DIVERSITY WATCH : Word Imperfect

What the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges could use is a good editor. The private association, which accredits 145 institutions of higher education in California, Hawaii and Guam, worked for years on a statement on diversity; Wednesday, after much controversy, it was approved. The statement is 20 pages long--and therein lies the problem.

The statement says, several times and in several ways, that colleges and universities will not be required to meet quotas as a criterion for accreditation. Rather, the statement--which points to an undeniable link between quality education and learning about a wide range of ideas and experiences--calls for “thoughtful engagement” about diversity.

So what’s the problem? Several administrators read into the statement an attempt to squelch academic freedom or impose “political correctness.” Some opponents of the statement may have been using the political-correctness argument merely to obscure the fact that they have feeble records of hiring minority and female faculty members; other opponents no doubt legitimately had concerns about the document’s language and implications.

The committee-speak nature of the statement made it much too wordy and opened the door to misinterpretation by those already uneasy with change, however gently suggested.

We agree with John Brooks Slaughter, president of Occidental College, who fully endorsed the diversity statement but added, “It would have been more powerful had it been made more concise.”