“Why does your school value diversity?”
Ask a university administrator that seemingly simple question and they’ll likely give you one of two rationales. One is instrumental in nature: “diversity provides varying viewpoints that are educationally fruitful for everyone.” The other is moral: “diversity is intrinsic to building a just society and undoing years of systemic racism.”
Titled “How University Diversity Rationales Inform Student Preferences and Outcomes,” the study analyzed diversity statements at universities across the U.S. and surveyed roughly 1,200 participants, including students, admissions officers and parents/caregivers.
Ultimately, the researchers came to three conclusions: (1) universities use instrumental rationales more than moral rationales in their diversity statements; (2) White students tend to prefer instrumental rationales while Black students tend to prefer moral rationales; and (3) Black graduation rates were lower at schools that favored instrumental rationales.
“Together, these findings illustrate that the most common approach to diversity in higher education ironically reflects the preferences, and privileges the outcomes, of White Americans,” the study notes.
What’s interesting, however, is that universities didn’t always favor instrumental rationales. In fact, the study’s authors note that early diversity efforts used moral rationales. Brown v. Board of Education, for instance, mandated integration “out of concern for human dignity” and affirmative action policies were originally defended on the basis that they countered discrimination.
