{"id":806,"date":"1991-02-19T14:45:01","date_gmt":"1991-02-19T22:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/?p=806"},"modified":"2017-08-05T10:12:46","modified_gmt":"2017-08-05T17:12:46","slug":"speech-at-a-diversity-rally-at-usc-gould-school-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/?p=806","title":{"rendered":"Speech at a Diversity Rally at USC Gould School of Law (February 19, 1991)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Many of you are asking yourselves right now, \u201cWhat is he doing up there? Who invited him to speak at a diversity rally?\u201d And now some of you are probably thinking to yourselves, \u201cIs he gay? Is he handicapped? What is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well I have to disappoint you. I belong to none of the standard diversity categories. I am not a racial or gender minority, that is, I don\u2019t look Black or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or anything but a White European Male. And I\u2019m not a hidden minority either, at least not at this Law School. I\u2019m not gay. I\u2019m not physically handicapped. I\u2019m not poor. In short, I am what everybody is not<\/u> referring to when they say that we need more diversity.<\/p>\n

But I would like to speak if I may, on the dangers of diversity rhetoric. Diversity proponents like easy classifications. Are you a different color? A woman? Then it\u2019s easy to say you are different. It starts to get more difficult when less identifiable groups demand inclusion. Are you gay or lesbian? Are you dyslexic or deaf? Okay, then join the diversity club? But, no matter how inclusive it gets, I am not invited.<\/p>\n

The goal of many diversity proponents at this law school is not just tolerance of difference, but a restructuring of the whole student body and faculty. They want more Blacks and more Hispanics and more Women and more this and more that. What they don\u2019t want is more of me. And so, let me tell you how I feel about that.<\/p>\n

Let me help you classify me some more. I belong to a large subgroup of the white male population on campus: I am Jewish. Jews on the whole are what you might call \u201coverrepresented.\u201d That is, there are far more Jewish students and professors at USC than one would expect based on our population in general. Although you probably won\u2019t say it outright, many of you see that as a problem. Why aren\u2019t they proportional, you ask. What advantage do they have? Whatever it is we must counterbalance it with a diversity criteria so that Jews don\u2019t have a disproportionate representation at our law school.<\/p>\n

Am I wrong to perceive this as a threat? If diversity had been the guiding principle of faculty selection, Erwin Chemerinsky would not have been hired. Neither would Scott Altman. Nor many other professors, good or bad. And let me tell you right here, if diversity had been the main principle in admissions, I would not be here either.<\/p>\n

Proponents of diversity criteria claim that we should counteract the history of racism and oppression that minorities have faced in this country. I agree. But let me talk once again as a Jew. My parents are first generation Americans. My grandparents were forced to flee from Hitler only fifty years ago. My great-grandfather was murdered at Treblinka. Most Jews can tell you similar stories, some also of murderous pogroms a generation earlier. Is my family history really so much better than the diverse people you would favor over me?<\/p>\n

But my point is not that Jews should be considered one of the diversity groups. We would still be overrepresented and need to reduce our population. My point is that there are many factors that go into every person\u2019s life. And to privilege one person over another, merely because of their race or gender or sexual orientation or class or religion, is wrong. It defies the principles of equality, and it defies the very dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, that people would some day be judged, not<\/u> by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.<\/p>\n

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Many of you are asking yourselves right now, \u201cWhat is he doing up there? Who invited him to speak at a diversity rally?\u201d And now some of you are probably thinking to yourselves, \u201cIs he gay? Is he handicapped? What … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=806"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1297,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions\/1297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}