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Diversity initiatives misguided

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Also by Brad Vogel:

New government can succeed (April 3, 2006)
More transparency needed for ASM (January 23, 2006)
Bloated (April 5, 2006)
U.S. must formulate policy regarding China (January 30, 2006)
Wisconsin State: are you kidding? (April 10, 2006)

by Brad Vogel

Monday, April 24, 2006

Diversity, diversity, diversity. In an editorial last week, the Wisconsin State Journal called for an independent audit of campus diversity initiatives. While the publication's editorial board was right about one thing — efforts to increase diversity cost the UW System "tens of millions a year" — it still missed the mark by placing too much value on the left's social engineering ideal.

Really, what is diversity, anyway? At the end of the day, it's little more than a catch-all phrase designed to garner influence and control on campus. The concept has somehow been exempted from a good sifting and winnowing, and many are afraid to question the value of the code word. We've seen this song and dance before.

Over the course of four years here between the lakes, I've witnessed the hand-wringing, indoctrination and rabid multiculturalism from some campus-diversity advocates erode diversity's cheery façade, exposing the buzzword for what it is. When student-funded bureaucracies are pushed aside, when the politically correct rhetoric falls, there lies little more than a naked political ideology, a harmful argument that some people are better or more deserving than others due to the color of their skin. My, how the pendulum has swung.

As we continue to strive for a "color blind" society, logic suggests, race should matter less. However, existing policies and programs like Plan 2008 perpetuate just the opposite. Like it or not, creating a double standard for individuals based on race will not ameliorate racial tensions and divisions.

I want to run into an acquaintance on State Street and know that he went through the same admissions process as everyone else. I don't care if it's one of my Indian friends, my black friends, my white friends or my Hispanic friends. No one deserves the tinge of uncertainty that inevitably follows from a race-based admissions process. It seems more than a few of my peers on campus have forgotten a neat little Martin Luther King Jr. line about emphasizing "the content of their character."

This isn't to say that racism doesn't exist in the United States — it certainly does. The question is whether you can attack this wrong by mirroring a deficiency at the other end of the spectrum. Frankly, I thought it was axiomatic that "two wrongs don't make a right." Apparently, the UW system disagrees.

Depending on whose numbers you use, UW-Madison has a minority population equal to or slightly higher than the comparable percentage of minorities living statewide — hovering in the range of 10 percent. But why do we need to be so concerned about racial numbers? I thought we were trying to break down barriers, not emphasize them. Stooping to the numbers game makes one wonder what ultimately could qualify as "sufficient." A "critical mass" of people, diversity advocates might respond. Well, what is that? It's an unhealthy obsession with skin color in disguise.

Questions also crop up about the overlap in points of affirmative action. Preferential treatment can potentially assist with securing scholarships, college admission, law school admission and job entry. What qualifies as enough?

The same query must be applied to government agencies designed to "foster diversity." On campus alone, Plan 2008, The Multicultural Student Coalition, PEOPLE, Dean of Students Office and POSSE all devote financial resources to diversity. It sounds great. But, considering the amount of resources these groups receive, perhaps their rallying cry of "diversity" ought to have fewer nefarious undertones. Or perhaps the organizations shouldn't get funding to achieve goals that can only be made tangible when people’s skin tones are seen determinant of their worth.

Instead of spending, as the State Journal pointed out, "tens of millions" on futile diversity efforts, why doesn't the System put the funds toward reducing student tuition across the board? Ensuring affordability to all hard-working or talented students regardless of race is a worthwhile goal.

The UW System can do better. Divorce diversity efforts from a concentration on skin color. Focus it on the proper concern of a university environment — diversity of thought, diversity of individuals. Clarifying the overused phrase and redirecting the public concern about it would strengthen our state and our school.

I claim no visionary dream about the red hills of Georgia. Instead, I have a small hope that one day, two students will meet on the sidewalk outside of Brats and diversity won't get in the way.

Brad Vogel (bvogel@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.

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Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 9:07am):

"I claim no visionary dream about the red hills of Georgia."

Nice article until the above quote. Racism is alive in all parts of the United States. By referencing the South as a point of reference, you let slip your lack of travel and experience. Still, your point is right on the mark. When we drop the modifier from "American", then we'll be closer to the right track. Until then, I feel contempt and resentment for the person who is advantaged just because they are a left-handed, agnostic, vertically challenged, under heighted for present weight, transgendered, person-of-color, who immigrated legally or illegally from another country.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 9:23am):

Like the article. When considering a policy such as affirmative action, I think it's important to ask the question, "If the policy were to remain the same, but one were to switch the affected parties in that policy, would it still be good policy?" For instance, if preferential treatment were given to white, male suburbanites in the admissions process, would affirmative action be considered good policy? Or would those people negatively affected (presumably minorities) consider that policy as discriminatory?

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 9:43am):

Thank you for saying what needed to be said.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 9:44am):

I can't wait to see all the negative responses this article receives. Pointing out that Diversity is not really about righting supposed past wrongs will only get you trouble. Especially when you wonder how long you have to keep righting the past wrongs by creating new wrongs.

Divide and conquer is the message of the left. Divide by creating victimized groups that need big government to right perceived wrongs and conquer by building dependency on big government one supposed victim group at a time.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 11:30am):

Amen!

