It's been a big week for people focused on the ins and outs, whys and why-nots, and ups and downs of "diversity" and what some see as its evil twin, "affirmative action". Ross Douthat, the New York Times resident young conservative weighed in twice, with a post, "The Trouble with Meritocracy", elaborating on his own op-ed, "The Roots of White Anxiety".
Part of the problem with meritocracy is that it homogenizes in the name of diversity: It skims the cream from every race and class and population, puts all of the best and brightest through the same educational conveyor belt, and comes out with a ruling class that’s cosmetically diverse but intellectually conformist, and that tends to huddle together rather than spreading out to enrich the country as a whole.
The problem with the pursuit of diversity as practiced by the elite today, in other words, is that it's not diverse enough.
James Webb, pugilistic Republican-turned-Democrat Scots-Irish novel-writing U.S. Senator from Virginia, entered the ring with an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, "Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege," in which he calls out race-based affirmative action programs as unfair.
The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed. But the extrapolation of this logic to all "people of color"—especially since 1965, when new immigration laws dramatically altered the demographic makeup of the U.S.—moved affirmative action away from remediation and toward discrimination, this time against whites. It has also lessened the focus on assisting African-Americans, who despite a veneer of successful people at the very top still experience high rates of poverty, drug abuse, incarceration and family breakup.
Among others, The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates hit back with "The Myth of the Myth of White Privilege", zeroing in on race and incarceration.
If Webb does buy his own headline—that white privilege is a "myth"—then I'm disappointed and, frankly, surprised, since, as politicians go, he has been an especially outspoken advocate of reform in one of the areas of our society where white privilege remains at its strongest: the criminal justice system. (Granted, it's not that hard to become an especially outspoken advocate for criminal justice reform when the pool you're being compared to consists largely of pusillanimous demagogues, but Webb gets a good grade here even if the curve is pretty easy.)Princeton sociologist Devah Pager's book Marked: Race, Class, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration is a handy short primer on how blacks suffer doubly from a criminal justice system that is quicker to incarcerate them and a society that is quicker to write them off once they get out of prison. Let's never lose sight of the magnitude of the problem: A black boy born in 2001 has a one-in-three chance of spending some part of his life locked up. (The rates aren't great for other races, either: 1 in 6 for Latino boys, 1 in 17 for white boys.)
Jonah Lehrer, without a partisan dog in the fight, cogitated about the Douthat piece in "The Secret of Successful Entrepreneurs".
It’s not enough to simply take the smartest kids and make them smarter. What’s just as important is teaching these young people to seek out strangers, to resist the tug of self-similarity and homogenization. Diversity can seem like a such a vague and wishy-washy aspiration, but it comes with measurable benefits. To the extent our meritocratic institutions diminish our social diversity – are your college buddies just like you? – they might actually make us less likely to succeed. Perhaps Bill Gates knew what he was doing when he dropped out of Harvard.
While these battles were being waged in the national media, on the home front the state of Michigan lost an energetic provocateur and passionate meritocrat with the untimely passing of Chetly Zarko, whose attacks on affirmative action infuriated disciples of affirmative action and delighted the right. Antagonist-admirer Donn Fresard blogged "We agreed on nothing, but I admired the hell out of Chet's hustle in the pursuit of truth." Here's the Mackinac Center's appreciation.
Last but not least, on Friday the State Bar Board of Commissioners adopted a diversity statement crafted from the work of a broad cross-section of Michigan lawyers who attended three colloquia dedicated to that purpose across the state:
We believe that diversity and inclusion are core values of the legal profession and that these values require a sustained commitment to strategies of inclusion.
Diversity is inclusive. It encompasses, among other things, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, religion, nationality, language, age, disability, marital and parental status, geographic origin, and socioeconomic background.
Diversity creates greater trust and confidence in the administration of justice and the rule of law, and enables us to better serve our clients and society. It makes us more effective and creative by bringing different perspectives, experiences, backgrounds, talents, and interests to the practice of law.
We believe that law schools, law firms, corporate counsel, solo and small firm lawyers, judges, government agencies, and bar associations must cooperatively work together to achieve diversity and inclusion, and that strategies designed to achieve diversity and inclusion will benefit from appropriate assessment and recognition.
Therefore, we pledge to continue working with others to achieve diversity and inclusion in the education, hiring, retention, and promotion of Michigan's attorneys and in the elevation of attorneys to leadership positions without our organizations, the judiciary, and the profession.
A lengthy commentary to the statement, drafted through the colloquia process, will be posted on the State Bar's website.
Artwork: Morfar, Matheus Siqueira (2006)
