William E. Kirwan
President, Ohio State University
From "Charting Diversity – Diversity in Higher Education: Why it Matters"
February 18, 2000

William E. Kirwan: Thank you, Linda, for the very kind introduction and for the observation that I am an example of just-in-time delivery. I was a little concerned as we circled over and over Charlottesville whether the clouds would part and we could land and fortunately we did. I'm sorry that I was a little late in arriving, but I did get to hear John's very eloquent remarks.

Diversity or inclusion is such a pivotal issue in higher education and in our society today. With so many thoughtful presenters and participants in this room, I look forward to expanding my knowledge on this vitally important topic by the work of this conference and the work that follows in the months ahead. I want to begin by paying tribute to my two presidential colleagues, [Lee Bollinger] who was originally planned to be part of the program but I gather cannot be today, and our host, John Casteen. Both preside over great universities, although there are occasional Saturday afternoons when Michigan is a little too great, in my opinion. Both are wise and highly capable executives and their leadership on the issue of diversity inspires us all. I'm also pleased to see Gladys Brown on the agenda. Gladys is now at the American Council on Education, but she and I worked very closely together when we were both at the University of Maryland. Her leadership was an important part of the success Maryland has enjoyed relative to diversity issues.

As you know, my assignment this morning is to share some thoughts on why diversity matters in higher education. It's an assignment I relish because I believe strongly, even passionately, that how we in higher education address the issue of inclusion will have a significant impact on our nation's success or lack thereof in the 21st century. For me, there are three basic reasons why diversity is such a fundamentally important matter for us--the correction of past and present inequities, the development of the high quality of workforce our nation will need in the coming decade, and the value added to the education of all students when they learn in a diverse environment. I'll expand on each of these reasons, then say a little about how we are approaching diversity issues at the Ohio State University.

The first reason--correcting past and present inequities--regrettably is out of vogue today. Instead a new orthodoxy is affecting, perhaps I should say infecting, our colleges and universities. It holds that race and gender have no part in our decision. Proponents of this view who seem to be carrying the day argue that our society has reached a point where race and gender should not matter, but the sad truth is that race and gender still do matter. They matter very much and in ways that are disproportionately harmful to many women and minorities. For example, consider that minorities and women continue to receive mortgage loans at statistically significant lower rates than do their white male counterparts with equivalent financial circumstances and credit ratings. Can anything explain this reality other than bias and prejudice? Yes, race still matters. Those who don't think so should read Andrew Hacker's Two Nations--Black, White, Separate, Hostile and Unequal. As most of you know, it is a compelling account of the [side b] against blacks in our society today. Can we in higher education assume that somehow we are exempt from such prejudices in our recruitment, admission, appointment and promotion practices? I don't think so.

Take the issue of salary equity. The comparison of salaries between white males on the one hand, and similarly situated minorities and women on the other. Based on ample empirical evidence, I conjecture that most universities have a significant salary inequity for minorities and women today. The exceptions would be those universities that have had the courage to seriously review their salary equity and address the problem. Those of us in positions of responsibility must be sensitive to the continuing effects of bias and prejudice. To the extent possible, we should build safeguards into our policies and practices that ensure equitable access and treatment for all for until we recognize, acknowledge and respond to the inequities that exist in our society we will never achieve the diversity goal that we all boldly espouse.

Does this mean we should accept unqualified applicants in our universities? Of course not, but it does require us to ensure that individual merit evaluations do not result in the bias I just described in awarding mortgage goals and it requires us to evaluate individuals on their ability to help advance our institutions in a society where unfortunately race and gender seem to matter in everything except the interpretation of our laws. Although I am at risk of becoming a dinosaur on this topic, I still believe that the continuing effects of prejudice and discrimination are the most compelling rationale for a commitment to diversity.

A second reason diversity in higher education is so important is much more pragmatic. It has to do with our future economic well-being and our global competitiveness. One of a university's central purposes is to prepare students for citizenship and successful careers in a nation and in economy increasingly dependent on college graduates. Today that preparation must take into account the growing diversity of peoples and cultures that compose our pluralistic global society. In America today, we see a striking increase in the internationalization of our economy, the global nature of policy issues, and the demographics of our labor force and citizenry. Are we preparing to face these challenges? Will we have adequate numbers of people with the skills and knowledge to compete successfully in this emerging multi-cultural and global environment? Can we make real the national motto E pluribus unum in a nation with a degree of diversity unimagined by the founding fathers?

