"Diversity" Programs Damage College For Black Students
Imagine having your on-campus identity be how victimized you are. Just intuitively -- that can't be good. And I would think it would be demeaning to black students who are high achievers.

Well, researchers Jonathan Haidt and Lee Jussim write in the WSJ about the diversity initiatives on campuses -- and the harm they are likely to be doing, particularly to black students:

We are social psychologists who study the psychology of morality (Haidt) and the causes and consequences of prejudice and stereotypes (Jussim). As far as we can tell, the existing research literature suggests that such reforms will fail to achieve their stated aims of reducing discrimination and inequality. In fact, we think that they are likely to damage race relations and to make campus life more uncomfortable for everyone, particularly black students.

...Of all the demands made to university presidents--for a comprehensive list, from some 80 schools, see TheDemands.org--the most common is that universities admit more black students and hire more black faculty. Sometimes a specific target, like 15%, is mentioned, to mirror the proportion of blacks in the U.S. population. But what will happen if these targets are met using methods that increase the importance or value of individuals' tracking each other by race?

...Another common student demand is to commit money to programs and departments devoted to specific ethnic or identity groups. Such centers may provide many benefits, but will expanding them advance the protesters' stated goal of reducing feelings of marginalization?

In a 2004 study designed to examine the effects of "ethnic enclaves," a team of social psychologists led by Jim Sidanius (now at Harvard) tracked most of the incoming freshmen at the University of California, Los Angeles. They measured attitudes in the week before classes started and surveyed the same students each spring for the next four years. The study allowed the researchers to see how joining an organization based on ethnic identity changed students' attitudes.

The results were mostly grim. For black, Asian and Latino students, "membership in ethnically oriented student organizations actually increased the perception that ethnic groups are locked into zero-sum competition with one another and the feeling of victimization by virtue of one's ethnicity." The authors also examined the effect on white students of joining fraternities and sororities and found similar effects, including an increased sense of ethnic victimization and opposition to intergroup dating.

One solution they propose:

In their book "All That We Can Be" (1996), the sociologists Charles Moskos and John Sibley Butler describe how the U.S. Army escaped from the racial dysfunction of the 1970s to become a model of integration and near-equality by the time of the 1991 Gulf War. The Army invested more resources in training and mentoring black soldiers so that they could meet rigorous promotion standards. But, crucially, standards were lowered for no one, so that the race of officers conveyed no information about their abilities. The Army also promoted cooperation and positive-sum thinking by emphasizing pride in the Army and in America.

Universities should consider a similar approach. Race would become less powerful as a social cue if schools shifted their attention away from the raw numbers of students in each category and focused instead on eliminating the gaps between the races, as the Army did.

And another:

Universities also need to steer discourse about these issues in a positive and cooperative way. Leaders should remind students constantly that diversity is challenging and that bringing people together from so many backgrounds and countries guarantees that there will be frequent misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Handling diversity well thus requires generosity of spirit and an attitude of humility. Instead of focusing on microaggressions, our campuses might talk about blunders, misconceptions and self-righteousness--and about civility and forgiveness. As Martin Luther King Jr., put it in 1957: "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love."

Here's a guy from the WSJ's comments:

Pranav Venkatraman
I find most perplexing black students' demand that universities hire more black professors.

I just can't see any reason why professors' demographics would impact achievement in classes. As my name reveals, I am an Indian American male. Although I have yet to have one class with a professor sharing my ethnicity, I have done well for my past six semesters. At no point in my academic career did the race, gender, sexual orientation, et al. of my professor impact my performance.

Selected examples: In mathematics, I earned the same grade, an A, in Linear Algebra, which was taught by a young black Brazilian immigrant, as I did in Differential Equations, which was taught by an elderly white American male. In classics, I earned an A in Roman Law, taught by a white women in her thirties, and I earned an A in Greek Literature, taught by a white man in his sixties.

The only criteria for hiring faculty ought to be their expertise. Their race ought to be irrelevant.

And then there's this:

Randee Kuehler
"But the inequalities arise long before high school, and they won't disappear in college until we close the gaps in the entire K-12 system."

Let's go back even further. One of the most conspicuous problems, the proverbial elephant in the room, is the lack of cohesive family structures and a subsequent lack of male role models in our most blighted minority communities. The problems instilled by the community itself are rarely addressed as THE major cause lower academic performance. Before blaming others for the problems faced 18 years down the road, there needs to be a long hard community self-assessment and intervention. Colleges are not going to solve the problems of a dysfunctional community.