Theme Semester a Farce

Another Fall term ends here at the University. Students, steeling themselves for final projects, take comfort anticipating a long winter's nap and a respite from Ann Arbor's anxieties. But as we all know, bliss flees apace, and before you can say "Citrus Bowl" we are delivered back to the austere portal of the second semester. We at the Review are especially concerned with what our University administration has planned for the new year, namely the much-heralded "Diversity: Theories and Practices" theme semester, an enterprise sponsored by the year-old "Dialogues in Diversity" program.

As we wrote in September, the idea that this "Diversity" theme semester represents anything but a vehicle to advance the Administration's pro-affirmative-action sentiment is a farce. The University's commitment to use "diversity" as a proxy for "racial preferences" is so well recognized now that it would be naive to expect any sort of fidelity to the oft-repeated reminder that "dialogue, including dissent, is (their) goal."

According to the Dialogues in Diversity website, the theme semester's objective is to "encourage everyone in the University community to consider human diversity in its multiplicity of meanings, and to enrich the diverse and interdisciplinary environment that enables us to learn from one another." Multiplicity of meanings indeed. A glance at the Winter Term course guide reveals a typical preoccupation with racial issues, all subsumed under the "Diversity" rubric: Anthro. 447 - "Culture, Racism, and Human Nature," Film and Video 365 - "Race and Ethnicity in Contemporary American Television," and Humanities 250 sec. 003 - "Nation Formation: Race and Gender in the Americas" are three red flags. We are dismayed that the University's concept of "Diversity" continues to ignore the potentialities of political diversity, philosophical diversity, or religious diversity as legitimate alternatives or complements to the diversity of skin tone. The reader asks: Why despair over a glut of race-oriented classes? We answer: because a "diversity" of pigment varieties is an appeal to the outrageous notion that there are inherently "white" or "black" or "Hispanic" ways of thinking; such doctrine establishes restrictive norms for the worldviews of members of these various groups.

So while we concede that "diversity" will remain a one-dimensional concept at the University, might we hope for at least a diverse discourse on the matter of race on campus and the merits of affirmative action? After all, the folks at Dialogues on Diversity admit that "differences of opinion may remain, but greater understanding will result." The truth is we cannot hope for fair dialogue of any variety at this institution. When we recall the Ward Connerly fiasco and the Administration's tacit acceptance of liberal cretinism, we realize that this campus shall not soon provide a forum in which one might argue why racial preferences are wrong. Yet as long as affirmative action remains the University's golden calf, programs like the Winter '99 "Diversity Theme Semester" will sing the party line at the cost of the real meaning of "diversity." MR

This article was published in the 9 December 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 17, Number 5).
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