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Introduction
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Introduction Nancy Cantor U Good learning is always catholic and generous. It welcomes the humblest votary of science and bids him kindle his lamp freely at the common shrine. It frowns on caste and bigotry. It spurns the arti‹cial distinctions of conventional society. It greets all comers whose intellectual gifts entitle them to admission to the goodly fellowship of cultivated minds. It is essentially democratic in the best sense of that term. . . . Let not a misapplication of the laissez-faire doctrine in political economy, which has its proper place, lead us to the fatal mistake of building up a pedantic aristocracy. james b. angell, president of the University of Michigan, commencement address, June 25, 1879 One cannot sanction the desire for unity which seeks the complete fusion of individuals, racial strains, religious sections, social classes, national groups, or geographical areas—the elimination of their differences and the standardization of their character. . . . Under such circumstances, life would be impoverished; self-expression would be restrained; curiosity would be sti›ed; spontaneous experimentation would cease; the irrepressible yearning for progress would be repressed; conditions of status would displace the onward march of mind and hand and heart; the creative spark whereby men are moved to strive ever forward and upward would be dimmed if not extinguished; drab monotony would prevail. True unity is a matter of inward spirit rather than outward manifestation. It involves respect for differences rather than their elimination. . . . The road to such unity is understanding . The surest way to understanding is open-mindedness. leo sharfman, chair of the Department of Economics, University of Michigan, speaking to Men’s Club, Temple Beth El, November 15, 1927 Universities rise in their places in the social landscape as af‹rmative expressions of our faith in the cumulative wisdom of the ages. . . . A university has a special responsibility for the guardianship of this heritage. But a university also has another responsibility. It must attempt to interpret the times in which it lives in order to meet the developing needs of the society which it serves. This means that it must be a comprehending observer of the present and, in so far as possible, a vehicle of understanding for the future. This is the great social mission of education in a free society. In the language of Disraeli , “A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.” james p. adams, provost of the University of Michigan, speech at the All-Class Dinner in commencement week, June 15, 1950 My roommate and I roomed blind. I had no idea whom I would end up with. In mid-August I found out all about her. She was from Detroit and black. This didn’t bother me one bit. So far we have gotten along great. . . . Here is one thing that I found funny. . . . My roommate has a ›at iron that she uses to straighten AND curl her hair with. She had been bugging me for a while to let her try it on my hair. This one Friday night I decided to let her give it a try. . . . So she reached for my hair with her hand so that she could grab a chunk to brush. “Eeeee,” she shrieked. “What is that?”. . . . “No, nothing is wrong. I just can’t believe what your hair feels like!”. . . . “I’ve never felt any white girl’s hair before,” she said. “I had no idea it was so different.” We spent the next hour discussing how we take care of our hair, how much it costs to get it done, and we also argued about what a [52.205.159.48] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:57 GMT) perm is. This isn’t a great educational story, but now I feel a little more “worldly” and not as sheltered as I had before. It’s the little things like this that make impacts on my life. Small but nonetheless important. Diversity helps to make the world a little smaller. university of michigan undergraduate responding in 1997 to an email request to all students from the President of the Michigan Student Assembly to describe the impact, positive or negative, of diversity in their life U The need to defend diversity came naturally and appropriately to the gates of the University of Michigan on October 14, 1997, when the papers for Gratz v. Bollinger were served, challenging af‹rmative action in undergraduate admissions. A second suit, Grutter v. Bollinger, was ‹led December 3, 1997, to challenge...