A truly revolutionary idea: End racial/ethnicity/religious discrimination, and university-supported segregation, on college campuses

Presidents of two ivy league schools have resigned. Might it now be time for universities to end discrimination and segregation on college campuses? Or is it still "too soon"?

In the wake of the Supreme Count’s recent decision banning racial discrimination in university admissions (deciding that the constitution’s ban on racial discrimination actually means that racial discrimination is wrong) – I’m wondering if it might be time for universities to at least start to move toward something that would involve a radical change in American universities: treating all students and faculty as individuals rather than as members of an identity group AND ending racial (and ethnicity-based and religion-based) segregation on campuses as well.

At first blush, the idea of ending protected-class discrimination and university-supported segregation (the “separate but equal” doctrine) on university campuses may not seem like a particularly wild idea, and people who are not familiar with what goes on at most universities may wonder why this should be an issue at all – but in fact, those practices are so embedded in most university systems that it would require dramatic change to eliminate discrimination and segregation on university campuses. But I really think it’s an ideal worth working towards in all of the different components of university operations, as described below:

Admissions

The Supreme Court case focused on admission to selective colleges, banning the use of race as a factor in deciding which students to admit. Of course, universities should immediately start complying with the law (that’s what it means for something to be a law). No one, however, with any knowledge of how universities operate thinks they are going to, and in some cases, they are making no effort to even hide the fact that they plan to manipulate the admissions system so that they can continue to take race (and other protected-class “diversity” characteristics) into account. A clear majority of Americans think selective colleges should admit students based upon merit rather than race, or ethnicity, or religion, or gender identity, or sexual orientation. Harvard, and all of the other selective universities in the country, should follow the will of this majority and should follow the law. They aren’t going to – but they should. And if they did, that would help establish a culture and attitude on campus that involved treating students as individuals rather than as tokens of some intersecting set of identity classes.

Hiring

If most people ever found out what really goes on in university hiring (the open and rampant discrimination based upon race, ethnicity, religion, and even sexual orientation) I think they would be appalled, and would rightly wonder how in hell what goes on could possibly be legal. I’m not a lawyer, but I doubt that a lot of the discrimination in hiring IS legal – but so far there have not been any of the landmark court rulings related to hiring like the one considered last year with regard to admissions.

I’m going to speak now based upon personal experience as a faculty member for over 30 years. During that time I was involved in a large number of hirings, and have spoken to faculty from other campuses about their experiences as well — so I have reason to believe my own experiences are reasonably representative of what are common practices at many universities.

For decades, when we hired new faculty, it was known that the university where I worked was eager to hire racial minorities. More generally, we all knew that in any hire, it was a plus for a candidate to not be a white, heterosexual, male. That information was not always communicated explicitly (although sometimes it was), but if a “short list” of applicants was sent to the Dean’s Office and all five on the list were white males, we would have to explain why there was a lack of “diversity” in that top-five group. (Note that I put the word “diversity” in scare quotes precisely because within academia, that word has a very specific meaning – referring to race, sex, and ethnicity in particular, but not to other diversity factors such as political perspective).

What made this focus on “diversity” in hiring rather odd at times is that we were also told – always quite explicitly and sometimes in writing – that we could not, under any circumstances, ask an applicant about any of the identity characteristics that we knew were supposed to consider when evaluating applicants for a faculty position. Thus, we couldn’t ask anything about an applicant’s race, or religion, or sex, or ethnicity, or marital status, or sexual orientation. Nothing. Not even when making small talk. On just a couple of occasions I asked an administrator how we were supposed to take, for example, sexual orientation of the applicant into account if we couldn’t ask the applicants what kinds of other people they liked to have sex with. Needless to say, my inquiries were dismissed with no real response other than a scowl.

All of this (and again, I am confident that what I experienced is quite typical) resulted in numerous rather bizarre discussions during which everyone knew they could not talk about certain characteristics of an applicant but at the same time knew we were supposed to take those characteristics into account. I should mention here that I have reason to believe that the rules against mentioning identity characteristics of applicants during hiring discussions may no longer apply, now that “contributions to diversity” has become such a critically important, and openly discussed, factor in a lot of university hiring decisions.

My revolutionary proposal:

Hire based on merit, without regard to an applicant’s race, religion, ethnicity, sex, gender identify, or gender orientation. A radical departure from what typically happens today at many universities for sure. Likely to happen soon? I doubt it– not until there’s a major lawsuit that results in a Supreme Court ruling that discrimination in hiring violates the constitution, and even then, my guess is that so many faculty (especially junior faculty) are committed to discrimination in hiring that the practice will continue until long after the time when my wife and children benefit from my life insurance policy.

On-campus housing

Did you know that many universities permit, and in some cases actively support, segregated student housing on campus? I doubt most people do – but yes, racially segregated housing occurs (to varying degrees) on elite university campuses.

