It's early yet, but this week's Fatuous Diversity Scam award has to go to........the main campus of the University of Oregon, located in that friendly breeding ground of tree-sitting, window-smashing, black clad, anti-corporate "activists," Eugene. The Oregonian has published a monstrous thumbsucker, headlined, "UO Weighs New Diversity Plan Amid Simmering Racial Tensions." Consider the stated evidence.

First, after the school attempted to foist a heinous diversity plan on faculty, they rebelled at a requirement that their promotion and tenure would be tied to "cultural competency." Good for them: their promotion and tenure should be based on achievement and proficiency in research and instruction. The vice-provost in charge of the stinker diversity proposal slunk away to another job elsewhere. But recriminations ensued. The school's botching of a plan that was all about politically correct window dressing to begin with, has caused dark mutterings about the school's lack of commitment to politically correct window dressing - oops, I mean "diversity initiatives."

Second, the third-ranked of three candidates for UO law school dean was not offered the job immediately after the first two choices declined to accept the offer. However, he was asked back for more interviews, and might well have ultimately won the position. Instead, he sulked, and dropped out of consideration. Oh, he was Mexican-American, and his feelings had apparently been bruised by the effrontery of UO in deigning to request further talks before his hiring. So two law professors took leaves from UO because they felt racial bias was involved in the school's failure to immediately offer this third-ranked finalist the post. Their feelings become another unsupported indictment of "bias" and "insensitivity."

Then, get this: according to The Oregonian, a year ago, students and instructors in OU's school of education protested over "perceptions of cultural bias and insensitivity." No discussion in The Oregonian's article of who had these perceptions; or why; or whether the perceptions were actually warranted. But then that sort of information isn't supposed to really matter anymore, is it? Unspecified, politically damning "perceptions" are the thing.

Finally, here are the two other incidents which help comprise the "string of racially-charged incidents that have made students of color feel isolated and, is some cases, unsafe," as The Oregonian teases in the story's lede.

The parents of a freshman from Hawaii who withdrew after a scant week at OU later claimed he left because he'd received untoward racial comments and been physically threatened. Who knows? Not The Oregonian, that's for sure. Or anyone at OU, either, it appears. Maybe he realized he couldn't hack the work (amazing as that may sound), and made up the story to cover to his parents for the obvious and deserved shame of bugging out so quickly.

If his parents' charges of racism are true, the student himself should have at the time reported the culprits, who certainly would have faced very serious consequences. You don't combat actual racism at The University of Oregon, or anywhere else these days, by turning tail and scampering away like a frightened bunny rabbit, now do you?

Or does combatting racism at OU actually rank far below fostering perceptions of racial bias there, in order to advance an academic, political and social agenda which could not possibly pass muster under objective standards?

The answer is really quite clear, isn't it?

Finally, according to The Oregonian's report today, there was a student of color who took a pie in the face when a prankster burst into a classroom. More mutterings about a hostile climate ensued. Sure. Let's start by trying to disprove a negative. After all: How do we know it WASN'T racially motivated?

Pandora's Box is opening wider in Eugene as the ginned-up diversity conflagration grows. Scuza me, but: all sizzle, no steak. A real leader would stop the feel-good race-based pandering at OU, and instead prioritize a renewed emphasis by instructors and students on: the appropriation of knowledge; and the development of higher-order thinking and analysis.

These objectives are supposed to be at the heart of why universities exist, and why many students mortgage the first decade of their adult lives to pay back student loans.

Minority students in the liberal arts at the University of Oregon are getting shortchanged - and ultimately ripped off - thanks to the institutionalized mission creep of academic diversity evangelists who in truth pre-suppose that minorities can't hack tough work, but would instead rather obsess over dimestore notions of racial and "social justice."

Now, THAT'S racism - and opportunity denied.

TECHNORATI TAGS: EUGENE, OREGON, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, RACE, RACISM, DIVERSITY, CULTURAL COMPETENCE, PANDERING, MOONBATTERY

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 1, 2006 07:25 PM

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