The recent Supreme Court decision prohibiting the assignment of school children purely on the basis of race, is a stake in the heart of the attempt by liberals to use the amorphous concept of diversity to further their schemes of social engineering. As Chief Justice Roberts remarked, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

The Supreme Court decision has subjected one of liberalism’s most sacrosanct icons to intense scrutiny. For too long, diversity advocates have oversold its benefits and misstated — if not ignored — its costs.  For many organizations, diversity policy has evolved into diversity doctrine.  In the process, the idea has been implemented fervently with all the attendant ideological rigidity and blindness that such a metamorphosis entails. If nothing else, sifting through the wreckage of a policy that favors some at the expense of others will for once, force the democrats —albeit begrudgingly— to acknowledge some of the more glaring shortcomings of diversity philosophy.  For example, whatever noble aspirations affirmative action may have had in its incipient stages as a political theory have long since been trumped by the pernicious application of this doctrine as practiced by its proponents today in both the public and the private spheres.

Affirmative action, which is merely an offshoot of “diversity” social theory, as practiced today by the commissars of political correctness, is concerned not with equality of opportunity, but rather, with equality of result.  In an attempt to avoid the connotations of reverse racism and quotas that have stigmatized affirmative action in its original incantation, the democrats, substituted the euphemism “diversity” in its place.  This helps explain the abandonment of the use of the term affirmative action when used to describe the institutionalization of the practice of preferential treatment in hiring and admissions policies.  Although changing the nomenclature had the virtue of attenuating the more odious characteristics of affirmative action, it did nothing to eliminate the internal contradictions of a policy that advances some at the expense of others.  

The Supreme Court’s rejection of diversity as a “compelling state interest” constitutionally sufficient to justify racial classifications, is an event of singular importance because it has had the effect of stripping bare all the misleading ideology associated with that now hackneyed term.  Overused in our lexicon to the extent of being a mere buzzword, “diversity” is nothing more than the old wine of affirmative action —with all its blemishes— in new bottles.  

The Supreme Court decision all but eliminates the illusion that diversity doctrine, as implemented in its more extreme forms, is cost-free.  One of the central tenets of diversity doctrine is that skin color is an indelible mark of disadvantage.  A logical and inevitable corollary of this proposition is that skin color should be afforded peculiar advantages.

In the public sphere, democrats have never been able to square diversity practice with the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution.  Illustrative of this phenomenon is the University of Michigan affirmative action case which was decided  by the Supreme Court over a year ago.  If we assume, as that university does, that a diverse student population is a good thing in and of itself —indeed, is a compelling state interest —does it make any sense to subject this same impressionable student body to the tutelage of a professorate that is overwhelmingly comprised of liberal democrats?  

It is patently absurd to justify the deliberate and substantial lowering of standards solely and exclusively in order to achieve the desired nirvana of a diverse student body yet subject these same students to a faculty that is ideologically one-dimensional.  The diversity craze would be a lot more palatable and a lot more intellectually appealing if it were applied with some consistency throughout the entire spectrum of human affairs.

Conservatives would laud the University of Michigan were it to embark upon a program of seeking diversity of ideological opinion at that academic institution with the same zeal that it seeks in obtaining a varied student body.  But their expectation should be tempered with the following realization: democrats are enthralled with racial diversity but abhor diversity of intellectual opinion.  If anyone doubts this, witness the unrelenting derision directed towards Justice Clarence Thomas by liberal democrats.  Were they true to their diversity colors, the attainment of his lofty position should be reason for unqualified acclaim and celebration.  

But alas, while he possesses the requisite skin color for their adulation, he has the great misfortune of preaching the wrong politics. No democrats will admit this, for to do so, would open wide the door for all kinds of diversity that democrats prefer not to implement.  Once the diversity genie is let out of the bottle, he is not so easily coaxed back in.

An intelligent discussion of racial preferences brings other diversity conundrums to the fore.  For example, if one subscribes to the belief of social advancement in part based on membership in a specified group, what particular advantages should be afforded an individual whose father was black and whose mother was Vietnamese?  An individual who is one-quarter black and three-quarters Hispanic?  Diversity advocates have no easy answer for this fractional racial quandary.  A close scrutiny reveals that when you experiment with the democrats’ diversity recipe, and mix the pot, the taste of the resulting stew may not be to your liking.  

The dilemmas of diversity are many; the plausible responses to these predicaments by its proponents, few.  Although the democrats would just as soon dispense with these problematic aspects, none of the vexing questions raised will be “off limits” in the ensuing debate.  If the democrats insist on diversity in its current manifestation will they be willing to embrace it in its more varied forms?  We await their response.