The Challenge of Diversity: Involvement or Alienation in the Academy? (review)

The re-publication of a 15-year-old monograph deserves special attention. What is it about the original work, or the times, that merits reissuing this monograph intact, albeit with a literate and usefully updated introduction? Is it still relevant?

The 1989 edition of Daryl Smith's work broke new ground in discussions of diversity in higher education. Arguing that it was inadequate to simply view diversity as a boon to underrepresented minorities, it suggested that diversity was good for all groups and, in fact, for the society as a whole. We are still debating that proposition. It further proposed broadening the focus of concern beyond student access and representation to a greater focus on educational programming (in and out of the classroom), intergroup relations, and organizational climate. It emphasized the necessity of considering the mission and operations of the educational institution itself, arguing that the particular collegiate culture and context greatly influenced what did and could happen in classrooms, dormitories, and other arenas of campus life.

It also identified the likelihood of encountering conflict in pursuing these aspects of the diversity agenda, effectively forecasting the need to depart from a consensual image of harmonious change. Perhaps particularly important for the academic research community, Smith argued for the necessity of conducting regular and rigorous assessments of institutional progress (or lack thereof), laying the basis for effective monitoring of rhetorical promises of change. All these issues are still critical. Smith's early insights and suggestions are still right on target. Moreover, while progress has been made on many fronts in the quest for greater diversity in higher education, not enough has changed in the core structures and processes of our educational institutions. The original work is still useful and relevant, and Wolf-Wendel's update has made it even more so.

The new introduction to this volume by Lisa Wolf-Wendel brings us up to date in several ways. She emphasizes changes in the struggle over diversity and multiculturalism that have occurred during the past 15 years, identifying significant alterations in the political climate of racial/ethnic relations in particular and the nation's approach to majority-minority group relations in general, the changing demographics of our nation, and recent litigation and court actions. She also points to the changing discourse on diversity itself, especially on broadening concern beyond African Americans to other excluded racial groups and beyond race itself to other social groups that have suffered historic oppression on the basis of ability or sexual orientation.

In drawing attention to the ways in which the intersectionalities of social identities and interest groups muddy simplistic conceptions of group membership, she also calls for disaggregating data sets so that we can see the importance of group differences (perhaps by class as well as ethnicity) within nominal racial and ethnic groups. And finally, she emphasizes, in ways that are true to but extend beyond the original volume, the importance of extending our concern with student diversity to include a concern with broader aspects of organizational climate (including faculty and staff representation and success), the engagement with conflict, and the necessity of dealing with the context of elementary and secondary educational systems. The message is that no college or university is an island that can stand apart from the larger society and the systems that feed resources, including students, into its environs.

All to the good. But every volume, especially a slim one, has its limits and there are other issues that need to be faced and other things we need to know. This volume's conversation about diversity, as sophisticated and multifaceted as it is, fails to bring a concern with or theories about social and educational justice to bear on the diversity agenda. As such, it stays within an ameliorative framework, trusting once again in the good will of educators to respond to issues and manage conflicts that lie at the heart of...