Diversity Bloat Is All About Colleges Looking Good While Not Doing Much
There's been a push to hire Chief Diversity Officers on college campuses.
David Frum takes stock in The Atlantic:
Surely all these chief diversity officers are accomplishing something?Yet the closest studies of disadvantaged-student performance discover that what such students need most is more intensive teaching and mentoring. As my colleague Emily DeRuy has reported, young people from impoverished backgrounds live in "relationship poverty": "Research, which involved surveys of thousands of young people and in-person interviews with more than 100, suggests that if a web of supportive relationships surrounds these students, the chances that they will leave school shrink dramatically." But that's not only expensive--it also requires extraordinarily hard work, with uncertain chances of success. Even more relevantly: The students at risk are not all or even mostly "diverse," as diversity is conventionally understood in the United States in 2016. If J.D. Vance's marvelous Hillbilly Elegy pounds any one idea into the heads of America's university presidents, that idea should be it.
The kids who really need help are kids from disadvantaged (poor) families, who may be white, black, or something else.
Yet, there are so many programs -- and not just in college -- where fellowships, for example, are offered based on skin color. That's not fair and its also insulting to black students from middle-class environments (or better) and from intact families who do well in school, but may be lumped in by skin color as having gotten special boosts.
"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today."
via @CHSommers
One of the finest indications of socialized insanity is the insistence that "diversity" is a good thing because we are all different - then insisting that we are all the same.
Orwell applauds.
There are actually two practical definitions of "diversity". One is a color and quota game, nothing more. The other is the scientific one, which notes differences in capability and genetic tendencies honestly. You will never get race gamers to note that one.
Radwaste at September 10, 2016 8:35 AM
As my colleague Emily DeRuy has reported, young people from impoverished backgrounds live in "relationship poverty": "Research, which involved surveys of thousands of young people and in-person interviews with more than 100, suggests that if a web of supportive relationships surrounds these students, the chances that they will leave school shrink dramatically."
"A web of supportive relationships" used to be called "parents and family."
I note that the kid in the story lived in multiple cities with multiple relatives in highly uncertain circumstances through high school.
Shouldn't we concentrate less on "diversity" and more on "shitty parenting"?
Kevin at September 10, 2016 12:34 PM
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