Column: Diversity education important for all
Published April 16, 2010
Diversity is an emotionally charged issue that has been at the forefront of campus discussion this semester.
Following my commentary on the cotton ball incident, a number of student leaders from the minority community contacted me, indicating I was out of line in indicating that said leaders ought to adopt a less presumptuous attitude and engage in more educationally-oriented outreach to non-minority students. I feel that exchange is indicative of an undercurrent not only growing on campus, but also throughout our nation.
I believe most people in my generation and younger are growing up with a more or less colorblind orientation. This isn't to say that biases don't exist, but, in short, most people in that group believe everyone should be treated equally, and they do their best to follow this belief.
We grow up with this orientation of equality until we graduate from high school, which is when we more or less begin to make our first encounters with the real world as adults. Specific to higher education, non-minority students discover they're barred from certain financial aid and might even face a more difficult time in gaining admission to the school of their choice. Once those students arrive on campus, they often discover an entire infrastructure from which they are excluded.
At MU, this looks like the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center and the host of student organizations specific to gender, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. By this point, our collegians are starting to develop some tough questions as to why this system exists, especially when they reflect on the alleged context of equality in which they have been raised. Unfortunately, those students brave enough to inquire frequently find themselves attacked, with no answer provided, while the remainder of curious students continue to live in ignorance. After higher education has concluded, these same factors appear when it comes to finding and maintaining employment, where similar results surface.
It's not hard to explain things, but it rarely seems to happen. Why do we have scholarships specific to group X? Well, historically group X has been economically disadvantaged. It's not hard, and even if the inquirer disagrees with the premise, they understand the argument and become less hostile toward the issue.
I'll concede it's not fair advocates of diversity should have to bear this burden in addition to everything else with which they have to deal, but the simple fact is no one else is going to do it.
What's the impact of failing to do so?
I fear this negligence is slowly generating a broad backlash toward the concept of diversity; it would be difficult for me to gauge the number of peers I have talked with who are pissed off because they don't understand things or think the status quo isn't fair. Moreover, this attitude doesn't seem limited to a discernable cohort — it permeates religion, education level, geographic origin and more.
If nothing else, history provides a few lessons. Following the premature close of Reconstruction, the U.S. failed to see significant progress in race relations until the 1950s, when the Civil Rights Movement started to make significant progress. For roughly the next decade, we saw notable improvement in the form of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act. We experienced this change due to the moderate approach of people such as Martin Luther King Jr. It is not a coincidence the Civil Rights Movement essentially collapsed with the death of King and the rise of, to put it mildly, the aggressive policies of people such as Malcolm X. What happened? The support of moderate Americans was lost, and we experienced a drought of social progress.
An entire generation of young Americans, born and raised in a world in which they have for the most part adhered to a philosophy of equality, is finding itself increasingly confused, if not angered, by the concept of diversity. If leaders at all levels fail to address this issue, whether via education, updated policies or other means, we might slip backward yet again.