Diversity Highlights

Dr. David L. Griffin's thoughts imparting diversity issues pertaining to students, faculty and staff in the College of Education

November 3, 2009

DIversity in Higher Education: Why it Matters

From What Makes Racial Diversity Work in Higher Education (2004)
Edited by: Frank W. Hale, Jr., Foreword by: William E. Kirwan

Foreword: “As my contribution to this volume, I have been asked to share some thoughts on why diversity matters in higher education. It’s an assignment I relish.

For me, there are three basic reasons why we in higher education must do better- significantly better- in our efforts to create more inclusive campus environments: (1) the correction of past and present inequities; (2) the development of high-quality workforce our nation will need in the coming decades; and (3) the value added to the education of all students when they learn within a diverse community.

The FIRST of these reasons- correcting past and present inequities- regrettably is out of vogue today. Instead, a new orthodoxy is affecting, perhaps I should say infecting, our colleges and universities. It holds that race and gender have no part in any of our decisions. Proponents of this view argue that our society has reached a point where race and gender should not matter. But the sad truth is that race and gender still do matter. They matter very much in ways that are disproportionately harmful to many women and minorities.

Consider salary equity. In a comparison of the salaries of white males and similarly situated minorities and women, based on ample empirical evidence I conjecture that most universities have significant salary inequities for minorities and women today. The exceptions are those few institutions that have had the courage to seriously review their salary equity issues and address the problems. Consider as well that minorities and women continue to pay significantly higher home-loan interest rates than do their white male counterparts with equivalent financial circumstances and credit ratings. Can anything explain this reality other than bias and prejudice? Can we in higher education assume that somehow we are exempt from such prejudices in our recruitment, admission, appointment, and promotional practices?

Those of us in positions of responsibility must not only recognize and acknowledge the inequities that exist in our society and on our campuses, we must respond to them. This requires more than race- and gender- “neutral” policies and practices; neutrality alone cannot erase the effects of centuries of discrimination. Unless we act affirmatively to eliminate the present-day results of bias and prejudice, we will never achieve the diversity goals that we all boldly espouse.

Achieving diversity does not require, or even suggest, the abandonment of standards for admission or performance. But it does require us to ensure that individual merit evaluations do not resemble the patterns in salary equity or mortgage loans. Achieving diversity requires us to evaluate individuals on their abilities to help advance our institutions in a society where, unfortunately, race and gender seem to matter in everything except the interpretation of our laws.

A SECOND reason that diversity in higher education is so important is much more pragmatic. It has to do with our future economic well-being and our global competitiveness. One of the university’s central purposes is to prepare students for citizenship and careers; today that preparation must take into account the growing diversity of peoples and cultures that comprise our pluralistic global society.

In America today, we see a striking increase in the internationalization of our economy, the global nature of policy issues, and the education level required of our labor force and citizenry. Are we preparing to face these challenges? Will we have adequate numbers of peoples with the skills and knowledge to compete successfully in this emerging national and global environment? Can we make real our national motto, E pluribus unum, in a nation with a degree of diversity unimagined by the Founding Fathers?

We are on the cusp of monumental demographic change. More than 80 percent of the new entrants to our labor force are women or minorities; moreover, given differential rates of birth and immigration, our Hispanic and Asian populations are increasing 10 times faster than the white population; while the African-American population is growing more than five times fasters than the white population. By 2020, the number of U.S. residents who are Hispanic or non-white will have more than doubled while the non-Hispanic white population will not be increasing at all; in fact, it may be decline. Just over fifty years from now, the average U.S. citizen – as defined by Census statistics – will be as likely to trace his or her ancestry to Africa, Asia, the Hispanic world, the Pacific Islands, and the Islamic world – as to trace it to Europe. At that point, diversity in the American workplace won’t be a goal; it will be a reality.

NEXT, consider that by 2010, half of all jobs will require at least some college education. Also, as a result of retirements, the workforce will contain 10 percent fewer whites. Because there are fewer minorities in today’s workforce, we will need a 30 percent increase in their numbers just to maintain the status quo.

Unless we dramatically increase the rates of participation of minorities and women in all fields- and most especially in those fields where they have been traditionally excluded- we simply will not have enough technically trained and culturally adaptable people to support a sophisticated, internationally competitive economy. Thus, the moral imperative for diversity in a nation that ,within a little more than on generation, will be without a racial or ethnic majority.

Our challenge is not just to prepare enough minority students for success in this new environment, however. The challenge is to prepare students from all races and backgrounds to work effectively in a decidedly more diverse workplace. This is the third reason why diversity is so vitally important in higher education today.

Recent research shows that cultural diversity and greater inclusiveness in higher education can enhance the learning environment of the entire university community, especially for those students who have lived mainly within a single cultural orbit. Thus, we are coming to understand that we can actually increase the learning of all students by subjecting everyone’s provincialism to multiple perspectives.

As Justice Powell wrote in the Baake case, a university should be allowed to assemble a varied student body in order to create a more dynamic intellectual environment and richer educational experience.”


Some things about William English “Brit” Kirwan:
William English “Brit” Kirwan became the third chancellor of the University System of Maryland on August 1, 2002. A widely respected academic leader, Dr. Kirwan served as president of Ohio State University from 1998 to 2002 and as president of the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) from 1989 to 1998. Before his UMCP presidency, he was a member of the university’s faculty for 34 years.

Dr. Kirwan received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Kentucky and his master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics from Rutgers and the State University of New Jersey in 1962 and 1964. He is a member of several honorary and professional societies, including Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, the American Mathematical Society, and the Mathematical Association of America. A prolific scholar, he is co-editor of the book Advances in Complex Analysis, and he has published numerous articles on mathematical research.