"Increas[e] Student and Faculty Diversity" While "Not Admit[ting] Students Who Are Intolerant":
What a fine suggestion from Professor of Sociology Johnny Eric Williams. At least it makes quite clear what the professor means, and doesn't mean, by "diversity."
Note that the quotes are the article's paraphrases of Prof. Williams' statements, but I e-mailed Prof. Williams to ask, "Is that an accurate paraphrase of your suggestion, or did the newspaper misreport it?," and was told that the paraphrase was "in the ballpark" (with no attempt at amendment or clarification).
UPDATE: My original post was titled "Increas[e] Student and Faculty Diversity" By "Not Admit[ting] Students Who Are Intolerant"; Orin's comment led me to change the "by" to the more precise "while." Many thanks to Orin for the correction.]
/irony
That aside, the idea of "intolerance" seems to be a euphemism for non-liberal ideas. As Crunchy Frog points out, will those who are intolerant of conservative and libertarian ideas not be admitted?
Final point: if part of the purpose of an academic environment is to expose students to ideas that they would not find elsewhere, wouldn't one want to accept more, not fewer, "intolerant" people? Otherwise, a university would stock itself with students who cannot get as much as their "intolerant" peers out of the environment, and, of course, those "intolerant" people will never be exposed to ideas which could change their perspective.
Three consecutive posts of this nature seems to suggest it.
But yes, Prof. Williams has an excellent point. The college can also increase its academic prowess by not admitting students in need of an education.
One of the non-coercive ways to combat intolerance is by refusing to associate with intolerant people. Certainly, it would be appropriate for a voluntary society (like a fraternity in the academic context) to deny membership to intolerant people. Similarly, it may be appropriate to refuse to hire an employee on those grounds (if they insist on expressing their opinion at work, discrimination laws may REQUIRE that employers not hire them, but that's another story).
I think that making "commitment to diversity" or "tolerance" part of the admission criteria is not coercive in the same way that punishing students for "intolerant" speech is. Once a person is a member of a community, especially one with social and economic ties as tight as a college, the threat of expulsion (which is behind all academic sanctions) is fairly heavy-handed. Merely denying an applicant the privilege to join the community is not as coercive.
And how would one measure that? It's not like an applicant is likely to mark on the application a box indicating that they hate jews, gays, and liberals. Perhaps the school could just exclude groups of people known to be intolerant, such as white middle class males.
We all know that poor, marginalized people who face a system that keeps them poor and marginalized are quite happy people and don't do things like riot or attempt to overthrow the social order.
We all know that poor, marginalized people who face a system that keeps them poor and marginalized are quite happy people and don't do things like riot or attempt to overthrow the social order.
That's some sort of racist "code word", right?
Ban him!
Can you follow that?
There's a possibility you're misreading the statement. From the original story:I read that as suggesting three independent steps the university could take: 1) not admit students who are intolerant, 2) increase diversity, 3) make diversity a central goal. I don't think he was suggesting that not admitting intolerant students would increase diversity.
I completely agree with Prof. Williams. Gaia forbid that institutions of higher education should have to put up with people who still have something to learn.
Minority students frequently feel uncomfortable. And yes, this does translate into their perecptions of the law school experience.
School administrators should proactively take this issue seriously to get the most out of their diverse student body.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=913824
@Archon:
Even ignoring the hundreds of public universities they could attend, that's an absurd argument. Giving opinions undue credence because of the threat of violence ("riot or attempt to overthrow the social order") is a bad idea in any case. Further, the same can be said for personally eschewing racists:
"Let's marginalize people with unpopular ideas even more by denying them a [our friendship].
We all know that [friendless] people who face a [social group that ostracizes them] are quite happy people and don't do things like [go on shooting sprees]."
But surely you aren't arguing I have a duty to make friends with people whose opinions I find disgusting?
How about a Buddhist of European heritage?
