The Diversity Myth

by David O Sacks

  Casper's back-to-basics message resonated in the wake of an administrative regime that had lost perspective on reality. “One of the advantages I have as an outsider is I have a sense of balance about Stanford,” Casper noted.5 Donald Kennedy's replacement lifted a cloud hanging over Stanford's image. Casper admitted that errors had taken place (“Stanford is a human institution,” he allowed)6 and indicated that he did not take the indirect cost scandal lightly. He also began making frequent trips to Washington, D.C., and Sacramento, where he impressed elected officials as straight-forward and low-key.7 “By all accounts an even-keeled person,” the New York Times reported, “Mr. Casper is seen as an ideal antidote for Stanford's ills. His style is deliberate and considered, even meticulous, while Stanford has been accused of laxity.”8

  Upon taking office, Casper's first major initiative was to clean house—reducing the number of vice presidents from ten (under Donald Kennedy) to four and cutting about $1 million of bureaucracy.9 Much of the savings were diverted to Stanford's withering libraries.10 “I wanted to make it simpler, and I also wanted to make sure that symbolically the administrative organization shows that we are primarily here to support teaching and research of both faculty and students,” Casper announced.11 The Office of Public Affairs, so integral to the Kennedy administration's attempts at spin control, was reduced in scope, and Bob Freelen, then Kennedy's vice president for public affairs, was asked to leave.12 The following year, Casper dissolved the Office of Public Affairs altogether.13

  Turning his attention to the undergraduate curriculum and to what he called “multidisciplinary illiteracy,” President Casper toughened the grading system by bringing back the “F.”14 And in April 1993, he established a “Commission on Undergraduate Education” to “focus more intently on the basic objectives of the institution.”15 Its far-reaching mission was “to clarify the goals of a Stanford undergraduate education.”16 Casper suggested that “the humanities need some more care and some strengthening,” and said campuses should be more efficient in what they teach.17 He railed against exotic programs he called “orchid subjects, because like orchids, they are rare and nice, but they serve no purpose.”18 Of course, there is no need for an institution to be born again if it gets it right the first time, and Casper's sweeping reassessment of purposes and priorities implied that he believed that Stanford's priorities had gone badly off track.

  Casper's most principled reforms appeared to come in the political realm. He established warmer relations with the Hoover Institution, naming its director, John Raisian, to the President's Cabinet of Advisers. (Raisian, in return, provided a small getaway office for Casper in Hoover Tower.)19 The president also stood up for freedom of speech: “When it comes to defending the freedom of speech at the University, I will defend everybody's freedom of speech. That's part of my function—not to limit it.”20 He returned Stanford's motto (“The Winds of Freedom Blow”) to the university seal, and spoke out in his timely inauguration speech against intellectual “fashions” and “orthodoxy.”21

  Signalling a new, lower-profile political role for the university and the president's office, Casper vowed to keep his political views private. “Nobody here who is in an administrative position has been chosen to represent anybody politically,” Casper told 100 students at a dorm visit. “If I take a political position and do it in my role as president of Stanford University, I am abusing my role.”22 Recalling the takeover of German universities during the 1930s by the Nazis, who “in no time destroyed the universities by turning them into political vehicles for the regime,” Casper warned, “The minute I would take a position—and indeed, your professors would take a position—…they are ending the discussion by silencing those who disagree.”23

  Nevertheless, as positive as some of Casper's statements have been, his first years in office have not quite lived up to the media's “white knight” image. While Casper has been willing to resist multicultural initiatives where his predecessor probably would have led the charge, he has moved slowly, or even backtracked, in areas where he has encountered heated opposition. His lack of ideological fervor has been accompanied by, and perhaps subordinated to, a resolute pragmatism. Whereas Kennedy seemed to relish political confrontations, Casper's instinct is to head for cover. Before moving ahead with a policy, the new president likes to float trial balloons; if the waters test cold, as they often do, he backs off. Consequently, Casper has not been able to follow through on any of his boldest initiatives:

  In December 1992, Casper refused to condemn Professor Kennell Jackson's “Black Hair” class as frivolous. However laudable his rule about academic “orchids,” it is doubtful that Casper would ever be willing to anger any member of a major university constituency in order to enforce the principle.24

  In 1994, President Casper placed Stanford's ethnic centers on the university's fundraising priority list.25 In addition, after unrelenting protests by MEChA and other minority groups, the ethnic centers, as well as the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Center, were among the few organizations on campus spared any budget cuts.26 The ethnic centers’ budget apparently was the price of peace.

