Newsletter

April 2010

Sameness And ‘Diversity’ On Campus

William Mcgurn

If ever you wonder why those thumping loudest for
tolerance and diversity produce so much sameness, look no further than this
little exchange on public television about an important case now before the
Supreme Court. The dean is Leo Martinez of the University of California Hastings
College of the Law. Here he is defending the school policy at issue, which
requires the Christian Legal Society (CLS) to admit non-Christians and gays if
it wants to be an official student group:

Question: "Would a student chapter of, say,
B’nai B’rith, a Jewish Anti-Defamation League, have to admit Muslims?"

Mr. Martinez: "The short answer is ‘yes.’"

Question: "A black group would have to admit white
supremacists?"

Mr. Martinez: "It would."

Question: "Even if it means a black student
organization is going to have to admit members of the Ku Klux Klan?"

Mr. Martinez: "Yes."

Question: "You can see where that might cause some
consternation?"

Certainly there was some consternation yesterday at
the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia found the idea of forcing a campus
Republican club to admit Democrats "weird." Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor
worried whether allowing CLS to set its own rules would mean more discrimination
against women and minorities.

But let’s give Dean Martinez credit: He does not shy
away from the logic of where his school’s policy leads. His remarks help explain
two facts. The first is why a Christian student organization has found strong
allies among other faith groups. These include everyone from Agudath Israel of
America and the American Islamic Congress to the Catholic bishops and the Sikh
American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The larger fact is the way that Hastings-style
"tolerance" and "diversity" are actually making our campuses less tolerant and
less diverse. Dean Martinez helps us see why. If every college group must admit
even those who are hostile to its mission and beliefs, the result is nonsense
and conformity.

At first blush, Hastings looks to be another example
of the "culture wars," and where you stand on this case depends on what you
believe about Christianity or traditional Christian teaching about
homosexuality. Certainly Hastings tells us something about our culture wars.
What it shows is how these kind of cultural skirmishes escalate into
full-fledged wars when state approval or state money is involved.

Were Hastings a private institution, the same right
of association now claimed by the Christian Legal Society would give the law
school broader rights to set more narrow rules for students and faculty. When a
handful of Orthodox Jews sued Yale in the late 1990s over the university’s
insistence that they live in co-ed dormitories, for example, Yale
prevailed—largely because Yale is a private university. And there was no larger
religious war.

Even those of us who believe a university that
prides itself on its tolerance could have shown a little more accommodation
toward those Jewish students do not question Yale’s right to set rules that
define the Yale experience. When government is involved, however, the stakes
become higher and passions more excited. When a public university makes a
decision, it’s not simply a policy dispute. It’s a public institution using your
tax dollars to put a state imprimatur about who is and who is not fit for the
public square.

That’s a much more serious proposition than a simple
disagreement with some private organization. That public/private distinction
helps explain why CLS has also found allies in the libertarian Cato Institute
and Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty. In their own brief, this latter
group stresses that it was the ability of gay Americans to form gay
associations—whose membership rules they defined for themselves—that gave them a
collective voice in the face of an often hostile majority.

Presumably Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty do
not share the CLS view of human sexuality. But they understand exactly where
Dean Martinez’s logic is taking us. "Under Hastings’ forced membership
policy, only majority viewpoints (or those viewpoints too banal to interest the
majority) are actually assured a voice in Hastings’ forum," argues their brief.
"That is a patently unreasonable way to ‘promote a diversity of
viewpoints.’"

Exactly. Traditionally the American contribution to
diversity has been the encouragement of thriving—and competing—private
institutions and associations. Unfortunately, on American campuses today we see
the opposite: an expanding government role in everything from research to how
schools are accredited and how student loans are administered. One unintended
consequence is that our culture wars are going to escalate as our courts are
forced to take up a great many more cases like Hastings.

It may end up, of course, that Dean Martinez
prevails, and we get more of his idea of tolerance and diversity. Let’s not
pretend to be surprised, however, when it all comes out looking the same.

The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2010.