These people need to grow some thicker skin. When one responds to these incidents, one allows others to control oneself. Ignore comments, ignore markings on walls, etc. Deal with the perps in court if and when there is a legitimate (physical) attack as in assault and/or battery. But up to that point words are words and people need to be tougher.
If one cares about what others think of him/her, one gives power over oneself to the others. What one thinks of oneself outweighs what everyone else thinks.
Can't handle the fact that no matter what you do there are always going to be people who do not like you. Too bad!
"It's nice to be nice to the nice."
Even so, how do you measure this? Who decides what is intolerant enough to not be admitted? And how do you even find out if applicants meet or do not meet your tolerance standard.
This is corporatism as its purist.
I agree it would be a "challenge", which is why I wondered how a proponent of the idea (i.e., you) would enforce it -- apparently you're at a loss. Perhaps Prof. Williams has some bright ideas.
The problem is that it would be all to easy to expand the definition of intolerance to current realms of political debate. Are you intolerant if you oppose affirmative action? Are you intolerant if you oppose diverting resources towards the promotion of diversity? Are you intolerant if you refuse to accept the practices common to an ethnicity/race/nation/religion but don't discriminate against those who have renounced the practices? What about intolerance of the overweight? Smokers? Recreational drug users?
Your going too far if you go beyond overt discrimination.
I was of the belief that teh West left this behind with the Berlin Wall.
Yes.
Yes.
It depends on the ethnicity/race/nation/religion.
It depends on the ethnicity/race/religion/beliefs of the overweight person.
It depends on what they are smoking.
It depends on the ethnicity/race/religion/beliefs of the drug user.
Hope that helps.
One of the things that alarms me about our country at the moment is the move away from dialog and controversy as if these things are somehow immoral. It is better to be surrounded by people who support one's delusions than those who may actually challenge your deeply held beliefs.
As someone who has a very thick skin but who has had friends and close relationships with people with thin skins, all I have to say is your point of view is extremely unrealistic.
Thick skinned people, like me and you are no doubt better off. We are happier, because we do not let the opinions of others control us or bother us very often.
A lot of people with thinner skin would in fact like to have thicker skin. But they cannot just snap their fingers and make it so. Just like I cannot just snap my fingers and suddenly instantly make myself more empathetic.
Now, I am not saying that change is wholly impossible for all people. But, in many instances and for many people as a practical matter, it is. When you are dealing with questions of sensitivity to the opinions of others, you are dealing with something that is ingrained and long established, perhaps through both environment and genetics.
In any case, I think that this is ingrained enough that it is reasonable to take non-coercive actions to condemn and ostracize those who do not exhibit a reasonable level of sensitivity to others. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." I learned that as a kid. And for me, it is mostly true. (Not entirely true, but mostly true.) But for others, this will never describe reality. Your view that people can just snap their fingers and change is entirely unrealistic. You have to take people as you find them.
"Tolerance" has no meaning without an answer to the question "of what?"
And what about women and people of color who are intolerant of people outside their group? I know some lesbians who would get bounced, but I'm betting this isn't the intent of the policy.
Look, if you want to have an anti-discrimination policy, just call it that and then argue about what it should contain. But going beyond that, into the realm of social engineering, is just annoying.
All you say may be true about skin thickness.
But you overlook the benefits of pretending to be thin-skinned wrt certain issues.
A few years ago the Univ of Mississippi had racial epithets written on some dormitory walls. After a long investigation including lengthy questioning of many white male students. It was discovered that the culprits were black student trying to stir things up. Their punishment....drum roll.... they had to write an essay apologizing to the student body.
What if gay men are bigoted against straight women? Who trumps? How about if it's really rich gay men of color against disabled working class white straight men?
It's all too silly.
I think the correct position is to be intolerant of dingbats, and polite to everyone else.
The advantage of politeness is that you never get put on the spot as to whether you are actually accepting someone, merely tolerating him, or successfully hiding your seething hatred. And it doesn't really matter, does it?
As a reductio ad absurdum example, I don't think anyone could object if Trinity turns down any student who lists the KKK among their extracurricular activities.
