Anneke Metz
Plant Sciences
MSU-Bozeman
In 1996, the Hopwood decision held that affirmative action policies are inherently racist and that the University of Texas could not use race in deciding admissions. That same year in California, voters approved Proposition 209 by a narrow margin, barring preferential treatment or discrimination "on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin." In 1997, a woman sued the University of Michigan, arguing she had wrongfully been denied admission because she is white. Clearly, in the matter of affirmative action, the political and judicial tide is moving towards a more conservative shore.
Out of this climate comes The Diversity Hoax: Law Students Report from Berkeley. The book is a compilation of essays written by students from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in the 1997-98 academic year, the first law school class admitted under Proposition 209. They grapple with issues of diversity in a year that saw new African-American enrollment at the law school drop to zero and heated anti-209 demonstrations erupt at a campus with likely the most radical student body in the United States.
The book was the brainchild of first year law student David Wienir, who put out an open call for all Boalt Hall students to respond to the question: "How healthy is the marketplace of ideas.... Does expression flow freely in an environment tolerant of diversity, or does the climate of tolerance at Berkeley paradoxically inhibit true diversity of opinion?" (37). The submissions could be anonymous and all responses, regardless of viewpoint, would be published. Of over 700 students studying law at Berkeley that year, 27 chose to respond. The responses, as might be expected from such an open call, vary widely. Some are thoughtful, others simplistic, emotional, or sarcastic. Many describe painful personal experiences from a school year that unfolded in a charged political atmosphere. The voices are mostly conservative. The responses are bookended by interpretive essays by the authors, and the work concludes with an afterword by conservative radio talk-show host Dennis Prager. The issue at the center of this book, affirmative action, is a complicated and deeply divisive one, and it is not my intent to try to solve it here. What I would like to do, from my perspective as a scientist, is explore how the book presents and frames this issue.
The essays responding to the question of diversity are as a whole compelling, even if they offer a glimpse into the thoughts of only a few of the students at the law school during a turbulent time. The large majority of the essays echo a similar sentiment: that the expression of diverse opinions is effectively squelched in the Berkeley classroom by vocal leftist radicals (described as "intolerant activists" [20] by Wienir) who resort to vandalism, name calling, and intimidation to silence anyone does not agree with their point of view. In her particularly lucid essay, "The Unprofitable Monopoly," Heather McCormick notes that "I sometimes think that activists at Boalt think they have succeeded when they have silenced the other side" (55). The ironic end result, the authors of these essays argue, is a lack of "diversity" (defined as viewpoints from all parts of the political spectrum) caused by precisely the people who scream the loudest for "diversity" (defined as increased enrollment of members of traditionally underrepresented groups)--hence the "Diversity Hoax."
Several particular events during the school year seemed to create the perception of a hostile environment, as they are mentioned on numerous occasions in the book. One was an incident of vandalism where anti-Proposition 209 messages were spray-painted across campus, an action seen as indicative of the atmosphere of hostility towards the conservative viewpoint. Another incident often cited as evidence of the intolerant stance taken by the Left was the systematic removal of Federalist Society debate announcements from public bulletin boards around campus and the concomitant destruction of the club's own official bulletin board.
By far the most egregious incidents cited were several Proposition 209 protests that disrupted Fall semester law courses. The demonstrations involved persons of color interrupting a lecture and asking white law students to surrender their seats as a show of solidarity with the minority community. The protesters were described in these essays as intolerant of other viewpoints and quick to label those who refused to cooperate. In "We All Belong Here," Filipino student Isabelle Quinn recounts a particularly painful moment in one such protest when she was called a "racist white conservative idiot" by a classmate for refusing to give up her seat (70). This response indicates the problems of attempting to read racial identity (and assumed concomitant political stance) from outward appearance.
Certainly by these accounts some truly inappropriate and destructive behavior was perpetrated by students holding the viewpoint of the radical left. However, those students that engaged in name calling, unsubstantiated racial epithets, vandalism and more, rather than being indicative of that body politic, do a disservice to the sophisticated perspective of the liberal Left. Not long ago, I attended a lecture by Cornel West, Professor of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University, in which he related a meeting he had with unemployed white auto workers who angrily blamed affirmative action programs and African-Americans for taking their jobs. Although he certainly disagreed strongly with the workers, he never called the workers stupid, "white," racist, or any of the terms apparently hurled with vicious abandon by activists at Boalt Hall. Instead, West acknowledged their real pain and treated them with dignity and respect despite the ideological differences that separated them. I wish those students from Berkeley had been at that talk.
