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Comment by jimhefferon | Hacker News Reader

The article seemed to me to be a mix of two things, railing against the costs (blamed on the rise of administrators), and railing against the existence of diversity administrators.

I'm a professor employed at my present institution, a small liberal arts school, since 1990. I am not an administrator of any kind, don't read the Chronicle, and don't understand where all the money goes. I will say though, that when I started we had very few students who were not white. Very few, particularly if you omitted athletes. But today a good chunk, 40% maybe, of the student body is, to my eye, nonwhite. I don't know how much of that can be ascribed to the diversity officer but it is IMHO a very good thing.

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The US is 72.4% white. You would then expect there to be 27.6% non-white students at any particular institution, assuming no racial discrimination, etc. So then why is 40% non-white a desirable outcome? I thought the point was to compensate for exclusion / marginalization / discrimination, in which case the target should be that aforementioned 27.6%.

EDIT: since many people are replying to me saying that using the national demographic stats is a bad thing to do, I will use the stats for GP's state, which appears to be Virginia. Using these stats (94.2% white), you would expect the school to have only 5.8% non-white students, assuming a complete lack of racial discrimination compared to the state population.

I personally still think using the national stats is a better idea, as the goal of a college / university should not be to only educate people from the state it is located in.

"The White, non-Hispanic or Latino population make up 61.3% of the nation's total, with the total White population (including White Hispanics and Latinos) being 76.9%." - Wikipedia

"White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent: 60.4%" - census.gov

What is your point? Hispanics/latinos can be identified as white. The percent of people in the US that are white by the 2010 census definition is 72.4%.

But asians are in same boat as whites, lumped together in by the diversity promoters.

Man, you twisted this comment so much to extract that message. The commenter is likely saying it's good that the campus is more representative, not that they're for the elimination of whites or some shit. Also, you don't know where they live. Where I come from, it's about 80 percent nonwhite. Before you comment, consider that the story you make up in your head isn't always the most likely.

Edit: Hawaii has 25 percent whites, so my estimate was correct.

I am using national statistics given a lack of information by the GP. If the GP wants to update with a more accurate location, they are free to, and we can have this discussion with better accuracy. Without that, the "story in my head" is, in fact, the most likely.

Also: It doesn't even matter what statistics are correct, your assumption that the original commenter was celebrating antiwhite sentiment is absurd by itself.

Original:

You're using statistics for the whole USA. There are half a million people here, you're just regressing to the mean, some states have a larger percent nonwhite people.

Hawaii has 25 percent whites, so my estimate was correct.

Edit: also, your stats are wrong, see the other comment and get some perspective.

I'm confused, why are you going on about Hawaii?

From looking at the GP's account info, they seem to teach at a school in Virginia, which is 94.2% white.

You threw around racial discrimination because the national average white-concentration is 10% off from what the other commentor said, while, at the same time, again, you don't even know where the school is within US. Your use of statistics is a bad kind of quick-think.

Edit: noticed your nickname is fastball. A bit ironic.

When did I throw around racial discrimination? Again, if the GP wants to update with more accurate racial distribution numbers for their area, this conversation can move forward. Until then, my interpretation is the most likely. It is just as likely that GP's institution is in an area that has more whites than the national average than it is that there are fewer. Therefore my analysis is the correct one until we get an update.

EDIT: it seems like GP teaches in Virginia, a state that is 94.2% white (alone). Assuming that is in fact that correct state, you are right that I spoke too quickly. The non-white population at this school should presumably be 5.8% if the makeup of the local area is important, as you claim.

And what is the non-white percentage at the university over there?

(I live in France so I do not have any stakes in this discussion, just curious)

Those averages are across the country. The distribution will be hugely different depending on whether you are in Iowa or Florida.

Moreover, the distribution is not equal across ages. And since only young people go to universities, this has a huge effect.

Are colleges only supposed to attract people from the local area and therefore reflect local demographics? That seems a bit backwards to me.

Regardless, GP seems to teach at a school in Virginia, which is 94.2% white.

That is a good point about how racial demographics can change between age groups though. Do you have more accurate numbers that we can use in this regard?

You're lucky I was waiting for a render to finish =) A google of "race distribution over age us" got me this:

  https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/

BTW,19% of Virginia is black.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/states-by-race/

I believe that you are mistaken. My reading of this table from the Census Bureau is that white is 60%: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219. Further, college age students are barely majority-white, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/images/figures/f.... Those are the national stats.

