Diversity

This change cannot be ascribed only to these Supreme Court decisions, important as they are for the behavior of colleges, universities, and professional schools; it also reflects a large cultural change, and an evaluation of diversity's pragmatic benefits by key interests in American society. In the 1980s, under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, high officials hoped to limit government's affirmative action requirements by modifying the executive order that had instituted it. They discovered to their surprise, however, that big business no longer wanted to change what they had once seen as a burden. To have employees from a wide range of groups was now seen as a benefit in dealing with increasingly diverse customers and suppliers. Appreciation of diversity was widely taught in the business world, and business was perhaps more energetic in training its employees in the proper consideration of diversity than higher education itself. Affirmative action had been launched when minorities consisted overwhelmingly of blacks alone. With the opening of immigration in 1965, and the beginning of a large and unceasing flood of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean, and increasingly Africa, the groups considered "minority" swelled, diversity expanded, and responding to it became ever more important to businesses, the military, and politicians.

Education, however, remains in the forefront of the response to and embrace of diversity. In the 1960s, multicultural education—the inclusion in curricula of material on the four minority groups, and furthermore, the reflection of their grievances and interests everywhere in the curriculum—became a key demand of minority groups, leading to fierce controversies. Very rapidly these demands were widely recognized as legitimate. (Multiculturalism was the term under which these battles were fought, but it raised the same issues as diversity: The only difference was that multiculturalism had a more muscular and aggressive tone, whereas diversity seemed a more accommodating concept.) The content of major parts of elementary and secondary education was transformed, particularly history, English, and social studies; sometimes even mathematics and science were affected. Textbooks were transformed under new state requirements to recognize diversity. Diversity also called for increasing efforts to recruit minorities as teachers and administrators, and many minority educational leaders became superintendents of major school systems.

The impact on higher education was as great but somewhat more restricted. The demands of diversity were reflected in new programs of black studies; Hispanic, Asian, and Native American studies; women's studies; and gay and lesbian studies. Furthermore, on many campuses special living quarters and social centers were created for minority groups, and there was a heightened emphasis on the recruitment of faculty from each group. The philosophy of diversity became the common linking outlook of university presidents—all embraced it, and there were no dissidents.

The military was possibly the most successful institution in responding to and reflecting the new appreciation of diversity. The military academies—like all institutions of higher education—instituted programs to recruit larger numbers of minority officers, and it was particularly essential that they succeed because so many of those enrolled in the voluntary military forces were from minority groups. In America's wars in the 1990s against Iraq, black and Hispanic officers held the highest positions.