Copyright 1992 by D.H. Myers. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
In the mid-1970's, a lawsuit was brought to get a very white individual admitted into the medical school at University of California, Davis. Alan Bakke had been rejected by all the medical schools he applied for, despite a strong presumption he was highly qualified.
The University of California administration at Davis had told him that they rejected him in order to reserve places for minority students who were made to appear less qualified, from the basis of their test scores. This left Bakke little choice but to sue if he wanted to pursue a medical degree.
During the Bakke case, minority students feared that the affirmative action rug would be pulled out from under them as a result of a white student's claims. In fact, the California Supreme Court did exactly that by ordering Bakke admitted and ruling the affirmative action admissions to be unconstitutional. Tense meetings between upset minority students and school administrations were held, where the school officials sometimes tried to reassure the students that their status would not be affected.
Bakke eventually won the case for admission. But the U.S. Supreme Court refused to close the door on minority applicants, citing the example of "diversity" in the student selection process claimed in use at Harvard.
The concept of "diversity" in this context was previously set into motion by Archibald Cox in DeFunis v. Odegaard, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court a few years earlier. Like Bakke, DeFunis was probably baited by the administration of the University of Washington law school when he applied for admission. But because the school admitted him while his law suit was pending, and because he was about to graduate at the time the U.S. Supreme Court was ready to hand down a ruling, the Court decided to throw out the case as "moot".
Justice William O. Douglas dissented from the dismissal of the DeFunis case, and instructed the lawyers for the schools that "diversity" would probably be an acceptable defense against DeFunis type challenges to affirmative action in the future. So by the time the Bakke case was ripe a few years later in 1978, the issues had been pretty much been shaped and argued.
"Diversity" was not always the powerword that it is today. In the Bakke case, only three out of twenty-five amicus curiae used it. The parties who used it were the lawyers from Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania in a joint amicus curiae brief; the American Association of University Professors; and a joint brief from all the University of California law schools. These amicus curiae were given unusual deference by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is questionable, however, whether the case would have even been accepted by the legal profession or the courts if the unsuccessful applicant had been less white than Bakke.
The word "diversity" is colorful, and tells the story of a society made up of historically divergent cultures. But "diversity" provided an ingenious preventative ideology against an otherwise unconscionable tendency which few people would seem to realize would be happening: the exclusion and elimination of minority individuals from higher education, occupations, and professions.
Many critics of affirmative action programs tend to favor a more generalized program for all disadvantaged students, regardless of color. However, the arguments of Cox in favor of the affirmative action program clearly stated or implied that the effect of a colorblind admissions program for all disadvantaged would still tend to squeeze out non-whites since there would inevitably be racial bias even within such an idealized colorblind program.
In time, the word "diversity" has inevitably for an increasing number of people become another un-neutral word whose meaning will coincide with aggregate consciousness and dissatisfaction of its failure to eliminate discrimination. Also, the number of minority students who the universities have been apparently willing to keep is small relative to the proportion of non-whites in society at large.
In this sense, a "diversity" based upon the perception of white idealists seeks to promote a model for social engineering of communities based upon the tolerated preference of only small numbers of non-white individuals. Furthermore, the concept of diversity has also been constrained where it has become helpful in the selection process to be young, good looking, sexy, avaricious, talented as a student, wealthy, and without-brown-eyes, of any race, religion, national origin, or ancestry.
Finally, diversity seems to be increasingly overvalued as "diversity cults" in various academic and employment settings tend to destroy, oppress, and disrupt. (added 4/97)