  In December 1992, Casper signed Stanford's “domestic partners” policy into law. According to Kate O'Hanlan, who authored the proposal, “the trustees only needed to hear from Casper.” O'Hanlan promised that she and her partner would be the first in line to collect the new benefits; the policy would cost the University on the order of $100,000 a year or more.27 Casper rationalized his failure to oppose the politically driven proposal: “If I took a position I would have possibly forced the trustees to choose between backing up their new president or rejecting their new president. I didn't want the trustees to be in that position.”28

  Although Casper has pointed out that the campus is “a University, not a political commune,” he has reaffirmed the university's commitment to multiculturalism numerous times.29 He has defended ethnic theme dorms and separate commencement ceremonies as “congregation” rather than “segregation.”30 In September 1993, he directed Provost Rice to appoint a new vice provost for the special purpose of recruiting minority professors.31

  Perhaps the most disappointing development of Casper's presidency has been the Commission on Undergraduate Education (CUE), which had raised the possibility of sweeping reform. In June 1994, the CUE issued its preliminary findings: Its report proposed “no single dramatic revolutionary change,” announced history professor James Sheehan, the chair of the commission. Rather, it contained a large number of recommendations designed to “reform, reinvigorate and improve a number of things we do.”32 Law professor Robert Weisberg explained that the CUE was reluctant to change the graduation requirements too drastically, considering the debate that ensued when the university switched from Western Culture to CIV: “The real issue is what should be the common denominator. We didn't have the stomach to take on that whole issue again.”33

  Indeed, the new administration does not have the “stomach” to truly end Stanford's multicultural experiment once and for all and begin anew. While it has identified problem areas—such as Residential Education and CIV—it has done nothing to address these problems. In the case of Res Ed, the CUE simply encouraged “those involved in residential education to review and clarify their various missions.”34 Specific recommendations were altogether lacking. “I'm not sure we have taken the look at Res Ed that we should have,” admitted Professor Weisberg. “I don't think anyone wants to look at it, and I think that's a problem.”35 The combination of apathy and angst often produced as a result of multiculturalism had now gripped the faculty and administration and immobilized them. Although most suspected that multiculturalism (at least in the form of Res Ed) was flawed, they had no idea what might replace it.

  The CUE's recommendations for CIV were similarly confused. The commission suggested replacing CIV with a three-quarter “culture core” that would fold in both the race studies and non-Western-culture DRs. The overwhelming majority of students, Professor She
ehan explained, were dissatisfied with CIV. (A Stanford Daily poll indicated that 72 percent of undergraduates felt CIV should be changed—about the same percentage who had thought in 1988 that Western Culture should be left alone.)36 Once again, however, the general sentiment that things had broken down was not accompanied by a sense of why, or even where to go from there. Professor Sheehan, for one, offered precisely the wrong diagnosis: The problem with CIV, he said, is that it “never really lost the residue of its beginning in Western Culture.”37 Certainly, no one conceived that the problems with CIV and Res Ed were connected—or, more accurately, were one and the same. It was almost as if an earthquake had struck campus during summer vacation and destroyed two buildings on different sides of campus. When the vacationers returned, they observed the sites independently without deducing a root cause of the wreckage.

  While any reduction in the number of DRs would be a positive step, the proposed “culture core” may not be much better than CIV. The reading list offered by sophomore Jodie Dyl suggested that the new track might be more politicized than anything before it—without even a “residue” of the great books: “You could read ‘A Room of One's Own’ as an example of what Western women need, along with a Third World feminist. I'd rather see it integrated.”38 Senior Todd Gilcrest agreed: “CIV is an examination of cultures, not great books. You're using books as tools to look at a culture and see how they relate to themselves and to outsiders. CIV is not intended to give you your ideas—that was the whole debate of the ’80s. You will learn ideas indirectly, but the real goal is culture.”39 On a fundamental level, nothing could change because nothing had been learned.

  In the final analysis, Casper's greatest success may simply consist of his failure to lead the multiculture. In May 1994, Casper warned that political pressure (such as the MEChA hunger strike) hampered Stanford's ability to pursue the best academic programs:

  We cannot work for Stanford's future in an environment dominated by the politics of ultimatum. If we shortcut argument and reason, we abandon the essence of the University. If universities make their substantive decisions for political rather than academic reasons, they have no claims for untrammeled existence.40

  Professor Ross Schachter, a multicultural activist, explained his frustration: “We don't have any momentum right now on the multicultural agenda. It takes presidential leadership to move ahead.”41 In a further blow to multicultural momentum, the OMD declared that it would limit its focus to affirmative action issues.42

  Unlike Kennedy, who seemed to focus and distill campus passions, Casper has had a calming influence.43 With a reputation for charm and humility, Casper's personal style could not have been more different from that of his predecessor.44 His sense of humor has helped boost morale, rather than undercut it: The German-born Casper joked that he had been selected because the board wanted a president who could finally pronounce the university motto, “Die Luft der Freiheit weht” (“The Winds of Freedom Blow”).45 “What the university needed after the period of malaise was a sense of calm leadership,” observed history professor Barton Bernstein.46 The nonideological Casper performs a delicate balancing act—attempting to halt Stanford's slide, without rocking the boat.

  Beyond the Wasteland

  If one were optimistic about the intentions of the new Stanford administration (and we are), then one would still have to be quite concerned about the prospects for the University as a whole. For, in spite of the widespread recognition that something has gone badly wrong with multiculturalism, Stanford's new leaders are unwilling or unable to effect many of the needed changes. Although the momentum towards multiculturalism has slowed, no genuine reversal has taken place. Even relatively modest proposals of a procedural nature—raising academic standards or checking the growth of multicultural programs—meet with fierce opposition and do not get far. A more fundamental shift, such as the restoration of a Western civilization requirement, remains utterly unthinkable. On the levels of the faculty and the lower reaches of the administration, the multicultural structures appear firmly entrenched.

