Charles Geshekter devotes a Martin Center column to the topic of diversity in college classrooms.
Anyone who applies for an executive or upper management position at a university these days must demonstrate a “strong commitment to diversity.” That’s because diversity, according to campus dogma, provides real educational benefits.
Counting and mingling students and professors by race, ethnicity or gender is supposed to broaden perspectives and enhance classroom learning. That might be true in academic departments built on identity politics—I don’t know. But what about in the rest of the university?
For example, what critical perspective does a black academic bring to microbiology, civil engineering, or the study of African resistance to European imperialism that a white scholar cannot? What distinctive viewpoint does a Hispanic professor rely on to explain French colonialism, the rise of the Land Freedom Army/Mau Mau in 1950s Kenya, or trans-Saharan commerce that a black instructor cannot?
The idea that one’s ancestry gives a professor insights that others cannot have is indefensible.
