Thanks to everyone from the John Locke Foundation who attended the conference, and also Locker Room readers who were there. The event went well and should provide raw material for lots of future arguments over “diversity.”

Ward Connerly gave an excellent speech on why America ought to get beyond its current infatuation with grouping people and according some groups preferential treatment.

On the big question of the supposed educational benefits of “diversity,” in my view Carol O’Dell’s argument that the best thing educationally is not diversity but homogeneity with regard to student capabilities stood as a strong disadvantage to the policy of trying to engineer “diversity” by admitting students from “underrepresented” groups. As to the benefits of doing that, I’m afraid that there was nothing concrete at all. Dean Ray Pierce of NCCU’s law school said that “It’s not what happens in the classroom, but what happens in the hallways that counts.” But why is it so important to marginally increase the probability that Student A, who is white, will make friends with Student B, who is “from a minority group”? A isn’t befriending “the minority group” any more than B is befriending the white race. They just find that they have some common interests and like each other. What’s the benefit and why is it worth continuing the ignoble policy of treating some people differently than others because of race?

Finally, I want everyone to know that I didn’t write Roger Clegg’s speech! (For those who weren’t there, he said that he wanted to quote two great Americans, Bayard Rustin and George Leef, and quoted from my most recent Clarion Call essay on diversity.)