How many people practice "Diversity Lite"?

[Caracal]

Its my impression that most people who buy into diversity initiatives don't think that a student *must* have an instructor of the same race/gender (if they exist) or even that  their learning will necessarily be better just because of an instructor of the same race/gender.  Its more about having some instructors that match the background of some of the students, or that if you wish to recruit more students and perhaps retain them, then it helps to have some professors that are similar to the potential students. I know that this can be turned around: If a school is happy having pretty much all white students with a pretty much all white faculty, then do they have to bother changing anything?  I suppose that my answer would be that if that's sustainable and they are a private college, then you can probably do that for as long as you want.

Legally: probably fine, KKK also allowed to exist.
Ethically: seems like a problem, are you really doing your best to educate by offering a Whites-only college experience?
Morally: borderline disaster. In the limit that all universities adopt similar policy we are back to full on segregation.

In terms of legal considerations, the question is whether a school is discriminating based on race in terms of hiring or admission. If they are, they lose their tax exempt status. A school with all white students wouldn't necessarily be falling foul of this prohibition, if they could show they had a clear non discrimination policy, they followed the policy and they made efforts to publicize it.

[Ruralguy]

I'm not really talking about a school consciously  choosing to be white only. I just mean that a school (maybe many) choose to not update themselves much, and perhaps for that reason only *appeal* to white mainly Christians. So, they are riding the thin line. Not openly saying "We're  Racist U.. Come here and wear a sheet" I'm not saying its really ethically OK, just that such places are bound to try to exist. The market place will probably get rid of them eventually.

[marshwiggle]

I'm not really talking about a school consciously  choosing to be white only. I just mean that a school (maybe many) choose to not update themselves much, and perhaps for that reason only *appeal* to white mainly Christians. So, they are riding the thin line. Not openly saying "We're  Racist U.. Come here and wear a sheet" I'm not saying its really ethically OK, just that such places are bound to try to exist. The market place will probably get rid of them eventually.

Why isn't it ethically OK? Probably all kinds of places primarily appeal to a specific demographic, be it geographical, economic, religious or whatever. As long as they're not hostile to others, what's the problem?

[Ruralguy]

I don't think its ethically problematic on the face of it, but it can end up just being a lazy way of letting problematic practices linger into the future.

[dismalist]

I don't think its ethically problematic on the face of it, but it can end up just being a lazy way of letting problematic practices linger into the future.

What's problematic about choice?

[fizzycist]

Welp, this thread turned into full blown racism awful quick

[Ruralguy]

Yeah, unfortunately, I probably opened things up to that with my example, which upon reflection was a bit baiting. I'll strive to be more careful and not be quite so triggering with my language.

[marshwiggle]

Welp, this thread turned into full blown racism awful quick

Yeah, unfortunately, I probably opened things up to that with my example, which upon reflection was a bit baiting.

I'm not really talking about a school consciously  choosing to be white only. I just mean that a school (maybe many) choose to not update themselves much, and perhaps for that reason only *appeal* to white mainly Christians. So, they are riding the thin line. Not openly saying "We're  Racist U.. Come here and wear a sheet"

Who thought this would have introduced racism into this topic???

I'm curious what would be the corresponding tagline to WomenOnly U. "Come here and get a castrator?" (Or should that be "Misandrist U" by the same convention?) Or to any other place that historically catered to a particular demographic.

I'll strive to be more careful and not be quite so triggering with my language.

Not quite so triggering? That's kind of like hoping the next virus won't be "quite so" disruptive as covid-19.

[Ruralguy]

Either way, between this thread and the other related one, I think I'll pass. Carry on if you'd like!

[mahagonny]

So if white suburban neighborhoods could be more integrated were it not for the fact that some residents of predominately black neighborhoods prefer to live in the company of people who look like them, despite being able to afford the white suburban neighborhood, is it problematic? And if so who has been remiss in not doing something about it?

Muhammed Ali tells William F. Buckley there's nothing wrong with wanting to be with people who look like you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxpuT1SNurU

[apl68]

All I know is that I live in a town fairly evenly divided between black and white citizens, where all go to the same public library (Because it's the only one in town).  As director of that library, responsible for hiring of staff, I would be awfully foolish not to do everything I can to make sure that we have both white and black staff members to serve the public.  It's not just something that would be desirable in principle--it's a practical necessity if we want to encourage the broadest possible use of, and long-term community support of, our institution. 

So that is, unavoidably, something that I must keep in mind every time I interview for a candidate to replace somebody.  Complicating things is the fact that we have no control over who will choose to apply at any given time when we need people.  We may have multiple good candidates, or we may have our pick of people who graduated high school a decade ago and have since worked three different jobs for just long enough to collect unemployment benefits each time (A sure sign of somebody who only plans to "work" long enough to collect their next round of benefits--which the employer will be obligated to pay back to the state!). 

I have to try to pick what looks like the best person for the job.  I also have to pick somebody who will help us to maintain a "diverse" staff.  Neither is optional.  And so there are times when I have to work out the best compromise that I can manage between these two considerations. 

