COLUMN RIGHT/ JAMES H. DAUGHDRILL JR. : Diversity at the Service of Politics : Colleges are being forced into narrow gender and race quotas.

The social engineering that wrecked public education in America is now taking aim at American colleges and universities, under the alias of “diversity.”

This new so-called diversity is dishonest and coercive; it limits the very diversity it purports to foster and threatens academic freedom. It is a perfect word under which to operate, since through this motherhood-and-apple-pie disguise, it can smear any potential enemy with the charge of racism or sexism and go about its own agenda of racism and sexism.

It’s dishonest because the social engineers don’t mean diversity at all, but a “narrow diversity” limited strictly to the politics of race and sex, but disguised in the garb of academic excellence--a political agenda in academic regalia. It’s coercive because it is forced on colleges and universities by accrediting agencies that hold the keys to federal financial aid.

New standards recently added by the Middle States accrediting agency require all colleges in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands to have “sufficiently diversified” programs and curricula. This sounds benign enough, but a staff report for an advisory board to the Department of Education notes that a staff member of Middle States has warned that the “Great Books” curriculum at Maryland’s St. John’s College--a unique and highly regarded Western culture program--will be an obstacle to reaccreditation. Standards similar to those of Middle States were recently adopted by the Western States accrediting agency, and drafts are being circulated by the New England accrediting agency.

This Orwellian form of diversity threatens real diversity by forcing lock-step conformity on the incredible variety of schools we have in this country. Westminster Seminary in Pennsylvania was told it would lose accreditation if it did not appoint women to its board. While I disagree with Westminster regarding its opposition to women in the clergy, it certainly has the right to appoint only ordained members to its board. After this threat was made public, Middle States reached a compromise with Westminster, but the episode should never have occurred. Shouldn’t institutions with minority viewpoints be protected?

At the college where I have been president for 19 years, we have made good strides in minority enrollment; in hiring international professors, veterans and women; in hiring people with different viewpoints, ages and physical abilities/disabilities; in attracting students from many nations and states. We take a back seat to no one on these matters.

But we did this on our own, not because diversity was forced upon us by accrediting agencies. Look, for instance, at Baruch College in New York. According to President Joel Segall, the Middle States agency threatened Baruch with loss of accreditation unless it hired a higher proportion of minority faculty than the 18% it had.

The college I serve could benefit from having an accrediting body concerned with true diversity of ideas, viewpoints and backgrounds, a body that would help us think through all categories that may be underrepresented. At the political science department of Williams College in 1989, an academic consultant recommended that the department consider hiring professors with a different viewpoint than the liberal members of the department. When this recommendation was made public, a furor erupted. But why is the scarcity of conservative scholars any more controversial than the scarcity of scholars who happen to be African-American?

Certain steps could be taken to stem the tide of coercive measures taken to “diversify” campuses into conformity:

--Students, alumni, taxpayers, parents and donors should express their views to the National Advisory Committee on Accreditation and Financial Aid at the Department of Education in Washington.

--Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander could limit the role and power of the accrediting agencies. He has suggested that if colleges and universities meet certain criteria, they could bypass the accreditation process and still participate in federal student aid programs. He could also recognize only those accrediting agencies whose standards truly reflect the educational quality of institutions, not a political agenda, and encourage the formation of accrediting agencies among colleges or universities with similar missions.

Accrediting agencies, with their regional monopolies, threaten to become the shock troops of the politically correct--social engineers bent on repeating the public-school debacle in higher education. They should be returned to the role they were assigned originally--to foster quality in education.