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PARTISAN REVLEW
most bloated, top-heavy companies such as Xerox routinely issue sancti–
monious pronouncements in the new jargon of "managing diversity,"
pledging to "manage for change" and install "change agents" through–
out the corporation. Increasingly powerful employee caucuses such as
Digital Equipment Corporation's African Heritage Alliance Women's
Constituency police the hiring and promotion of minorities. Ethnic
marketing councils are successfully peddling the idea that only blacks can
sell to blacks, Hispanics to Hispanics, and women to women (ignoring
the necessary corollary that blacks can therefore sell only to blacks,
women only to women, and so on).
The diversity conference circuit is booming. Every week managers
shuttle across the country to learn how to value the different work
"styles" of their employees; back on the job, they attend "sensitivity
training" to further rid themselves of prejudice. The coffers of such pub–
lications as
Black Enterprise
are bulging with ads placed by governments
and businesses desperate to fill their quotas, while publications like the
Irish Voice,
which serve less favored ethnic groups, are struggling to sur–
Vlve.
Bar associations, universities, and news organizations have pledged to
meet minority hiring quotas. The color-coding of news story and re–
porter is now common - though, as in the case of ethnic marketing, the
idea is never entertained that you have to be white to cover a "white"
story.
The New York Times
recently committed itself to displaying a
properly diverse mix of models in its real estate advertisements.
Diversity is about more than numbers, however.
It
is a way of ex–
plaining the world.
It
attributes all the problems experienced by minori–
ties not to a deficit of skills and education nor to a culture that devalues
work, but to racism. Do blacks and Hispanics score poorly on tests? The
tests are biased. Having been admitted to schools with substandard test
scores and grades, do minorities drop out in disproportionate numbers?
The schools don't do enough to celebrate minority culture. Lacking ed–
ucational credentials, are minorities underrepresented in university teach–
ing and certain professions? Employers are not trying hard enough
to
re–
cruit them. Having been hired with substandard qualifications, do mi–
norities fail to advance in their jobs? Managers don't "value their differ–
ences."
The response of the Community College of Philadelphia to the
problems caused by the abysmal academic preparation of its minority stu–
dents is typical of the upside-down world of diversity. The head of the
English department, Alexander G. Russell, told
The Chronicle oj Higher
Education:
