Study Shows Diversity Benefits Mixed
One problem with the obsession with skin deep-only diversity is that no one has ever quantified or proven that diversity provides the kind of educational benefits that justify discriminating against one racial group in favor of another.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted an interview with James Sidanius, author of a study purporting to show the benefits of skin color diversity. The researchers focused on 2,000 entering UCLA freshmen in the fall of 1996. They were surveyed the summer before they entered the school and every year until they graduated or at the end of their fifth year at UCLA.
Sidanius, a professor of psychology of African and black American studies at Harvard University, admitted that so-called diversity policies didn’t have “profound effects” on the students attitudes. “Thus, in broad terms, the students left the university with largely the same social and political views that they entered college with.”
Sidanius qualified his answer: “However, three facts show that this does not mean that there were no theoretically expected changes. First, in general, students did become less politically conservative, ethnocentric, and racist over four years of college.”
Side note: The implication is that being conservative in political outlook is a bad thing. And ethnocentrism, Sidanius seems to be saying, is synonymous with racism.
Other findings:
- Black students with “high personal-identity stereotype threat” who thought they were admitted under race preferences had lower grades than students not under this perceived threat;
- Students of Asian descent prefer to be identified by country rather than the general “Asian” label;
- Students’ involvement with race-based social groups can lead to stronger ethnic identification and “an increased sense of ethnic victimization.” (In plain English: minority-focused social groups and organizations can foster an everybody-is-out-to-get-us attitude and, in my opinion, a stronger tendency to point fingers at third parties rather than doing the hard and often humbling work of looking inward.)
The interviewer asked Sidanius whether a similar study conducted during the Obama administration, as opposed to a study conducted 12 years ago, would have reached similar conclusions. He said he couldn’t be certain, but added that “there is probably a substantial number of whites who might believe” we’ve entered a so-called post-racial era, where race becomes less important.
