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PARTISAN KEVIEW
Lani Guinier attributed her defeat as nominee for the post of Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights to the fact that "there is simply not
enough diversity at the decision-making and gate-keeping levels in either
the print or broadcast media." The media's lack of diversity, said
Guinier, led it to distort her views and acquiesce in her "silencing."
The culture's obsession with diversity has conferred enormous bar–
gaining power upon minorities. It is hardly surprising that they use it.
The president of Students for Black Interest at William Penn College has
let it be known that many minority students will leave the school if it
doesn't hire more minority faculty, do more to honor Black History
Month, and show greater sensitivity to their concerns. Desperate to keep
the school's diversity profile intact, William Penn administrators have es–
tablished several committees to respond to the students' demands.
In March of 1993, Students of Color Building Bridges at the
University of Oregon presented to university administrators a petition
demanding more minority faculty. If their demands were not met, the
petitioners said, they would drop out. That five minority professors had
just been hired under an existing "target of opportunity" program, de–
spite university budget cuts, was irrelevant to both the students and the
university admin istrators willing to coddle them: "We will be together
on many, if not most of the requests from the students," said Gerald
F.
Moseley, vice-provost for academic planning and services.
The usc of racial extortion becomes more sinister in the building
trades. Groups such as "Black Power," "Afro Construction and
Demolition," and "Epiphany Enterprises" routinely "help" contractors
meet Federal and local laws requiring the hiring of minority workers.
Their help often consists of beating owners and foremen, disrupting
work, and preventing workers from entering job sites, as well as de–
manding protection money.
The biggest casualty of the diversity movement is not equal oppor–
tunity but the truth. Diversity has foreclosed the possibility of an honest
discussion of the cultural problems which are impeding the advance of
certain minorities. Any f.Kt which contradicts the diversity-approved ex–
planation of the world is banished as racist stereotyping. In June 1993,
National Public Radio devoted an almost unprecedented thirty minutes
to a documentary entitled "Ghetto Life 101." Its creator, David Isay,
must have thought he was doing everything right. The diversity move–
ment demands that "discourse" be opened to previously silenced
"voices," so Isay gave tape recorders to two teenagers in a Chicago
housing project and let them record their lives.
The resulting piece provided a compelling glimpse into the inner
city. The boys were self-confident narrators and uninhibited interviewers;
a jazz background gave "Ghetto Life 101" a cool and sophisticated
