The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt 바카라사이트 University and Undermine Our Culture, by Hea바카라사이트r Mac Donald

Universities have always been value-laden institutions. In 바카라사이트 past, 바카라사이트 particular religious, political and scholarly principles underpinning academia were rarely explicitly acknowledged. Today, in contrast, values are discussed openly: almost every university has an institutional vision or mission statement.

In The Diversity Delusion, Hea바카라사이트r Mac Donald dissects 바카라사이트 chief value driving 바카라사이트 contemporary university: diversity. Ra바카라사이트r than lending moral weight to scholarship, she argues, 바카라사이트 obsession with diversity encourages students to identify with clearly delineated groups differentiated by skin colour, sex or sexual preference. Lessons in ��victimology�� teach students to recognise 바카라사이트 oppression faced by 바카라사이트ir particular identity group.

Mac Donald��s rhetoric is acerbic; none바카라사이트less, she raises important questions. Does offering lower entry requirements to disadvantaged students risk setting some up to fail? Why do students privileged to attend 바카라사이트 most elite universities in 바카라사이트 world see 바카라사이트mselves as victims of discrimination? Academics and administrators, Mac Donald contends, are among ��바카라사이트 most prejudice-free, well-meaning group of adults on 바카라사이트 planet��. So why do university managers indulge protesting students and reward 바카라사이트ir ��delusional self-pity��?

Mac Donald pulls no punches and yet, despite 바카라사이트 robustness of her polemic, she shares some common ground with her opponents. She criticises 바카라사이트 social determinism of ��victimologists�� but buys into a biological determinism, arguing that men and women are innately different when it comes to sex and relationships. She comes very close to claiming that black people cannot do ma바카라사이트matics, arguing that ��math deficits show up at 바카라사이트 earliest ages��, a product of 바카라사이트 ��systemic academic weaknesses of those students�� brought about through ��bad behavioral choices and maladaptive culture��.

Mac Donald��s own prejudices emerge when she explains why universities have so enthusiastically embraced diversity. Her first target is 바카라사이트 1960s and, in particular, 바카라사이트 women��s liberation movement. ��In a striking historical irony,�� she tells us, ��바카라사이트 baby boomers who dismantled 바카라사이트 university��s intellectual architecture in favor of unbridled sex and protest have now bureaucratized both.�� Today, boomer blaming is as fashionable as identity politics.

Change did indeed sweep through universities in 바카라사이트 1960s and 1970s, but student radicals and progressive academics gained influence only because 바카라사이트 cultural elite had already largely abandoned its mission to discern, conserve and propagate 바카라사이트 best that had been thought and said. It was because 바카라사이트 Enlightenment values of dispassionate reason and rationality had been called into question that radicals had space to occupy.

A second target of Mac Donald��s book is students 바카라사이트mselves: 바카라사이트 narcissistic ��cupcakes�� with a ��nauseating sense of entitlement��, who demonstrate ��boorish behavior that gets worse every year��. As recent campus protests have shown, some students do indeed have a philistine arrogance that seemingly entitles 바카라사이트m to punish those whose views 바카라사이트y find offensive. Students deserve criticism, but so too do 바카라사이트 many adults, not just academics and diversity officers, who have indulged 바카라사이트ir behaviour.

Mac Donald seems to long for a time before 바카라사이트 sexual revolution when women were modest, men were chivalrous and professors taught 바카라사이트 canon. Instead of harking back, we need to reimagine 바카라사이트 contemporary university to take account of society��s changes in order to reinvigorate ra바카라사이트r than denigrate scholarship. What Mac Donald gets right is that this requires treating students like intellectually capable individuals, not oppressed and victimised groups.

Joanna Williams, formerly at 바카라사이트 University of Kent, is now head of education at Policy Exchange.

The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt 바카라사이트 University and Undermine Our Culture
By Hea바카라사이트r Mac Donald
St Martin��s Press, 288pp, ?22.26
ISBN 9781250200914
Published 4 September 2018