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 12:39pm):

When are right wingers going to stop quoting MLK in their peices? I don't know what you are so upset about Brad, you got into UW just fine. And if, for the sake of the argument, some minorities did get into the UW and took some poor white kids spot, this couldn't have happened more than twice judging by the amount of non whites on campus. Try to paint the picture any way you like, but the fact of the matter remains that UW is lacking behind every other major university in the nation in regards to non white enrollment. Ultimately this taints our image as not just a premier state school, but an upper tier school of any level.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 1:02pm):

"I want to run into an acquaintance on State Street and know that he went through the same admissions process as everyone else. I don't care if it's one of my Indian friends, my black friends, my white friends or my Hispanic friends. No one deserves the tinge of uncertainty that inevitably follows from a race-based admissions process"

Brad, do you feel the same way about legacy based admissions? Because I guarantee of your "white friends" you encounter on state street, several of them were also let in as a result of a preferential admissions process, based solely on if mommy or daddy is a UW alum. White folks benefit from preferential admissions through this very process all over the country.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 2:01pm):

Regardless of how you feel about Affirmative Action, which is a highly polarizing topic, how could you demonize diversity? The people who are asking for a "color blind" society are mostly the people who are ignorant to the struggles of underrepresented people to be properly represented.

Diversity is partly about that recognition and the understanding that people come from and practice different cultural values, and that these values aren't categorized as negatives just because they're not part of majority culture. It's not about everybody being mixed together in a big gray puddle, it's about everybody recognizing that we're all individuals who come from different places physically and culturally, and not minimizing those individuals who are different.

What Brad Vogel and many of his proponents constantly fail to understand or at least to divulge is that these concepts and practices of multiculturalism, diversity, and Affirmative Action are all different things. Yes, they are all terms that have relationships with each other, but lumping an argument about diversity being a bad thing with affirmative action being a bad thing is irresponsible, and ignorant. Especially when white women, the second-most represented population are the biggest benefactors of Affirmative Action. Those facts would never surface in an article by Brad Vogel though.

While we're talking about lumping, why is Plan 2008 (which is not an organization), POSSE, PEOPLE, and MCSC all lumped into one big diversity initiative. Two of these programs, PEOPLE and POSSE, are for high schoolers in urban areas where there may not be the same opportunities to go to college that Brad Vogel recieved, and to foster and assist these scholars into college through a variety of means that supplements their education. What's wrong with helping kids who may not get the opportunity get into college? Only Brad Vogel may know the answer, but I'm sure he's right. MCSC is an organization on campus committed to diversity and campus climate, and educating students about people who come from a wide range of cultures and experiences, and getting these people heard and dialoguing with eachother. It's not just for students of color. MCSC also reaches out to white students, the LGBTQ community, and anybody else willing to educate themselves outside of the classroom. Plan 2008 is a 10 year plan to increase diversity on campus in the student body and faculty through several means, and makign the campus climate better for underrepresented people as well as majority students. As a matter of fact, there's a forum about it this Friday in 272 Bascom Hall that anybody reading this should attend, including Brad Vogel.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 3:31pm):

I think your article was great. It is about time that someone realizes that diversity is not what it is creaked up to be and that admissins should be based on the sutdent and not their color.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 4:11pm):

'I think your article was great. It is about time that someone realizes that diversity is not what it is creaked up to be and that admissins should be based on the sutdent and not their color.'

Sorry buddy, but if you didn't get into school here I doubt it was because AA kept your white ass out. Even if we get rid of AA someone who wrote the above sentance will never be allowed near our institution.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 6:01pm):

What a putrid argument. Sure, lets put $10 to reduce tuition. Brad, you know full well that would be a drop in a bucket as compared to the hundreds of millions in cuts sustained in the UW systems $3 billion budget. But hey, you throw a big number out there like 10 MILLION DOLLARS and you can probably convince the casual reader that their tuition is high because of those nasty kids of color who only got in because they were a minority. You really should apply for a job in Sensenbrenner's office...I'm sensing a nice fit there.

Look, I'm not automatically in favor of every program that seeks (or proports to seek) a more diverse campus environment. And I don't mind carefully examining how we invest our dollars to that end, as some of the programs haven't worked, and there is likely a better way to spend the money. And I agree that sometimes those on the far left can shout "xenophobe" when legitimate complaints are raised and that that is bad for an open discourse. Sifting and winnowing and all that.

But this notion that we should just let the winds blow as they may and sit comfortably with the knowledge that every student got to UW through the same selection process (as you wish for) is either selfish or unrealistic.

Does a kid (smart as he may be) who comes from a broken home, a brokend community, with no roll models and no money really undertake the same college selection process that you did? No. The average kid spends waking minutes outside of school for every minute in school. Programs to reach out and promote cultural and economic diversity add to the campus environment and help provide opporunity that should be often does not exist.

Does every program work? No. But diversity is a laudable goal, and necessary to the health of our campus, community, state and country.

Anonymous (April 24, 2006 @ 7:28pm):

In reference to the person who talked about legacies... While legacies do exist, there are far fewer people that benefit from legacies than those minorities that benefit from affirmative action. In addition, legacies are only important at extremely high level universities (I.E. Harvard, Stanford, Cornell) not UW.