We are on the cusp of monumental demographic changes. Given differential rates of birth and immigration, our Hispanic and Asian populations are increasing 10 times faster than whites and the African American population is growing more than five times faster than whites. Consider that by 2020 the number of U.S. residents who are Hispanic or non-white will have more than doubled while the non-Hispanic white population will not be increasing at all. In fact, it may decline. Just over 50 years from now, the average U.S. citizen as defined by census statistics will be as likely to trace his or her ancestry to Africa, Asia, the Hispanic world, the Pacific Islands and the Islamic world as to trace it to Europe. At that point, diversity in the American work place won't be a goal, it will be a reality.

Next, consider that by the year 2010, half of all jobs will require a college education and that as a result of retirements, the work force will contain 10% fewer whites. Because there are fewer minorities in today's work force we will need a 30% increase in their numbers just to maintain the status quo. The data is clear. Unless we dramatically increase the rates of participation of minorities and women in all fields, and most especially in those fields where they have been traditionally excluded, we simply will not have enough technically-trained and culturally-adaptable people to support a sophisticated internationally competitive economy.

Thus, the moral imperative for diversity in higher education is now united with social and economic necessity in a nation that within a little more than one generation will be without a racial and ethnic majority. To a legal layman like me, these social and economic needs constitute a compelling national interest, one courts might use to justify affirmative action but I'll leave that argument such as it is to more informed legal minds.

Our challenge is not just to prepare enough minority students for success in the new environment, however. It's also to prepare students from all races and backgrounds to work effectively in a decidedly more diverse work place. This is a third reason why diversity is so vitally important in higher education today. For the encouragement of cultural diversity and greater inclusiveness in higher education can enhance the learning environment of the entire university community and especially among those students who have lived mainly within a single cultural orbit. We are coming to understand that we can actually raise standards by subjecting everyone's provincialism to multiple perspectives. It's just as Powell wrote in Baake case, a university should be allowed to assemble a varied student body in order to create a more dynamic intellectual environment and a richer educational experience.

It's what E.B. White called the splendid fact of difference of opinion, the impact of ideas in collision. A diverse environment fosters a plurality of perspectives. It creates the possibility of discourse and learning by talented people of various cultures, backgrounds and experiences. It creates an opportunity for students to come together, challenge each other's ideas, learn new perspectives and grow as individuals. It holds out the hope that the next generation of leaders will understand that our differences are our strengths, that our diversity can be the essence of our excellence. Anyone who doubts these conclusions should talk to [Shantel] Porter. Shantel is a first year student at Ohio State. She is in our initial class of [Ruth Mount] Scholars. This is a new program in which talented students all with leadership interests and exceptional abilities live together on campus and learn from one another. They will share courses and out-of-class service projects for at least two years. Shantel is an African American from Chicago where she attended a predominantly black high school. She positively delights in her exposure to students of different races, different ethnicities, different religions, different home town sizes, and different sexual orientations. Whatever preconceived notions you had go out the window, Shantel says. People are people. They wake up the same way, they go to sleep the same way.

I'm sure many of you have read The Shape of the River, an outstanding source of data and analysis by Derek Bok and Bill Bowen. Do you remember the 1976 African American University of Michigan graduate? His first college roommate was white and he attributes his later success at working in a white world to that long-ago experience. Skeptics might also check with George [Limbert], a Mount Scholar from Youngstown, Ohio. George likes interacting with different kinds of people every day. While not a minority he recognizes that one key to his future will be understanding people who are different from him. Spending one's whole life with only one kind of person, George says, means you can only learn so much.

These examples are consistent with a study done at the University of Maryland. Like many universities, Maryland conducts a longitudinal study of student experiences. The survey does not mention the University's diversity explicitly, but the topic often comes up almost always as a positive part of the campus experience for the graduates. By the far the most impressive and exciting research on this topic, however, has been done at the University of Michigan in preparation for the impending trial on affirmative action. Our next speaker Sylvia [Hertado] will be reporting on that research so I won't steal any of her thunder. I do want to say however that the University of Michigan research offers the best documented evidence to date of the value of education in a diverse environment. I believe that an argument based on this and related research could provide a compelling defense of affirmative action programs.

