Diversity is Our Strength: Rubbish

Stephen Kershnar

Diversity is Our Strength

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

September 17, 2018

The U.S. cultural elite constantly repeats the mantra: diversity is our strength. This idea supports affirmative action, a sizable diversity industry, and immigration policies (for example, the diversity lottery). Academia, businesses, and the military enthusiastically promote diversity. Recently, FOX talk show host Tucker Carlson questioned the mantra is true and in so doing caused public outrage.   

The mantra that diversity is our strength expresses the notion that countries, communities, schools, and teams are better if they have people from different racial, ethnic, and religious groups as well as the two, or perhaps more, genders. The mantra does not support diversity of ideas in that the elites pushing diversity do not seek to increase the number of Christians, free market theorists, pro-gun types, etc. On the whole, the evidence does not support the mantra.  

First, consider nations. Columnist Pat Buchanan points out that the Soviet Union split into 15 nations largely on ethnic grounds. He notes that three of those new nations (Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia) further split along ethnic lines. Racial and ethnic identities also split the British Empire, Czechoslovakia, Sudan, and Yugoslavia. Other countries have so far avoided an ethnic divide only through the use of coercion or violence. Consider, for example, China, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Tribal violence and separatist movements can be found throughout the world, even in old world countries such as Spain.

In contrast, largely homogenous countries such as Israel (outside of the occupied territories), Japan, and South Korea flourish despite a lack of diversity. The same is true for Nordic countries that have a history, at least until recently, of small homogenous populations.

Second, consider the free market’s view of diversity. The economic free market is the most reliable test we have of the relative costs and benefits of an idea or program. The market does not value diversity much. Consider competitive fields in which contribution is measurable, such as Hollywood, National Basketball Association, and the National Football League. They are notorious for their lack of diversity.  

Third, consider the social free market. This market also doesn’t value diversity much. Writing in The Huffington Post, Emily Swanson notes that 75% of whites only have white friends and only 8.4% of marriages are interracial. Economist Roland Fryer points out that only 0.4% of whites have a black spouse. This pattern is rational. The National Marriage Project’s David Poponue observes that marriages are more likely to succeed if the couple is similar in backgrounds, life goals, social networks, and values. Similarly, Cornell University sociologist Karl Pillemer finds that, “The research findings are quite clear: marriages that are homogamous in terms of economic background, religion and closeness in age are the most stable and tend to be happier.” It is plausible that racial, ethnic, and religious similarity tends to correlate with these other similarities.

The social free market has a similar take when it comes to communities. Harvard political science professor Robert Putnam argues that people in diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, distrust their neighbors, withdraw from even close friends, expect the worst from their community and its leaders, volunteer less, give less to charity, and work on community projects less often. He summarizes his findings as showing that diverse communities lead people to “huddle unhappily in front of the television.”

We find the same pattern in children. Duke University’s James Moody found that the more diverse the school, the more students self-segregate by race within the school and the fewer interracial friends they have.

Fourth, consider education. UCLA law professor Richard Sanders and Stuart Taylor Jr. argue that the pursuit of diversity mismatches black and Hispanic students to their schools and that doing so often harms them. Their idea is that a black student who would do well at Cal State Fresno might do poorly at Berkeley because he is mismatched against his peers. This is analogous to how a wrestler who does well at a small Division III college might do poorly at a top flight Division I program.

I should note that there is some evidence that diversity improves group decision-making and business profitability. Research by Carnegie Mellon University professor Anita Woolley and others found that in laboratories, diversity improves team-based decision-making. Research by Vivian Hunt and others of McKinsey & Company found that gender and ethnic diversity increases firms’ profitability.

Even so, it is unlikely that the diversity in the business world involves people with strikingly different abilities, education levels, and values. In addition, it is not clear how these purported benefits in diverse executive boards compare to the cost of moving away from merit-based hiring and promotion. It is odd that diversity at the executive level would benefit businesses, while it appears to harm performance elsewhere. Also, well-known MIT management professor Thomas Kochan has challenged the notion that the studies on the whole provide a business justification for diversity.  

Even if there were evidence that diversity is worth pursuing, the American people do not want it. Americans in effect show their preference against it in their churches, friendships, housing, and marriages. Their vote for Donald Trump against the elite’s hysterical opposition was a clear statement that the American people do not want their country flooded by immigrants, especially those who are very different from them. Seven states have banned affirmative action at public universities (Arizona, California, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Washington) and more would do so were other states to have referenda on it. The majority of voters in those states did so despite a shrill defense of it by the cultural elites (specifically, the leaders of academia, business, entertainment, military, and politics). Americans just do not want merit being sacrificed to diversity.

In summary, diversity is not our strength. It has harmful effects in communities, education, nations, relationships, and at least some economic areas. Similar to other outdated mantras (“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”), it’s time to drop it.