Excellent article. Perhaps the pendulum is starting to swing back, but it will take be longer in Wokestralia.

A good article, that sensitively negotiates the competing values universities try to uphold while maintaining the primacy of treating people on merit. There are better and fairer ways of promoting diversity in universities – and in society in general – than quotas and preferences based on race or gender. I loathe the drift towards identity politics in which a person is defined by the categories they belong to, rather than as an individual. As Steven rightly points out, it is the polar opposite of Martin Luther King’s dream of an equal society.

Agree, but only as applies to bona fide national citizens!
Alan B.

I agree with Steven that diversity in universities – and other organisations – is a good thing. But the diversity that matters is differences in life experience and worldview, not necessarily categories such as race or gender (though they can overlap).

This is particularly important in the workplace. I know of organisations that applaud themselves on the diversity of their boards or senior management because they include a significant proportion of people who are not white men. But these people often grew up in the same affluent suburbs and attended the same private schools and took the same courses at the same universities, then followed similar career paths up the corporate or public sector ladders, as their white male colleagues. That is not real diversity.

What an educated and erudite Rhain says.
Alan B.