This professor makes an excellent point. It will unfortunately fall mostly on deaf ears. Diversity has become big business in higher education.
Campus Reform reports:
Prof decries diversity efforts as ‘performance’ of being the ‘good type’ of White peopleBrandeis University sociology professor Sarah Mayorga stated that diversity initiatives often become a “performance of being ‘the good type of white person.’”In an interview with Brandeis Now — the university’s official news service — Mayorga explained that diversity initiatives are often superficial, preventing substantial “anti-racism” reforms.She based her assumptions upon research conducted for her book Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood, which argues that “multiethnic and mixed-income neighborhoods still harbor the signs of continued, systemic racial inequalities.”“When we talk about diversity, it often becomes this performance of being ‘the good type of white person,’” explained Mayorga. “We hyperfocus on the person’s intentions. We stay in that first step of proving we’re committed to diversity and never really follow through with the commitment.”
The article includes a comment from our own Professor Jacobson:
Cornell University Professor William Jacobson, who runs the blog Legal Insurrection, told Campus Reform that “Mayorga makes a point many people make, that so much of ‘diversity’ training becomes performance in which people are expected to play roles stereotypically associated with their race.”“Such training can be deemed racist in itself, since it presupposes attitudes and attributes based on race,” he added. “While criticisms of diversity training frequently are made by people opposed to such training as a violation of academic freedom and free speech, Mayorga comes at it from the perspective that the training needs to be even more intense and focused. This is a debate universities and companies need to have out in the open as to whether diversity training actually works or does more harm than good.”
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