Instead, everyone here seems to prefer projecting bad intentions onto Prof. Williams. I know that certain factions have a history of unfair applications of "tolerance", but the issues (vague though they are) mentioned seem fairly clearly objectionable. And I have to agree that the canned "diversity lectures" common in academia are stupid and generally unhelpful.
Then you have no problem with excluding the majority of non-white students?
Seems to me that it might be a useful idea if the schools confined themselves to trying to teach the subjects which they are nominally supposed to be teaching, and refrained from trying to be the self-appointed thought police.
Why couldn't I object?
Isn't that very much like saying the doctor should exclude sick people from his rounds? What exactly is the job of an educator? To avoid unpleasant situations?
"Tolerance" may have been so 90's, but acceptance is so 2004. Today we must CELEBRATE and NURTURE our differences:
http://www.wiu.edu/ucoso/riddle.htm
I notice that it does not worry you that those "who do not exhibit a reasonable level of sensitivity to others" may be exhibiting "something that is ingrained and long established, perhaps through both environment and genetics". That only applies to what PJ O'Rourke termed "the Perpeptually Indignant".
Or a Christian ....
All right, I'll object. If schools are going to admit some terrorists and radicals then they have an obligation to admit them all.
For a couple years I served on a campus committee that looked at biannual exit surveys of college students throughout the nation. One of the biggest "concerns" raised by committee members regarding our students was the political leanings reported by exiting grads.
You see, a greater percentage of them departed as center-right or right than was the case at our peer institutions. The issue for discussion was "What can we do about this in the future?" Because we need to make sure our students are, among other things, more "tolerant" when they leave.
"Tolerance quotients" at colleges are a terrible idea.
QED
Admit. Or, you know, tenure them.
Let's bring back insincerity and raging hypocrisy as social virtues. Enough with the baring our souls. Or our feet. We've all got far too much information about everybody, and it doesn't seem to make life any easier.
The real problem is of course the definition of intolerance. For many it is anyone who disagrees with their beliefs, or disagrees with certain solutions to societal problems. Just as many "open-minded" people are actually not, they just have different values than what we think of as "conservative" values. They are the same, just different.
And that is one of the big problems with that. If a school were to say "we don't want intolerance" then refuses to admit anyone pro-life (or whatever the issue is), they have done their students a disservice because they will never hear an alternative opinion on the issue.
Obviously for our friends we like to associate with people we are similar to.
But a school is not place for friends to just hang out and pat each other on the back for being the same. A school is where we want to challenge people to grow and hone and mature their beliefs.
I think it's actually intolerant to not associate with people we deem intolerant, so instead of spreading my beliefs and convincing others, I'm actually being intolerant myself. And the other person that I have deemed intolerant does not learn from my behavior anything except that I am a snob, or something similar, and may project that belief onto others he meets like me. And thus I have made him even more intolerant. And in addition I myself have lost an opportunity to learn and grow in my own opinions from discourse with someone who disagrees with me.
@ gasman
well if the student weighs the same as a duck ... then he's --intolerant--!!
Burn him!!
That was a wicked googly.
Considering the reaction of some, eg, Jews, at their efforts to be inclusive.
I suppose since Trinity is a private institution, I couldn't object to this measure per se. However, I would think that something like the Brandenburg v Ohio ruling might apply to public higher education institutions as well and really should apply where we are talking about free speech.
Two points about Brandenburg:
1) Brandenburg was a KKK member
2) Read the excerpts from his speech in footnote 1 of the majority opinion. These excerpts may violate the terms of service for this site if I repeat them here. Yet the courts ruled that this was protected speech that the government couldn't regulate.
I know a good psychiatrist, if they're genuinely interested in changing they're genetically/environmentally programmed beliefs. If they're racist, and like it, I have no desire to associate with them, and no authority to change them against their will.
