Sigh. Another month, another crazy, right-wing “study” on higher education released.  Last month it was ACTA. This month, it is NAS (The National Association of Scholars) who have just released a report entitled “Words to Live By:  How Diversity Trumps Freedom on Academic Websites.” 

The major finding of the report according to Stephen Balch, president of NAS, is that universities have “an obsession with diversity unparalleled in any other sector of American opinion leadership.”   They have arrived at this finding by using a sophisticated and technical *cough* research method *cough* known as “Googling.” 

Now I love the Google, but this is a bit much. They went out and Googled the websites of 99 universities to see how often the word “diversity” appears on each website compared to other words like “freedom” or “liberty” or “equality” (i.e., real American values).  They then compared the ratio of these words to other “sectors” such as the media, blogs, religious organizations, business associations, political parties and unions.  And in doing this they found that on university sites (well actually only on 63 of the 99 sites—but who cares if that isn’t in the press release), the word diversity appears more often than the other words and that this is only true in higher education and not in these other sectors where the other words appear more.  Wow!

And even NAS admits this.  Discussing the number of times the word liberty shows up on the Princeton site (am I really writing this?) they point out that “a fairly large proportion of references at Princeton arise from the Liberty Research Group, which has more to do with computer architecture than ideology. The group even has its own subdomain within the Princeton system. It's difficult to estimate how much this contributes to the overall reference count, but it could be substantial.”  You think? 

Back to Harvard.

Searching Harvard’s site on diversity of course brings back links to their diversity policies and efforts, but it also brings back links to the “diversity of plants,” “technological diversity,” “the diversity of neutron stars,” not to mention the “diversity of thought.”  And on, and on, and on.  To generalize about an institution’s (or an industry’s) ideological bent based on a Google search is patently absurd.  I searched the General Dynamics site and found more references to “diversity” than to all the other terms NAS searched combined!  I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean that GD is obsessed with diversity (although I have no reason to suggest they aren’t committed to the concept) and I am pretty sure they feel like they are working for freedom—at least their company overview seems to suggest that.  I do assume that the reason for these results has to do with GD’s documentation about complying with regulations about diversity in terms of hiring and treatment of employees. 

Perhaps that is part of the issue at colleges and universities as well—since unlike any of the other “sectors” NAS surveyed, higher education sites are specifically designed to show how they comply with such requirements in hiring employees and treating them fairly, attracting and admitting students (oh yeah, and handling the diversity of grievances farily--haven't these folks been arguing for more of this?).  And aren’t those policies put in place to protect against discrimination (gasp!) and ensure an individual’s rights and freedoms—particularly groups and individuals that have not had the same advantages as others?

But here is the rub—see NAS is concerned that folks might identify too much with these “groups” that people concerned with diversity talk about—kind of like David Horowitz is all bent out of shape with disciplines that focus on these issues—and not enough with “America” (or at least their version of America).  NAS worries that “if we are currently moving toward a new vision, in which America becomes a congeries of groups, a collectivity of collectivities, a domain of many peoples and cultures, the consequences not only for what has been America, but for the entire world, will be vast.”  And there it is. 

Amidst all of this silly Google research, masked with “ratios” and “sector comparisons,” we find a group looking for a “common cultural identity” and worrying about too many groups and cultures dominating the American landscape—sorry, all just a little too heavy on the ideological fear-mongering for my taste.  And, um, by the way, what does any of this really tell us about higher education anyway?  Oh yeah, that is right, universities are “the leading indicators – and efficient causes – of a process of ideological change gradually permeating opinion leadership and policy making more generally.”  Yes, universities are to blame for the problematic shift in this country to the left.  Right.

But ultimately, my real response to yet another of these ridiculous reports is as follows.

Stop! Just stop!  Stop putting out “research” that wouldn’t pass muster in a high school class!  Stop surveying the “top” schools and suggesting that tells us anything about all 4,000 institutions in this country staffed by over 1 million faculty and instructors, teaching over 16 million students!  Stop suggesting that higher education is some monolithic “sector” that is marching lock step to some liberal ideology!  Stop screaming that higher education is leading the fall of our country!  Please stop, and let us get back to the issues that really matter for higher education.