Cultural diversity and its importance to the educational system in America can be put into a hierarchal priority just under merit, reasoning skills, discipline, commitment and the modeling of success. I hope that most people are honest enough to admit that other than anecdotal evidence it does not appear that there has been any empirical evidence to show that results from knowledge base are more widely expanded within diverse groups vs. a more monochromatic group of people. The problem associated with an emphasis on “diversity” is that there is no acknowledgment of anything beyond a canvas of gray-toned judgment, and no attempt to model superior merit within each culture, simply an attempt to include each culture without an eye to results. Examine the most successful people for patterns, and once those habits have been identified, duplication should serve better than a mishmash average of behaviors. Imagine any task that requires skill of some kind. A group coalescing around the merit of diversity would always lose to a group formed around task-centered merit who may or may not be culturally diverse. It seems to me that you handicap yourself by placing too much importance on this issue. Maybe I take some issue with diversity on a subconscious level because I have become the target for removal from the education system. I can only hope and pray that capitalism will hinder the cultural diversity priority from ever reaching the job market. When profits are on the line and jobs are at stake, most employers could care less about skin color…results are of far more interest.
Diversity of thought has a place. I think that is really the goal behind all this business of cultural diversity. The question is: How much does culture affect diverse thought and is there any quantifiable way to gauge the benefit. It seems that within any culture there are wide-ranging and diverse thought processes, but do they follow patterns based upon empirical data. If it were up to me, candidates would be hired and students would be accepted without ever revealing the color of their skin. I can’t help suspecting that diversity is a sham catchphrase, and has become a simple tool to promote an affirmative action agenda from what must be admitted to be left-wing educational dogmatists as a way to distract from the true goal of meritocracy. If those who want only a left-wing student body to be educated in the great state of Michigan are now reading this essay, I will certainly be under more strict scrutiny with regard to merit and will most likely be rejected, given smaller justification for this action than my more diverse peers. If you simply seek to hide from the truth in order to advocate a political agenda, I can take consolation in there fact that I want no part and would never accept an invitation from politically correct and filtered education. If you are truly open-minded and want a diverse group of thinkers, I’m your man. I can guarantee that if you would be open enough to accept ideas and thoughts that will be expressed even when they run in diversity to your educators, I’m your man. If you want to fill your school with people who will honestly face the truth above all and be open-minded to better ideas regardless of culture, I’m your man.