This goes to the rest of the "so doctors shouldn't see sick people?" comments, too. If you don't want colleges punishing beliefs, then they won't be changing beliefs. What colleges "cure" is ignorance, and they punish (by expulsion) persistent, willful ignorance, aka "failing all your classes". If colleges admit racists with the intent of changing them, racism will be punished.
"All right, I'll object. If schools are going to admit some terrorists and radicals then they have an obligation to admit them all."
Even if that were true, you're left with the difficulty of defining "radicals". You can criticize the definitions the school uses, but it doesn't seem that the immediate problem is black racism against whites (based on the information given). So focusing on the KKK may be more urgent than the NOI.
"For many it is anyone who disagrees with their beliefs, or disagrees with certain solutions to societal problems" etc, etc:
Look at the incidents Prof. Williams points to. Does it seem that he is upset about respectful disagreements with his beliefs, or something different?
@einhverfr:
I would agree that public colleges, like government institutions in general, are bound to be scrupulously fair about not disfavoring beliefs, and so this argument would not apply to them.
But a private school can morally say that certain beliefs are unhelpful and do not provide a useful perspective, and so exclude those beliefs from discussion. It's a fair argument which beliefs might fall under this category, and colleges, as institutions dedicated to free thought, should err on the side of inclusion. But I have no problem with a college saying "no, the KKK doesn't deserve to be heard", unlike if they said the same thing about the Mormon church. If you want to "learn and grow in my own opinions from discourse", you'll get better value for your time elsewhere.
"I think it's actually intolerant to not associate with people we deem intolerant"
Tolerance is not a universal virtue. There is no reason to be tolerant to (unrepentant) murderers, etc. Tolerance suggests a degree of respect for someone or some ideology; I don't respect racists (for their racism; I might respect a racist whose other traits were highly laudable, but their racism counts against them).
Those of us who teach intellectually demanding subjects actually want talented students - which largely eliminates most of those pursuing this loon's courses.
It's somewhat interesting that no one has pointed out that Williams is wrong, that doing all of those things would not end hate on campus and would likely increase it. (Decreasing diversity would tend to reduce hate but the effect of not admitting the intolerant is less clear because many of the current batch of "tolerant" are among the worse haters.)
Contrary to common practics, you don't necessarily get true statements by combining popular buzzwords.
Would that be considered "intolerant" enough to not be admitted?
Why not just enforce rules of civility and leave it at that?
No personal attacks, no shouting or shouting down, no threatening, no arguing "in bad faith". No resort to calling your opponent a racist, sexist, homophobe, breeder, fascist --- ditto, no faggot, commie, bulldyke, moonbat, leftard, etc.
That used to be the rule.
In other words enforce objective standards of behavior, rather than attempt to subjectively judge an internal state i.e. intolerance.
When Angela Davis came up, there was no dissent based on her "intolerance". Specifically, I recall she essentially thinks all capitalists should be wiped from the face of the earth and pretty much buys the sontag'ish "white people are the cancer of society" line. But she was not disqualified for her "intolerance". Being intolerant of capitalists and white people is fine.
When Sam Kinison came up, he was deemed TOO intolerant to invite. I mean he makes fun of people - GAY PEOPLE, POOR PEOPLE, people who live in the desert in africa, etc.
or you could do what the (public) evergreen state college in WA did.
hire one as a commencement speaker...
who?
mumia of course.
Certain groups would be defined as intolerant, hence all members.
Problem is that at least one group which is famously intolerant has also managed to capture the coveted Accredited Victim status.
Now what?
This goes to the rest of the "so doctors shouldn't see sick people?" comments, too. If you don't want colleges punishing beliefs, then they won't be changing beliefs. What colleges "cure" is ignorance, and they punish (by expulsion) persistent, willful ignorance, aka "failing all your classes". If colleges admit racists with the intent of changing them, racism will be punished.
Since that was my quote (borrowed from JC, my home boy) I'll respond: No, you don't punish people when you hope to change their minds. You discuss and debate with them when you try to change their minds. Why is that so complicated?
