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Decorative Diversity

While walking today I was listening to a podcast featuring Ed Dutton, the Jolly Heretic, and the Zman. Very interesting and wide-ranging conversation, more about that in a moment, but something Z said was very interesting. He used the term “decorative diversity” to describe the desperate attempt by universities to stock up their student body with non-White/Asian/Jewish students to make the place seem more diverse. Now no one in any position of authority really thinks that adding lower IQ blacks to your student body improves your academic setting but it is apparently a requirement so the White donor class feels like they are “doing their part”, while living in neighborhoods free of diversity. 

Anyway, decorative diversity to make the photos in campus brochures look vibrant has been going on for a long time but it has started to change. For many years the decorative diversity was confined almost exclusively to meaningless academic disciplines like Afro-American Studies and various other liberal arts degrees where the profs could give them high marks regardless of the work they produced. Everyone knew it and just accepted it as a cost of doing business, and no one took them all that seriously because they weren’t in a position to do much damage. Or so we thought. 
What has changed over the more recent years is that decorative diversity is bleeding over into the hard sciences in a major way. Engineering, medicine, chemistry, all of the once safe disciplines that have real life consequences are giving way to decorative diversity. If an Afro-Gender-Queer Studies major writes a moronic paper, no one cares but if a decorative diversity grad in engineering designs a bridge that collapses randomly or is the ER doc when you arrive after a car accident? Lives are going to be lost. 
Diversity for the sake of diversity is ridiculous when it is in the liberal arts but when it impacts real lives in the real world? It is going to be deadly.
Anyway, here is the conversation between Dutton and Zman. Very interesting, Dutton starts off kind of spazzy but settles down and they cover lots of great material….

11 Comments

  1. jen

    It's not just a notion in medicine; it's a real thing now, in practice. Sometimes I wonder how they passed their boards.
    Also, that bridge that collapsed in Florida was designed by an engineering firm that was chosen bc they are female and minority. Apparently they'd had another large project fail as well – but it didn't matter, they ticked the boxes. Crickets from the media.
    -ER nurse

  2. Arthur Sido

    We have a daughter in med school who based on her scores, GPA and experience should have had her pick of "elite" schools but didn't even get interviews because she is White. Being an MD from Harvard doesn't mean much anymore.

  3. Anonymous

    Our diversity engineer is a moron. Knows less about his specialitythan I do… and its nothing like my speciality.
    I found a book on his 'speciality' once in a sally anne that was an idiots guide too… I gave it too him as a comment and he thanked me and has uses it as a reference.

    Exile1981

  4. Anonymous

    this would be funny if it didn't impact other people lives. but as much as I hate to say this, the country is getting rather stupid. I am so glad I am retired as I no longer have to deal with the morons on a daily basis. thank god for that small bit. it was really painful to watch some of those clowns trying to think their way thru a problem. no shit, one time had to "help out" a floor super who was freaking out over not getting the stuff she ordered. (she ordered 4 of the item and only got 2
    in the package) took all of maybe a minute to point out that said items where back ordered.
    yes. that is what the little B. O. mean on the form. this stupid shit is only going to get worse as time goes on and the clowns rise to power. this is not going to end well for us.
    and I have lost count of how many good jobs I was told I was the wrong color to be hired.
    and for those who think otherwise, the army was giving away rank based on skin color a long time ago. ever have to "help" out your squad leader with map reading ? or how to use a compass the right way ? door and windows are and always have bein ambush points. YET, they still teach kids to go thru the damn door ? if we ever have to go up against a world power like ww2, we will get creamed.
    p.c. shit does not win wars or save lives. we had a saying back in the day, YOYO- YOU ON YOUR OWN.
    plan according. I have being doing that for years now.

  5. Anonymous

    When I was still teaching college physics, I was told to accommodate people with 3rd grade reading or math skills. I was required to allow some students get tests in a special center where the test questions would be read to them. The administration dropped the anatomy requirements for the radiology program to improve graduation rate, a decision that will undoubtedly lead to future deaths.

  6. Arthur Sido

    It might just be me but it seems that the current med school curricula is not terribly challenging, almost seeming as if the goal is to pack med schools with diversity and when they can't pass the boards the school can wash their hands of them.

  7. Arthur Sido

    I read the other day that orthopedic medicine is shockingly overwhelmingly White and male, and highly compensated, while specialties that tend to attract female doctors (pediatrics, family practice, OB/GYN) have much lower levels of compensation. Look for that to be a new controversy in the name of equity very soon.

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