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Tiffany March, Retriever Weekly Guest Writer, published February 10, 2004
One thing that really stands out about UMBC is the emphasis it places on diversity. Our school loves to flaunt the fact that it has one of the most racially diverse campuses in America (third on the list to be exact), which is a perfect example of how the culture of political correctness has saturated modern American universities.
UMBC’s statistics for diversity place it in the same league as Berkeley, Harvard and other Ivy League schools. That factor, along with steadily rising SAT averages for the freshman class, makes UMBC a "Hot School" on the Newsweek list of universities that supposedly deserve recognition. The UMBC Periodic Review Report for 1996-2001 states, "In summary, UMBC’s undergraduate population is increasingly diverse, an outgrowth of both targeted recruiting and a growing national and international reputation…. These trends reflect UMBC’s twin commitments to diversity and to academic excellence" (emphasis mine).
But what’s wrong with valuing diversity on a university campus? Well, nothing really, except if diversity is defined as putting a lot of people with different skin colors in the same space and hoping they will learn how to get along with each other. The word diversity is a pleasant, vague term that evokes nice feelings but doesn’t have a solid definition. I would suggest that true diversity lies in ideas and interests, not ethnicity. However, many supporters of affirmative action policies, such as UMBC’s official "Policy on Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity," argue that having a campus rich with racial diversity creates a stimulating educational environment.
Two premises lie behind this view: 1) people with different skin colors must think differently, and 2) students of different races will interact and form relationships. It is true that a black person can have a different perspective on life than a white person, but it is not right to assume so just because their skin is a different color. Such thinking borders on racism. And the same holds true for students of any race or ethnic group—people are not automatically going to have different opinions because they have different skin colors. It is equally wrong to assume that all people of one racial or ethnic group think alike and that true diversity is achieved by only admitting students of different races. This kind of group classification is racist because it denies the individuality of students.
Although there are students of many ethnicities at UMBC, interaction is lacking. A quick stroll through the Commons shows the self-segregated groups of students clustered at separate tables.
Nationally known author and speaker Dinesh D’Souza notes in his book Illiberal Education that "Proportional representation for ethnic groups directly violates the democratic principle of equal opportunity for individuals, and the underlying concept of group justice is hostile both to individual equality and to excellence." UMBC’s official affirmative action policy does not directly propose proportional representation but it does state, "The undergraduate student population of USM institutions should draw from all areas of the state and reflect the diversity of the state’s population." This leaves a fairly large loophole for the administration to decide who they want at UMBC.
In terms of admissions, the University is color-blind: race is not a factor on the application. However, according to the Admissions Director Yvette Mozie-Ross, UMBC has enrollment goals for minorities and goes to extensive lengths to recruit minority students. These include hosting targeted events and receptions on campus and off, participating in a number of national fairs targeting students from various ethnic backgrounds, and sending mailings to targeted populations. UMBC’s preoccupation with diversity might be excused as an attempt at social engineering based on a flawed theory, but it seems the university is really more concerned with appearance and funding than creating a truly diverse environment. If the former were true, trying to model the state’s ethnic composition in hopes of teaching people to get along together may be a noble goal, but students cannot be forced to interact with one another. In fact, most students (and most people in general) tend to hang around people who look like them, and the university does not seem to be putting much effort or funding into changing this reality. The opening of the Cultural Center is a start, but a more concentrated effort is needed to integrate students of different ethnicities.
As for funding, students considering college are more likely to attend a "Hot School" than one on the bottom of the list. This increases revenue for the state, and in so doing gets the school more funding. If UMBC really cares about true diversity, it will actively seek to increase the intellectual and socio-economic diversity of the student body. Too often affirmative action programs are only concerned with achieving certain statistics without taking into account qualities that make a good student, especially coming from a difficult family situation or dealing with socio-economic issues.
Although the motivation to achieve good grades is difficult to judge by an application, it is also an extremely important factor in choosing students who will contribute to the academic environment. And, since this is a university, shouldn’t it be more proud of the academic performance and achievement of current students than who is admitted? At least at UMBC an expansion of socio-economic diversity is being encouraged. In the "Strategic Framework for 2016," by Provost Arthur Johnson, socio-economic diversity is listed under "Supporting Goals and Objectives" for the student body size and composition.
In President Hrabowski’s legislative testimony for 2004, he says that "UMBC’s current strengths and solid foundation reflect the efforts of State leaders, our faculty, staff, and students…. UMBC has managed for results, and the State’s investment and confidence in us have produced solid returns." And what are these strengths that he is so proud of? "UMBC’s freshman class of just over 1,500 students... is among the most diverse nationally (37 percent minority, including 23 percent Asian, 11 percent African American, and 3 percent Hispanic and Native American)." To me, what President Hrabowski is saying to the state is: look at us, aren’t you pleased? Check out these numbers, we’re so diverse that we’ve attracted national attention. Surely we deserve something for that!
As long as UMBC does a good job of churning out a diverse abundance of workers for the state, I imagine the funding will continue to flow. However, I would suggest that if UMBC wants to have a real and lasting impact on the larger academic community and the world, then it should stop using racial diversity as a cover to sell itself and provide an example of honesty, integrity and justice for the student body, giving them a real reason to be proud of their school.
Christopher Paul, published March 16, 2004
In rebuttal to Tiffany March’s article “Diversity betrayed…,” I wrote an argument essay on this very topic which brought the point of diversity to the forefront.
Yes, the statistics conclude that the population of the UMBC campus is diverse. On the other hand, statistics are static. They do not portray the dynamics of the population.
Diversity is only the buzzword of the month for the liberal left. It’s an ideal we’d all like to strive for, but in truth there is a more cohesive force that brings people together. Borrowing from natural law of chaos, people are drawn together by a phenomenon known as strange attractors. When looking at the UMBC community, these strange attractors are not so strange after all. They are the social glue that draws groups of people together. They are the things that cause us to unite. “Yes that person is my friend, we share a great deal of similarities, we enjoy the same things, and we share a similar morality. We speak the same language, we wear similar clothes, we come from similar economic levels, we lived in the same town and in the same county.” They share a similarity, a goal, a passion, a dislike, a like, or an interest. The similarity or the glue can be language, country, ethnicity, faith, pastime, talent, political views, sex, lifestyle, or a passion. This is what separates everyone into their own little social circles.
Go to http://www.umbc.edu/StudentLink/clubsorgs.html which is the URL link for "UMBC Clubs, Groups, Associations, Councils, and Societies" and tell me it ain’t so Joe. You name it, it's there! All the diversity and separatism you could possibly yearn for separated, categorized, filled and indexed into its neat little nitches. Enough information that a Graduate student of Sociology could write their theses based on the topic. Her you will find groups divided by interest, religion, and ethnicity. This is the proof that there is no diversity at UMBC, but rather separatism, which is the natural order of the world. Change will sadly only occur the day that an alien comes down to earth in full view of everyone. Only then will we all unite and say, “Hey at least we’re all human and inhabitants of the same planet.”
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