If I am actually committed to X, then I am going to welcome the opportunity to convince you of X. I may not succeed, but I sure as hell won't accomplish anything if I limit my contact to other X-ians. In that case, what I'm really doing is posturing.
Amen! Damned disabled lesbian Eskimos are ruining my life!
If you followed a previous post about Canada's persecution of intolerance via its Orwellian "human rights commissions", you would have seen how this works there. The commission's own investigators hijacked a private party's IP address to avoid being identified, and under ficticious ID's, posted "hate" messages on websites they were investigating, and then used their own "hate" comments to prove the site was guilty of "hate" speech.
At the University of Delaware, they instituted a mandatory program to indoctrinate the students into "diversity", which is just a code word for leftist thought. After being made the subject of intense criticism for it, the university went through a short period of heavy spinning and obfuscation, changed the name of the program and continued on as usual.
Welcome to 1984.
Education is improved, most educated people seem to believe, when the educational environment consists of individuals with broadly diverse backgrounds. This diversity bonus is muted when there are individuals--sometimes as few as one or two--who are intolerant of the rest of the group, and vocally express their intolerance/bully the "different people" into being quiet. Obviously the "diverse" parties could fight back, but at that point the educational environment is shot.
So who is the "intolerant" person? Well, obviously--and as with anything, ever--the label could be abused. But an obvious and more-or-less workable answer is: intolerant people are those who not only deny the ultimate validity of all other views and lifestyles (as anyone with an opinion does), but who preclude discussion by denying the very potential that other's views are correct.
I, for example, do not believe that Islam is ultimately "correct." That will not preclude me under the professor's analysis. Why? Because I am willing to talk with a muslim about her beliefs and have an open discussion, letting them enjoy an equal amount of space to discuss and to learn. But I would be precluded if I wore a "muslims are terrorists" t-shirt to class and generally spouted off about how wrong she was on everything. The later behavior clearly interrupts with the learning environment by expressing and forcing intolerance. The former expresses an opinion, but does not in any way preclude education.
Sure, the t-shirt expresses a legitimate view (albeit a weak one). And, certainly, the makeup of the class will, in part, determine what is appropriate. But the rhetorical and inflammatory nature of the shirt serve only to disturb actual discussion. To some degree this is drawing a line in the sand. But I think most people can see the difference.
Everyone claiming that this proposal would be the final blow to the on-the-ropes group of white male Christians is clearly out of touch with reality.
For that matter, can you define "abused".
Let's say, for example, that a Muslim kid shows up with a map of Israel on his tee shirt with a green crescent across it, or a circle with a bar across it.
Thing is, this is not going to go equally in all directions. Who gets tolerated and who doesn't depends on group identity. That's reality. The ideal will differ, but, then, it always does. That's why trying to peddle the ideal is a mug's game. Or, I should say, buying the ideal is.
However -- some commentators here seem to believe that you can either have diversity in your legal team or competence. Did it ever occur to some people that you can have both? That a diverse legal team might also be the best team working for you?
And how do we define 'best'? Usually, it is the most experienced legal mind on staff. Given the No. 1 grad from Harvard vs. a lawyer with 20 years experience on an issue but graduated from a piddling school, I'll go with experience every time.
The problem is that at some law firms, they haven't really been doing much in hiring people of color or various other backgrounds. So these people end up not getting the experience they need to compete with the best. I would suggest that it is everyone's best interest to hire young lawyers from a broad background and then train them with experience. By having a diverse background, you have many different ways of looking at legal issues, and it's especially important if you are in litigation.
So -- I would enourage (but not require) law firms to hire with an eye towards diversity, and then train the young'uns. Over time, you will have both diversity and competence.
Now, of course, some will complain that I'm asking for law firms to hire people based on skin color or sexual orientation in place of the 'best' students. But again, 'best' is in the eye of the beholder. I do NOT agree that the best attorneys are only those who have the highest grades from the highest ranked law schools. Sometimes they are, but sometimes they are not.