  Without aggressive leadership from the top, however, the various resentments from below largely remain diffuse, occasionally exploding into a protest or two, but rarely gathering enough force to provide a rallying point for the entire community. A telling example occurred in May 1994, when Asian Americans, usually considered a success story among America's immigrant minorities, declared themselves the latest victim group on campus. One week after MEChA's hunger strike, a group of protestors demanding the creation of an Asian American studies major sneaked into a Faculty Senate meeting and forced its adjournment. (Among the concessions won by the hunger strikers was the formation of a Chicano studies major.)

  “We demonstrated to the senate that this is a very real, intellectually viable issue that they are going to have to deal with at some point,” pronounced coalition member Davina Chen.47 The difference between a protest and an “intellectual issue” still was not understood. Junior Ken Tan allowed that he felt “marginalized” by the lack of an Asian American studies major and said the group “will not be asking the administration for this program; we will be demanding it.”48 As had been the case with the Western Culture “revival meetings,” several protestors seemed visibly shaken, fighting back tears and comforting one another.49

  However striking the emotional and ritualistic similarities to the Western Culture protests, there was one significant difference: Most students hardly took notice. The protestors did not enjoy wide support or even interest among their peers; the activists appeared hackneyed rather than revolutionary. Increasingly, multiculturalism fails to fire the imaginations of many students. Student President Ying-Ying Goh described the new atmosphere: “There are gripes that you hear on campus like ‘Multiculturalism is being shoved down our throat.’ It wasn't just a small minority of students. It was almost becoming an ‘in’ thing to say.”50 In a show of discontent, students rejected the annual fee requests of the BSU, MEChA, and the Rape Education Project in the April 1994 student government elections.51

  While the rest of the student body is increasingly indifferent, the advocates of multiculturalism seem to share a cult-like passion and, according to the Stanford Daily, “a growing feeling of paranoia.”52 Many think President Casper (a Democrat, certainly no right-winger) secretly harbors a “conservative agenda.” BSU Chairman Anietie Ekanem and junior Emily Haine, for instance, had picked up on small things—“little, slight, underhand things.”53 These signs included the choice of Stephen Carter as graduation speaker in 1994 and Casper's suggestion that faculty members should not take political stands.54 Casper, who had recently thrown his weight behind Stanford's speech code and placed the ethnic centers on his fundraising priority list, seemed genuinely puzzled by the conspiratorial charges, unaware that he was simply the latest person to blame.

  Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming multicultural edifice, these activists correctly perceive their victory to be on shaky ground. For the edifice is hollow; after more than seven years of great experimentation, a positive vision of the multicultural future remains altogether absent. Because the multiculture is derivative from the West, and depends on an ongoing, ritualistic expulsion of the latter, any total triumph would completely deprive the multiculturalists of their enemies. In the hour of its final victory over the West, the multiculture itself would be doomed to perish. Like parasites that have finished consuming the carcasses of their hosts, multiculturalists may turn on one another for a brief while, but in the end they will starve for lack of sustenance.

  Something like that already may have happened on the Stanford campus. Western civilization and classical liberal arts education truly are dead, killed off in the same multicultural epidemic that expunged “dead white males” from the reading list. But the multicultural cult of the dead—a defiant nothingness, involving the destruction and deconstruction of all possible meaning—has gradually dissolved into nothing at all. To be certain, the buildings are well maintained, t
he lawns are well watered, the football team plays for cheering throngs of fans, the faculty and staff are well paid, and the students attend classes and receive diplomas. The institution can keep going for a while on autopilot. But the heart of the university's humanities program—involving the quest for universal truth—has decayed into dust. The university has become a whitewashed sepulchre, a hidden reminder, not just of the Western tradition upon which it was founded, but also of the anti-Western multiculture that sought to replace it.

  There are unlikely to be any easy or direct reversals. Even the most explicit and dramatic repudiation of multiculturalism would not necessarily entail a return to the West. For many of the faculty hired in the last 20 years, such a return would be literally impossible—they have become as ignorant of the despised Western civilization as the students they purport to instruct. (The CUE admitted as much in its final report: “Even if such a core list could be collectively compiled, it would substantially restrict the number of faculty members willing and able to teach the course.”)55 On an intellectual level, the multiculture's cycle of destruction may have eliminated too much of the past foundation on which any future recovery would have to be based.

  In many cases, of course, the professors, appointed out of political motives and less talented academically than their own students, would not want to go back to teaching. They would rather stick to that which they can do reasonably well, explicating the scholastic nuances of multicultural liturgy, never subject to critical review. And so, even as the multicultural community of belief starts to disintegrate—as multiculturalism shifts from a sweeping cultural and religious force to a pale image of its former self, little more than a particularist cult—the same rituals will be continued, out of habit if not from belief. The multicultural congregations may be dwindling and the church bells all broken, but no other alternative can be conceived. There is no Tiresias to herald a renewal of life in the wasteland, to bring an end to the springless winter.