WASC Diversity Statement
* The Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges approved a 20-page “statement on diversity” over the objections of 14 colleges and universities, including USC, Stanford, and Caltech (Feb. 23, 24).
We objected because we believe WASC is overreaching its legitimate authority and purpose, not because we objected to the diversity statement itself. There is nothing in the document that we could not live with; in fact, our own commitments and achievements with respect to diversity go well beyond the document and well beyond the commitments and achievements of the vast majority of institutions that are accredited by WASC.
Over the years accrediting agencies have grown increasingly bureaucratic, and have begun to intrude more and more into the life of established colleges and universities in a misguided effort to “improve” them. The net result has not been an improvement of American higher education, but rather a further restriction of each institution’s ability to formulate and pursue its own unique goals and objectives.
Of course, those of us in academe should be held accountable for our actions. We are in fact held accountable to the law by the courts and by myriad state, federal, and local agencies. We are directly accountable to our board of trustees, who hold the university in trust for the benefit of humanity. And, most important of all, we in private higher education are directly accountable to our students and their parents, who can take their tuition money elsewhere at a moment’s notice.
The United States is universally admired for having the finest system of higher education in the world. No one I’ve ever met believes this extraordinary level of excellence is due to increasingly intrusive accrediting bodies or increasingly burdensome governmental regulation. Rather, the excellence of our colleges and universities is attributed to their freedom to be different from each other--to their ability to take risks and chart their own destinies in a highly competitive environment.
STEVEN B. SAMPLE
President, USC
