Diversity

I'm compelled to lift the following from Discriminations (see blogroll at left):

The following depressing tale appears toward the end of John Fund’s most recent column on the Taliban Man at Yale:

Indeed, I was told a chilling story of another Ivy League University that had two applicants from the same inner-city high school. Both were Hispanic. One applicant was a very good student who had participated in school and community affairs. The other was a mediocre student who had frequently clashed with authorities and even had a scrape with the law. A leading graduate of the school was trying to help the former student get admitted. The deciding factor might have come during his senior year when his parents managed to save enough money to move a few miles away to a suburb. “When I heard of their move I told the mother her son was doomed, because I knew how the admissions office thought,” the graduate told me. “Sure enough the more marginal kid got in, because he was viewed as a more ‘authentic’ representative of the Hispanic community.”

“Diversity” is not only built on a foundation of stereotypes; it reinforces them.

Sad, but true.

Are you not aware of what John means by "Taliban man"? I've avoided the topic on this blog, primarily because it sickens me. You can read Fund's post which is linked in the snippet above, but to make a long story short, a former Taliban ambassador-at-large is currently studying at Yale instead of at Guantanamo.