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more like a white patriarchal supporter of classist, sexist, and racist meri–
tocracy by the minute, she added: "We are teaching the students that
you can be anything you want to be.... But a whole community is
saying, 'No, you can't be Superintendent unless you are a member of
one ethnic group.' " (It remains doubtful, however, whether Ms.
Boudreaux would object if school officials let it be known that they
would prefer to hire a black rather than a white. No minorities have
been heard to complain in New York City, where school officials are
shying away from white candidates for the post of Schools Chancellor.)
The tables are turning in Miami, too. After Ruth Page lost her job
to a Cuban, she began to resent the growing Hispanic presence in
Miami. She was one of several black residents to speak before the Dade
County Commission against the lifting of the requirement that all
county business be conducted in English. "They are taking over, and I
am a victim of that," said Mrs. Page, after the Commission voted unani–
mously to rescind the English-only rule.
In New York State, Senator Joseph Caliber has introduced a bill
that would require a certain proportion of state contracts to be let to
black businesses, defined specifically to exclude businesses owned by
Hispanics. The next step will inevitably be a counter-quota bill from the
Hispanic caucus to exclude blacks, and then a few more bills from Asians,
American Indians, and women, excluding everyone but themselves.
The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights ruled earlier this
year that Connecticut had illegally excluded Asian-Americans and
American Indians from a program that gives colleges funds to recruit and
retain minority students and faculty members. The original beneficiaries
deplored the ruling. "It's quite appropriate to focus on blacks and
Hispanics. You can just look at all kinds of statistics and you see that
they are not there in higher education and there are a lot of Asian–
American students up there," said Lori Brown, president of the Black
Students Association of the University of Connecticut. The solidarity of
"people of color" united against white oppression lasts only so long as
there are no competing claims on funding, it seems.
The definition of "diversity" itself is increasingly "contested," as the
multiculturalists themselves might say. In June of 1993, Hispanic students
marched through the campus of California State Polytechnic University
in Pomona holding a coffin that signified the "death of diversity." What
had killed it? The university had named an Asian-American, rather than a
Hispanic, as vice president for student affairs. In partial atonement, the
university is considering a multicultural student center. Meanwhile thirty–
five miles to the west, the Asian Pacific Americans for a New Los Angeles
accused Mayor Riordan of pursuing "diversity devoid of substance" in his
five appointments to the Police Commission: a regional director of the
