asking.

Rather than continue to have all our career fields and professions engaged in constant strife, each trying both inefficiently and expensively to outbid the others for ?diverse? talent, why shouldn?t the Obama administration simply step in, as it?s so fond of doing when the market doesn?t work to its satisfaction, to regulate this unruly ?diversity? market? Michelle, or someone equally diverse and talented, could then be appointed ?Diversity Czar? and given the authority to assign ?diverse? students to fields where they are needed, much as local school boards like to assign students by race to achieve the most appealing racial mix (or did until that mean right-wing Supreme Court told them they had to stop). Just asking.

By the way, if you think you?ve heard this Draft ?Em! argument before, you?re right.

Full post as published by Discriminations on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).