Cornell University Students Vote Against Intellectual Diversity, on Grounds It Would Harm Diversity
First, let me draw your attention to some recent news out of Cornell University, where the Student Assembly considered a resolution that would call for a committee to look into the matter of whether the campus lacks ideological diversity. The resolution cites the fact that 96 percent of Cornell faculty political donations are given to left-of-center candidates and causes as evidence of a problem.
Note that the resolution did not actually call for some kind of intellectual-diversity-affirmative-action, which would likely be ill-conceived and harm the university’s ability to make good hiring decisions. Nor would the resolution have created an actual committee. It merely calls on the faculty to consider creating a committee, in order to study the issue of ideological diversity at Cornell.
“Common sense and research indicate that it is students on the left who have the most to gain from [exposure to different ideas],” New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt told The College Fix, in support of the resolution, “and the most to lose from spending four formative years in a politically homogeneous institution.”