I say "I" because I have to make the final decision.  Fortunately our experienced and trustworthy assistant director happens to be black, and so between us we have a range of perspectives.  And not just because she's black and I'm white, BTW--there's also the fact that I'm a guy, she's a woman; I'm a degree-holding librarian, she has a deeper knowledge of what sorts of materials patrons around here want; I understand the library's administrative needs and limitations, she knows what the staff really wants because they tell her stuff they won't tell me.  If we didn't, between us, bring that variety of perspectives, our library would be poorer for it. 

That's surely the case for institutions of all kinds.  And that's why diversity isn't just a buzzword or an ideological stance--it's a practical necessity for any institution that wants to survive in today's world and be of service to the greatest number of people.  There's a lot of room for disagreement over how to go about doing it.  I believe, for example, that rigid hiring quotas are misguided, and I tend to distrust the sorts of radicals who are often dismissively labeled "social justice warriors."  But if diversity isn't any sort of concern of yours, or if you've let irritation at misguided quotas and SJWs cause you to develop a reflexive aversion to any mention of "diversity," then you're doing your institution and your community a disservice.

[marshwiggle]

Thanks for that example. As you said, that probably applies to lots of organizations, and illustrates the issues that need to be considered. Anyone giving that kind of preamble to discussing "diversity" will get past my paranoia about what activists may want to prescribe.

[mahagonny]

All I know is that I live in a town fairly evenly divided between black and white citizens, where all go to the same public library (Because it's the only one in town).  As director of that library, responsible for hiring of staff, I would be awfully foolish not to do everything I can to make sure that we have both white and black staff members to serve the public.  It's not just something that would be desirable in principle--it's a practical necessity if we want to encourage the broadest possible use of, and long-term community support of, our institution. 

So that is, unavoidably, something that I must keep in mind every time I interview for a candidate to replace somebody.  Complicating things is the fact that we have no control over who will choose to apply at any given time when we need people.  We may have multiple good candidates, or we may have our pick of people who graduated high school a decade ago and have since worked three different jobs for just long enough to collect unemployment benefits each time (A sure sign of somebody who only plans to "work" long enough to collect their next round of benefits--which the employer will be obligated to pay back to the state!). 

I have to try to pick what looks like the best person for the job.  I also have to pick somebody who will help us to maintain a "diverse" staff.  Neither is optional.  And so there are times when I have to work out the best compromise that I can manage between these two considerations. 

I say "I" because I have to make the final decision.  Fortunately our experienced and trustworthy assistant director happens to be black, and so between us we have a range of perspectives.  And not just because she's black and I'm white, BTW--there's also the fact that I'm a guy, she's a woman; I'm a degree-holding librarian, she has a deeper knowledge of what sorts of materials patrons around here want; I understand the library's administrative needs and limitations, she knows what the staff really wants because they tell her stuff they won't tell me.  If we didn't, between us, bring that variety of perspectives, our library would be poorer for it. 

That's surely the case for institutions of all kinds.  And that's why diversity isn't just a buzzword or an ideological stance--it's a practical necessity for any institution that wants to survive in today's world and be of service to the greatest number of people.  There's a lot of room for disagreement over how to go about doing it.  I believe, for example, that rigid hiring quotas are misguided, and I tend to distrust the sorts of radicals who are often dismissively labeled "social justice warriors."  But if diversity isn't any sort of concern of yours, or if you've let irritation at misguided quotas and SJWs cause you to develop a reflexive aversion to any mention of "diversity," then you're doing your institution and your community a disservice.
\

That's largely because we are encouraged to believe we can tell a lot about a person's ethnic or racial background by looking at them, despite that we can't. A friend of mine who was sure his ancestors were English protestant or Irish Catholic took a DNA test and learned that his background is mostly Eastern European Jewish. Recently I had a black roommate who had a white brother and the mother was white and the father was black. This was something that had to be explained to friends upon their learning that they were biological brothers, particularly to people who love to fixate on skin color, which would be liberals.
It's really no one's business what race you are or identify as, if you choose to be identified racially at all. It's an imposition coming from professional diversocrats who expect us to sort people into categories as we meet or observe them. Their livelihood thrives from it.

Thanks for that example. As you said, that probably applies to lots of organizations, and illustrates the issues that need to be considered. Anyone giving that kind of preamble to discussing "diversity" will get past my paranoia about what activists may want to prescribe.

Being on your guard around people who want to drone on about diversity day in and day out is not paranoia. It's a realistic wariness, as so many of them are promoting lunacy, communism or social tyranny , for example, of the sort I described in my response to apl68.

[bopper]

Not a professor but:

One time my group hired some summer students.  They were all male. I asked my boss about that. She replied "That is all they gave me to interview."
We are located less than 5 miles from our State U. Was anyone making an effort to recruit diverse candidates?

So do you see STEM students who are not male and recruit them to be TAs?

[mleok]

I have to try to pick what looks like the best person for the job.  I also have to pick somebody who will help us to maintain a "diverse" staff.  Neither is optional.  And so there are times when I have to work out the best compromise that I can manage between these two considerations.

Well, this is a multiple-objective optimization problem, so how do you decide on the relative weight between these two factors (which can then have a dramatic impact on individual outcomes)?