As I conclude my remarks, I thought it might be useful to say a few words about my experiences at the University of Maryland and Ohio State as they bear on this issue. These differing experiences highlight the positive effects of affirmative action. For the past several decades, the University of Maryland has enjoyed considerable success on diversity matters, at least in relative terms. The University has been able to increase substantially the percentage of African American and other minority students. It also has increased significantly the number of African American faculty. In a recent study, the University had the highest percentage of African American faculty of any AAU institution. Whatever success Maryland has enjoyed can be traced in large part to an action by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. In the 1970s, the state of Maryland along with Virginia and 20 or so states was ordered to develop affirmative action programs that would eliminate had been a dual track racially-segregated system of higher education. The order kept the pressure on and when you're promoting diversity, pressure helps.

There is no question that the University benefitted from its affirmative action programs. One of these programs was a merit-based scholarship program, the Benjamin Baneker Scholarship, for high ability African American students. As many of you may know, in the mid-1990s this program was successfully challenged in a case that reached the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Loss of the program was a blow to the University, but in another sense, the 4th Circuit's adverse decision became a victory for the University of Maryland. Rather than accept the easy out, the University community, its faculty senate, and student government association overwhelmingly endorsed my decision to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. This movingly demonstrated that the pursuit of diversity was no longer just a mandate by the Office of Civil Rights. It had become an important characteristic of the University, one of its points of pride.

After 34 years at the University and 10 years as its president, and for reasons that had nothing to do with diversity, I left Maryland to become president of the Ohio State University. Ohio State is a wonderful place and over the past 18 months, my wife and I have become quite attached to the community, but I was struck almost immediately upon arrival by the difference in attitude, the difference in passion, on the topic of diversity. Ohio State had never been segregated, yet it had, and has today, a smaller proportion of minority students and faculty than we had at Maryland. As you may know, no university, even the University of Virginia, surpasses Ohio State when it comes to school spirit and alumni and community support. It really is extraordinary, but when I brought up diversity, I encountered not so much resistance as passivity on the part of many. As you might imagine, I'm uncomfortable with this passivity and am promoting diversity as actively as I can.

One of the first thing I did was make diversity a University goal, along with excellence in teaching, research and community engagement. A multifaceted diversity plan has been developed and is, as we speak, getting an extensive airing among campus constituencies. This will be the first time that Ohio State has had a diversity plan and a plan with numerical goals, not quotas which we all know are illegal, but goals. Not everyone is happy about this. However, I feel strongly that numercial goals are essential in any diversity plan because our biggest hurdle is to establish a sense of seriousness, credibility and accountability.

Are there other essential elements of a successful diversity programs? Absolutely. Leadership from the top is essential. In the words of Henry Kissinger, it is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate within the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it. Universities by their nature are replete with experts. This is one of those instances where leadership is needed and if the president doesn't lead on this issue, who can? Persistence is a second requisite because there are no easy solutions. A thick skin is a third, for it is a given that on this topic the president and others who have the courage to lead will suffer many slings and arrows.

For most of us, the issue of diversity is quite personal. I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky in a racially-segregated community. I was a senior at Henry Clay High School the year it was integrated. I owe an enormous debt to my parents for many reasons. High on that list is that they raised me with a different attitude about race than that held by most of my friends. The summer I graduated from high school I worked in a rock quarry making concrete block. Most of my fellow workers were black and I formed a fast friendship with a young black man who also had just graduated from a different high school. One day we decided to get together after work and it suddenly dawned on me that there was nowhere we could go in the white community, so we went to a restaurant in his neighborhood. I was the only white there, of course, and right away I felt that sense of discomfort that many minorities must feel even today when they enter a white world. That experience was an epiphany for me. I believe it has helped me understand better the challenges we at majority universities face in creating a diverse community.

In some sense I'm as troubled by the division, prejudice and bias that exists in our society today as I was back then some 40 years ago in Lexington, Kentucky. I am disturbed by the current attitudes towards diversity and affirmative action, especially as they relate to higher education. If these attitudes are to change, it will require courage and leadership from our university, for at its best a university is a place where one can learn to attack the idea of other while affirming the human dignity of all. At its best, a university is a place where diversity is not just tolerated but celebrated because that is how we can learn to appreciate the rich variety of human expression. At its best, a university is a place of universal embrace where people come to understand the complexities of the human condition and the commonality of our shared destiny.

Speaking in Capetown, South Africa in 1966, Robert Kennedy said, each time a man stands up for an idea or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that could sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. The current that Robert Kennedy described has swept down some of the walls of oppression and resistance in South Africa and here in the United States, but other walls remain nonetheless, and it's up to each of us to strike out against them in whatever way we can.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you today.