Skin Color Is Not a Viewpoint
The Trump administration has pressed Harvard and other academic institutions to open themselves up to more “viewpoint diversity”. And, if nothing else, Harvard’s leadership has for the first time committed themselves to “viewpoint diversity”, but what they mean by that may be very different. Everyone is familiar with the negative argument for DEI, affirmative action and similar diversity programs which claim that our country and its institutions suffer from “systemic racism” that has to be remedied through equity programs that discriminate in favor of underrepresented groups and against those groups deemed to be overrepresented. Mostly white people and Asians. Anyone who has sat through corporate or government diversity training in the past few years probably also encountered the positive argument for DEI which is that a diversity of races, cultures, sexual identities and genders also provides viewpoint diversity. That was the argument that the Biden administration made in defense of i...