I happen to not be from VA. I happen to be from VT (as a google of my user name or email would show). FWIW, I teach at a Catholic school so many of the nonwhite students we see are a variety of Hispanic. But there are also plenty of others, including African Americans. We draw from New England in general, and to a lesser extent the entire Northeast.

But if I understand your comment correctly, you are not mistaken in that I am a person who thinks that it is right for educational institutions to make strong efforts about redressing our country's heritage of making life harder for some people than others. In my note I meant to express that there are anecdotal signs of progress. Too few, for sure, and I cannot say how much is due to the diversity officers, but wanted to suggest that the article's contempt for work in this area is not wholly justified.

There certainly seemed to be an over-abundance of jabs at Diversity and Inclusion programs and staff. They’re surely a very small minority of the admin bloat, and they pursue a noble goal.

It wasn’t that surprising to see Jared Taylor being recommended in the comments, given the subject matter and conservative angle this piece has.

I think costs are so high because every institution needs to spend more money each year to continue to grow, and growth has infected finance and academia like a virus, forcing us into a race to the bottom to continue to feed the growth death cult. Diversity is just a Boogeyman that those same cultists use as redirection from their own crimes because it's easy to convince people that the other guy is out to get you.

Why is it a good thing there is more non-white students? Why does it matter what ethnicity they are if they have the right grades to go there? I don't give a shit about someone's sex or race when working with someone, nor do I go around a room counting how many white co-workers I have. I am baffled by it.

Tbh, diversity only seems to be a thing in America (and slowly creeping into the UK). I think it's partly more pronounced there because your race is significantly correlated to your income levels, which determine your ability to go to college. Meanwhile, most of Europe is homogenous largely, and thus insusceptible to any effects from diversity issues. Even in the UK, the most diverse European country, except for some Windrush immigrants, most immigrant groups such as the South Asians have largely been able to transcend the income divide between white and non-white.

In the UK there is a class divide (linked mostly to wealth but not entirely). Everyone that is naturalised or was born here is considered British no matter what their race is (the same applies to the French IIRC). Yes unfortunately people are bringing race into our politics which is a shame tbh because it is considered rude to mention someone's race in anything other than maybe describing their physical appearance (for the purposes of identification).

If a student wants to go to University they are means tested which determines the amount of grants / loans they are entitled to. Race isn't a consideration only wealth (based on household income).

In France wealth is secondary to the place you live in and where you come from (in terms of divisions in the nation).

Of course if you have French nationality your "race" does not matter (there are no programs for minorities) but the reality is, also of course, different.

Looking at the last 40 years, I wrote say that Islamism has become the greatest divider (for 10 or 20 years now). This was a non-subject when I was a kid in the 80's.

The same is true in the UK there is a North / South divide that is historical, economic and cultural.

It is a good thing because historically it has mattered what ethnicity people are. It still matters because there is a narrative pushed by some that we are a meritocracy but in fact social mobility is very low. This is not just about ethnicity, but ethnicity is definitely a part of poverty in the USA for instance, and ethnicity is visible.

It shouldn't matter what-so-ever what race someone is. It should be irrelevant. It shouldn't be a positive or negative thing. If social mobility is a problem then you means test the household based on wealth and give grants to those that satisfy the criteria.

What should or shouldn't matter is irrelevant and pretending like it's relevant is naive. It does matter. That's a fact. You want to take your argument to 1850 and argue what should and shouldn't matter? We fought the bloodiest war in American history over this so you know what, it does fucking matter. And even in 2020, racism is still widespread, so you know what, it fucking matters. That's reality. It most certainly fucking matters that certain people were held back for hundreds of years through slavery and racism while whites progressed forward. It most certainly matters that this is still going on today. Look at the median household worth in the US to see how much it matters. This idea that you're putting forward, that history doesn't matter, that reality doesn't matter, is frankly absurd. It's not even an argument. It has no basis in reality. It's a fantasy. History matters and affects the present. It's as simple as that.

> It's not even an argument. It has no basis in reality. It's a fantasy. History matters and affects the present. It's as simple as that.

I was going to rebut most of your angry ramblings. Then I read this and I remembered why it pointless with talking to people like yourself. You think there cannot be any discussion on a topic outside of what you think it correct because you have decided that you have the correct opinion.

I said "this shouldn't matter".

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