While the submissions that serve as the evidence for the "Diversity Hoax" resonate with emotional energy and idealistic hope for fomenting change, the introductory and concluding essays that bookend these works have a quite different flavor. Much of the interpretive material addresses a perceived loss of academic standards at universities nationwide. The Diversity Hoax is co-edited by Marc Berley, executive director of FAST (the Foundation for Academic Standards and Tradition), a group "created to empower diverse college and university students nationwide to restore both high academic standards and humanistic study of the liberal arts in the Western tradition to their schools" (9). While the place in academia of canonical literature, like affirmative action, is a controversial issue worthy of serious debate, the two issues are conflated here, and the dissenters who write in The Diversity Hoax become "profiles in courage" (170) in the fight against the "dumbing down" (9) of the American university curriculum. I have two major criticisms regarding this strategy. One, this linkage (of radical activism at Berkeley to the downfall of traditional curricula nationwide) necessitates the use of a nonsequitur argument. Secondly, in order to position themselves as the more reasonable side, the authors engage in a false assertion of political neutrality.
The student essays bemoaning the lack of the conservative voice at Berkeley, and the need for traditional Western curriculum in the American university--two topics which at first glance seem unrelated--are placed in a cause/effect relationship through what the editors label the "Language War" argument. In this line of reasoning, "words once neutral" (159) have been redefined and appropriated by the liberal voice, resulting in a modern-day Babel where a politically radical minority sets the terms of the debate and paints dissenting opinion as morally evil. As noted above, the example most germane to this book is the definition of "diversity," which editors argue is linked by liberals directly to skin color, in contrast to the conservative call for varied political points of view. This talking at cross purposes, it is argued, would be eliminated if all students were steeped in a traditional liberal arts education, which would give them a "common ground upon which to disagree civilly" (162).
Two separate issues thus become conflated through the structure of the book. This slippage is made most clear by Wienir's assertion that "As half-baked anti-Western and anti-American sentiments replace great books in college and university classrooms around the country, more and more students can proudly declare that they refuse to listen to people who disagree with them" (24). Taking this argument at face value means believing that if we teach from non-traditional books, students are monolithically brainwashed and become boorish and militant, yet if we instead embrace canonical texts, these same students become reasonable and cogent thinkers. As a scientist, I found this overly simplistic correlation illogical and uncompelling. The notion that students cannot learn critical thinking from non-canonical texts is not argued. Rather, it is treated as self-evident fact without any supporting data. A complex issue is reduced to a false dichotomy; we are led to fear "dangerous" (169) ideas and the students are giving no credit as individual thinkers.
The second disingenuous stance taken by the editors of the book is the manner in which they position their stance as apolitical. The Diversity Hoax is offered as "an honest book" (3) and Wienir proclaims that "there is no secret agenda" (29) in juxtaposition to the "irresponsible politization in evidence at so many schools across the country" (9). The editors engage in an argumentative strategy which sets a tone where they are "reasonable [and] good hearted"(160) as opposed to those who are "politically radical" (160) and thus unreasonable and not good-hearted by default. While their publication of all submitted essays, regardless of political outlook, makes that aspect of the book "honest," the editors' use of phrases such as these disguises their conservative viewpoint as apolitical, and I do find that dishonest.
I was also disheartened at the rudimentary level of debate at times employed by the editors. Wienir rightfully condemned those few students that resorted to "a gross slinging of names that mostly stick" (17) rather than intelligent debate. Yet, I found the terms used by the editors and the FAST organization, although not directed at individuals, to be just as counterproductive. The non-Western literature that is seen as pervasive in University curricula is characterized as being "foolish and often dangerous" (in the afterword by Dennis Prager [170]), and as having "a perverse, unenlightening focus on race, class and gender" (177). I myself have taken courses steeped in marginalized American and third-world literature and I continue to deeply value the exposure to significant social issues and viewpoints that I would not have received within a more traditional curriculum. The characterization of non-traditional courses as "half-baked [and ] un-American" (24) certainly belies the melting-pot nature of American culture and does nothing for having an intelligent rational conversation about important cultural currents. I would suggest that instead it lowers the level of the debate a great deal by strongly belittling the possible contributions of these curricula.
The purpose of book, notes David Wienir, is that it is "intended to create a moment of pause and reflection" (29). I think in this regard, it succeeds admirably. The student accounts of a year at law school in a politically charged atmosphere are fascinating. Still, the dissent at Berkeley appears to be a bit of a tempest in a teapot. Few students were so upset that they felt compelled to write (although the editors suggest that the atmosphere of intimidation was so great that some students were afraid to submit essays, even anonymously), and not even all that wrote agreed there was a problem. And regarding the argument that the intimidation at Berkeley and the loss of traditional liberal arts curricula around the country are part and parcel of the same problem, I got the same sense I often get when reading scientific papers. While the data in and of itself may be beyond reproach, interpretation is often suspect as wholly unsubstantiated conclusions are drawn from skimpy experimental evidence. As much as this book purports to be moving towards a true equality and freedom for all individuals, it demonstrates all too clearly that, when it comes to matters of race, the debate continues to be ugly on both sides of the picket fence.