Minority report

For thousands of freshmen, the annual CultureFest is nothing short of a revelation. With a host of entertainers, the event seeks to highlight the myriad cultural experiences available on campus. Understandably, many students from smaller towns are likely to be overwhelmed by the perennial buzz word at IU: diversity. In reality, “diversity” has largely remained just that – an empty, overused catchphrase. While this column is not an indictment of the efforts made by university officials to promote diversity, it seeks to highlight the counterproductivity of many such efforts. Not only is our student body extremely homogenous, it also remains self-segregated.\nA stroll through campus instantly sheds light on the tremendous failure of diversity-related programs sponsored by IU. A lousy 11 percent of the 2006 freshman class was made up of racial minorities, and an actual breakdown of the various ethnicities and races reveals even more discouraging trends. For instance, enrollment among black students dropped in 2006 from 412 students to 345. While the Hispanic and Asian student populations have increased slightly, the gains still pale compared to those of other campuses. The latest issue of U.S. News and World Report rated campus diversity among national colleges and IU received a score of .20, with a score of 1 indicating the highest level of diversity.\nDiversity programs, as they exist today, tend to reduce complex cultures to simple song and dance routines to make them more palatable to the general public. Many of these programs exaggerate differences among groups, while they rarely address notions of a common identity. While it is important to celebrate students’ various cultural and racial backgrounds, we are now finding that these students form groups and friendships that isolate themselves from others. Since we encourage such students to continually assert their ethnic background, there is no incentive for them to interact with “different” people. \nThis phenomenon is not limited to our campus. Robert Putnam, the influential Harvard political scientist, recently published surprising results from a 6-year study about culture and diversity. According to Putnam, people who live in ethnically diverse settings such as Los Angeles and New York were more likely to be socially isolated. The study found that while people in such areas tended to isolate themselves from individuals of other communities, they were also less likely to interact with one of “their own.” \nUniversity officials believe that increasing minority enrollment would be a magical fix for the problem here. In fact, former IU President Adam Herbert introduced a proposal that would require the Bloomington campus provost and chancellors of the regional campuses to submit goals for increasing diversity by the end of the year. While there may be some benefits to a more diverse student body, the benefits won’t necessarily lead to a change in people’s attitudes. \nSuperficial efforts to bridge divides among people do little to foster a sense of community. A few hours participating in a cultural event will not make our campus more open, and we should not have to pretend otherwise.