It seems nearly every American institution of higher learning has a “diversity program” with the requisite “diversity coordinators”.

Justin Joo, copy editor for University of Tennessee’s The Daily Beacon, reports that such programs were soundly critiqued by a noted author who is an expert on race relations:

Even though UT and other universities are pushing to have strong and inclusive diversity policies, those institutional initiatives might be flawed.

So said Tim Wise, an anti-racist author and speaker, who presented the lecture “Beyond Diversity: Challenging Racism in an Age of Backlash” to a nearly packed UC Auditorium Tuesday night.

“I hope that by the end of our time together tonight, regardless of where you stand on certain issues … ” Wise said, “you will at least come away with the idea that … to ignore issues of race and economics just is simply something that we cannot do any longer.”

The Nashville native spoke at a brisk pace, with his lecture a mix of poignancy and humor. Before delving into the thesis of his presentation, Wise took time to acknowledge that many of the students in the audience were getting extra credit for attending his presentation.

“Let’s hear it for extra credit,” Wise said to the amused audience. “I’ve been around a bit. I don’t really expect that when I come to any college campus that it’s going to be hundreds and hundreds of people who just absolutely get up every morning, eating, breathing, sleeping issues of racial justice.”

After warming the crowd, Wise got to the heart of the matter and began to critique campus diversity initiatives.

“I’m also highly critical of the traditional and dominate discussion about diversity on campus,” Wise explained. “And it’s not that I’m against diversity … but the truth is most of the time when we talk about promoting diversity like on a college campus, we do it in a narrow way, a way in which most of the real issues continue to be overlooked.”

Wise said that campus diversity discussions usually run into two problems. The first is that such discussions tend to focus attention on those that are different and expect the minority to change to fit the norm, rather than give any attention to changing the potentially oppressive nature of said norm.

The second problem Wise identified was that conversations on diversity often focus too much on numbers and statistics rather than address the actual problem.