The clearest example is the “Chocolate City” residence at MIT, a university-owned and controlled residence that everyone knows is for African American students. I know – at this point you might be asking yourself “But don’t universities argue that they want a diverse student body so that students can learn from others, and learn to get along with others, who are not like themselves?” That IS what universities SAY, but once students are actually on campus, many schools do all that they can to help students feel “comfortable” by making it easy for students to spend as much time as possible with other students who are just like themselves.

Certainly not all schools have special dorms that are officially recognized as being set aside for students of a particular race, or religion, or ethnicity. But even if no such “separate but equal” dorms exist on a campus, it is common for the dorm-space assignment system to make it possible for extended areas of dorm space to be taken over by students of just one race, religion, or ethnicity.

If universities WANT to prevent that from happening, they can. All it takes is to incorporate an element of randomness in the space assignment system and to place severe limits on how much space any one group of students can apply to occupy. If universities were truly committed to helping students gain the benefits of being part of a diverse community, they would do that.

My revolutionary proposal:

Eliminate all officially segregated on-campus housing (except by sex, of course), and utilize a space assignment system that prevents large groups of students from taking over any extended units of space within the campus housing system.

Segregated Graduation Ceremonies

Perhaps more than anything else I mention in this posting, this is the practice that is most likely to elicit a response of “you must be kidding” when I tell people about it.

At Harvard, there is a graduation ceremony for all students, and then there are separate ceremonies for: Arabs, Asian Americans, Blacks, LGBTQ+’s, Latinx’s, and others. In other words, almost all “identity” groups except — whites ... and Jews. These are not private affairs organized by an outside organization; these are official Harvard events. Indeed, according to the Harvard website description of the events, it is even the case that “Graduates receive a regalia accessory or commemorative gift created for their affinity group.”

Harvard is far from the only school that maintains this practice of holding segregated graduation ceremonies. Penn State, for example, offers a “Lavender Graduation” for queer and transgender students, and also holds segregated celebrations for Latinx, Black, Indigenous, and Asian and Pacific Islanders.

What could be a better way of celebrating diversity and inclusion than holding ... segregated graduation ceremonies! Separate? Yes. But equal too!

I understand that the purpose (as described on the Harvard website) is to “recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of graduates from marginalized and underrepresented communities.” But doesn’t the main graduation ceremony do that – by celebrating each individual student who is graduating? Why is some “extra” celebration appropriate and necessary for some students? It’s almost as if the message is that it’s harder or more challenging for these students to graduate, and therefore they are deserving of an extra special graduation ceremony. Isn’t that just a tad insulting? Is it somehow more laudatory that a student who identifies as a member of one of these groups has graduated than is the case for students who do not identify as a member of any of these groups? A student who is Jewish, for example. Or a white male whose sexual preference is to have sex with females?

If students who share some characteristic in common want to organize an unofficial ceremony off campus – that’s their business. If a community organization wants to organize an unofficial ceremony for students of a particular race, religion, ethnicity, or form of sexual activity preference – that’s their business. There could be ceremonies for cat lovers, females with red hair, “car guys” – whatever. That’s their business and I don’t care. But for schools to hold OFFICIAL separate ceremonies just for students who identify with a particular race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual activity preference, is really offensive.

My revolutionary proposal.

It’s time for universities to just stop doing this.

Fraternities and sororities (and other socially-exclusionary social groups)

For the life of me, I do not understand why universities permit there to be socially exclusionary clubs on their campuses. It doesn’t have to be this way.

I was a member of a fraternity as an undergrad. I enjoyed being a member. But at the school I went to (U. of Toronto), frats had no official status as a university organization and the frat houses were not on campus. The first time I visited a friend at a U.S. college and saw that he lived in a frat house that was beautiful, owned by the university, and located in probably the best possible location to live on campus, I couldn’t believe it. Why should a university support an exclusionary organization in that way? It shouldn’t. And what makes the practice particularly antithetical to policies of non-discrimination on campus is that (as everyone on each campus knows), certain fraternities and sororities functionally discriminate on the basis of race or religion.

Honestly, if I were in charge I would get rid of ALL exclusionary social groups on campuses — to help send the message clearly to all students that the university does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation at all. I’d get rid of Hillel on campus (let it be an off-campus organization with no official status at the university). Why should Jews have an organization dedicated to them on campus? I’d get rid of all Black student organizations and centers. No Muslim student association.

My VERY revolutionary (and perhaps ultimately impractical) proposal:

I’d get rid of ANY and ALL organizations that are not defined in terms of something academic (e.g., the Biology club) or an activity (e.g., an acapella singing group). There is enough of a tendency for people to choose to spend their time with others from the same identity groups. There is no need for, and I think a real cost to, universities encouraging and officially supporting that kind of social segregation on campus — if, that is, universities are actually supportive of students benefitting from diversity on campus.