Thursday, April 01, 1999

Diversity debate can lead us into the future

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BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        HIGHLAND HEIGHTS — They're debating affirmative action at Northern Kentucky University these days, and I'm thinking about jeans.

        Levis, to be precise. They used to be in. Now they're way out — a casualty of rap culture, street style, Tommy Hilfiger cool.

        Levi Strauss is like the college professor who doesn't “embrace multiculturalism.”

        I'm not sure what that phrase means, but I think it's a clumsy reference to reality. This country is embarking on an extraordinary demographic shift. By 2050, one half of the U.S. population will be those people we now describe as “minorities.”

        Levis failed to realize that the baggy style Tommy Hilfiger discovered on the streets was not a passing fad. It caught on just like other aspects of African-American culture — from jazz and blues to phrases like “You go, girl” and “Don't go there.”

        Styles that originate outside the white-bread suburbs have a legitimacy that is hard to fake. They are not inventions of corporate committees in office parks somewhere. They are fresh and clever and they appeal to the teen-ager's outsider attitude.

        “Multiculturalism” sounds like politically correct palaver, and some may be misusing it as such.

        Here's what it ought to mean: Get with it, people.

        It's not impossible to be a 50-year-old white manager who meets the needs of an increasingly diverse market. But it will take some study. It might even take a few colleagues who are not 50-year-old white managers.

        This is my argument for “affirmative action.”

        The term is so worn out that I'm compelled to offer a personal definition: To me, affirmative action means recognizing how a person's race, gender or personal background adds to their qualifications.

        NKU is in the throes of a lively discussion about this subject. Last week, a public forum brought together four professors, a student and a lawyer who took sides in a formal debate.

        The timing was no coincidence. In January, the attorney, Kevin Murphy, wrote a newspaper column blasting NKU's advertisement for a new law school dean. The ad said applicants should have a “demonstrated commitment to diversity” and described NKU as “aggressively seeking to enhance its diversity.”

        NKU President James Votruba defended the ad in a letter to the editor of the Campbell County Recorder. Law school professor David Elder followed up with a lament about political correctness.

        At last week's debate, Mr. Murphy, student Gene Brown and NKU professor Dennis O'Keefe presented arguments against affirmative action. UC professor Brad Mank and NKU professors Clinton Hewan and Sharlene Lassiter took the other side.

        The panelists talked about correcting historic inequalities and recognizing that African-Americans still face discrimination. They talked about the cost to taxpayers of minority set-aside programs and the unconstitutionality of favoring people based on race.

        The UC professor, Mr. Mank, spoke the least, but I liked one of his comments the best.

        Minorities who get law degrees or become doctors are more likely to give back to

        minority communities, he said. As high school students, their scores on SATs may have been slightly lower, but so what? Good doctors are made of more than that.

        I agree.

        In the workplace, I don't want to be surrounded by people who were really good test-takers.

        I don't want to be like the Miami Herald. It's a smart newspaper — in an SAT kind of way — but it reacted far too slowly when the city's demo graphics shifted. Now it's like an uninhabited island in a sea of Hispanic culture.

        Sure, scores and grades and intellectual prowess should play a role in selection processes. But they shouldn't be the only measures considered.

        Encouraging diversity on college campuses isn't just liberal symbolism. It's good business.

        In the future, colleges run mostly by white people may well be out of the running for customers. This is because minority populations are rapidly increasing, while non-Hispanic whites get older and have fewer children.

        I checked with a demographer. He says that by 2050, the United States will look like this: About 65 percent of the elderly will be non-Hispanic whites, and 56 percent of teen-agers will be black, Hispanic or Asian.

        It's not impossible for an older white person to connect with these young adults. But it may be difficult.

        An institution that fails to get ready for the future does so at the risk of becoming Levi Strauss. Not only uncool, but also struggling to catch up.

        Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or by e-mail at: ksamples@enquirer.com

        Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or email her at ksamples@enquirer.com

SAMPLES ARCHIVE