Minority Recruitment

Minority Recruitment at College

Diversity is not simply a matter of the changing demographics in students or faculty. Attending to it has also altered the very knowledge base upon which the intellectual integrity of the academy rests. Institutions across the country are taking advantage of the explosion of new scholarship about the diversity of cultural traditions and histories in America and around the world. Diversity has also provided additional interpretive lenses through which to analyze ideas and society.

In response to this intellectual change, college courses today offer students a deeper, fuller, and more challenging picture, which better prepares them for increasingly complex and diverse communities and workplaces. It also equips students with new modes of understanding and means of approaching any issue.

The argument for the necessity of diversity is perhaps stronger in higher education than in any other context, but only if diversity is understood as a means to an end. The ultimate product of universities is education in the broadest sense, including preparation for life in the working world. As part of this education, students learn from face-to-face interaction with faculty members and with one another both inside and outside the classroom. Racial diversity can enhance this interaction by broadening course offerings, texts, and classroom examples, as well as improving communications and understanding among individuals of different races. The impact of diversity is evidenced by the inclusion of multicultural perspectives in many disciplines--authors such as Toni Morrison have joined the accepted canon.

A common criticism of race-based diversity programs, reflected in the Bakke discussion of intellectual diversity arising from different perspectives and life experiences, is that race is used as a mere proxy for a particular perspective or point of view. According to this critique, a university seeking diversity assumes that individuals of particular races will bring with them certain perspectives due to their racial backgrounds.

This assumption is patronizing and misguided, of course, because members of every racial group differ in their life experiences. Proponents of diversity have all too often permitted the debate to be centered on this argument and have faltered in the courts when trying to defend the use of race to achieve intellectual diversity. Given the strict scrutiny with which racial classifications are judged under American law, it is not surprising that courts have frowned upon this justification for race-based diversity programs. In fact, the educational value of diversity can be defended largely on the basis of the exact opposite of this stereotypical assumption. The range of similarities and differences within and among racial groups is precisely what gives diversity in higher education its educational value. For example, by seeing firsthand that all black or Hispanic students in their classes do not act or think alike, white students can overcome learned prejudices that may have arisen in part from a lack of direct exposure to individuals of other races.

One can imagine the impact on a white student from a homogenous white suburban background, whose views regarding blacks have been shaped primarily by television and movies, of a law school class featuring arguments from black students as diverse as Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. Likewise, the recently immigrated Asian American student in the same class, who assumes that most white Americans think alike, may be surprised by white students with opinions as diverse as Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Similarly, prejudices can be overcome when students discover just how much they have in common with their peers from other races. Prejudice is learned behavior, and the prevalence of young offenders in racially motivated hate crimes demonstrates that it is learned at an early age. Due to local control of elementary and secondary education in this country, many students attend neighborhood schools that are segregated according to local demographics. Once in college together, however, students of different races may discover that their political beliefs or extracurricular interests provide as much or more common ground as does race. No textbook or computer can substitute for the direct personal interaction that leads to this type of self-discovery and growth.

This educational benefit is universal in that all students learn from it, not just minority students who might have received a "bump" in the admissions process. Indeed, majority students who have previously lacked significant direct exposure to minorities frequently have the most to gain from interaction with individuals of other races. The universality of this benefit distinguishes the diversity rationale from the rationale of remedying discrimination, under which minority students receive special consideration to make up for past injustices to their racial group.