"Groups Demand Diversity" screams the headline in my paper’s Local section. "A coalition of Hispanic community and educational organizations is demanding an investigation into lack of faculty diversity and allegations of racism within the UC Riverside’s Graduate School of Education." Through paragraph after paragraph the usual demands and charges are lodged. "They need to respond to…our demographics," said Barbara Flores of the Inland Latino Coalition Education Task Force. The lack of diversity reflects and promotes a "hostile attitude toward people of color within the department," said Helen Pettiford, a doctorial candidate in the UC Riverside system. She claimed faculty and students "have made disparaging, sexist and racist remarks to her and others reflecting a pattern of discrimination." No evidence supporting these incendiary charges are presented in the article. However, acting UCR Chancellor Robert Grey, displaying the typical spinelessness among so-called university leaders, intoned "Our faculty needs to better reflect the diversity of the citizens of today’s California." Better to cave in than tell it like it is, eh Chancellor Grey?
In fact, selecting university professors on the basis of skin color is the surest way to create a sub-par faculty because skin color has nothing to do with quality. Why can’t we learn this lesson? The all-white baseball teams of sixty or more years ago were not the best they could have been precisely because consideration of skin color entered into their selection. Amazingly, the people who applaud the undoing of baseball’s color barrier now scramble to create color requirements, quotas certain to promote less than the best. In any competitive situation, whether the best are all black, all white, all brown, all Asian, or some mix at variance with the demographics of "today’s California," the best should be chosen. Doing otherwise lowers the caliber of the affected group and destroys the incentive to strive for excellence among those in the restricted categories. It is instructive to note that in the entire article there is not one mention of a desire to hire the best possible candidates.
One group never found in the "underrepresented minority" classification is Asians. Comprising less than 5% of Riverside County residents, Asians nevertheless held nearly 20% of tenured faculty positions at UC Riverside in 2006. Can anyone tell me why? ANYBODY!? It is well-documented that Asians place a high value on educational achievement. Asian parents demand academic excellence of their children. Asian students put in long study hours, often foregoing social or athletic aspirations to better ensure academic success. And, without so much as a single Asian-American group lobbying for this or that benefit based on skin color, Asians out-perform every other demographic in America, by a wide margin. Hispanic groups should learn a lesson. Instead of demanding unearned selections and promotions, focus on developing academic excellence in Hispanic children.
Not surprisingly "the biggest obstacle to a more diverse faculty is a lack of minorities with doctorates available for hire," said Marlene Zuk, Biology professor and associate vice provost for faculty equity and diversity. For those desirous of increased minority representation among university professors, the starting point should be reverence of education, not bogus claims of injustice. A USA Today story from March 2006 highlighted the need for a transformation within the Hispanic community regarding education. "Hispanics have the highest high school dropout rate of any ethnic or racial group in the USA," a performance deficiency correctable only in the home and from an early age. Until that happens, no amount of whining by special interest groups will improve the educational and economic status of any group. To be meaningful, achievement must be garnered the old-fashioned way: earn it!
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Me too, Rev. King, me too.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Cultural Insanity, Politics