Diversity obfuscation

Heather MacDonald looks at what diversity officers in colleges have to believe.

There may be jobs requiring greater mendacity than a college affirmative action officer - college president comes to mind - but there can't be many. The ideal college affirmative action officer lies about his mission not only without regret but also without awareness, so brainwashed has he become in the foolish ideology of "diversity." The following false propositions form the cornerstone of the college diversity charade:

1. The fact that your college still has not achieved proportional representation of blacks, Hispanics, and women in certain fields, such as the sciences, is because it hasn't put enough effort into finding them. The problem is not that there is an insufficient number of qualified minorities and women to go around. (It is acceptable here to imply that your college may even be discriminating against "diverse" candidates.)

2. The diversity push that you are always in the process of initiating is a first-ever event; now that you have finally made it clear that your college values "diversity," the long-overlooked "diversity" candidates will magically materialize.

3. There is no conflict between "diversity" and high academic standards; as the most fluent diversity-speakers love to intone: "diversity" is part of excellence.

Yeah, sure. And we have some bridges to sell these people.