We hear about diversity a great deal in academia. Illinois Tech is justly proud of its ethnic and cultural diversity, and I'm confident that that kind of diversity will continue to be a hallmark of the Illinois Tech experience. The student speaker at the University-wide commencement ceremony rightly emphasized the positive results of that kind of diversity in her speech. But I would assert that academia has largely ignored or even suppressed another kind of diversity, namely intellectual diversity, that is, diversity of viewpoint and political orientation. I would encourage you as graduates, departing to involve yourselves in workplaces and other universities, to value this kind of diversity as well as the cultural and ethnic sorts that you hear about more often.
What does intellectual diversity look like on a college campus? Minimally, it means that the classroom, the lab, and the student union should be places where individuals can express ideas that are different from the prevailing ones. It also involves a willingness to hear ideas that are different from one's own. I would also hope that it would mean that faculty whose ideas are different from the academic norm will have a shot at earning tenure.
So what is the prevailing norm on university campuses? At most colleges and universities, the prevailing norm is progressivism. Those of you who are progressives would benefit from exposure to other political and social viewpoints. It will enable you to understand the rest of society better, and might even provide you with meaningful information that will sharpen and hone your progressive views. Those of you who aren't progressives will get a chance to see that there is robustness and rigor available in your intellectual sphere, and can refine your views through debate.
Why is there opposition to intellectual diversity? At many schools, the primary concern appears to be minimization of discomfort; that is, authorities want to minimize the degree to which members of the community are made uncomfortable. If a student finds an idea distasteful or disruptive of his or her world-view, then the safe thing to do is to shield that student from exposure to that idea. I'm arguing that that kind of shielding actually gets in the way of real education: it infantilizes the process and slows growth. If you believe something is true, then you should be prepared to defend your belief in public forums, rather than suppressing differing views in some misguided attempt to minimize discomfort. If your ideas can't stand up to debate, how much confidence do you really have in your ideas?
Some academics would argue that intellectual diversity is an illusion, that the Academy has already determined that the progressive agenda is the only one that is consistent with legitimate scholarship. These scholars assert that intellectual diversity is nothing more than code language for support of racism, subjugation of women, and the maintenance of an oppressive power structure. They maintain that it is the job of academics to push back against any any attempt to establish a place for non-progressive viewpoints in universities. These positions don't appear to have much of a voice at Illinois Tech: they're more characteristic of small liberal arts colleges and large, public universities. I'm hoping none of you will encounter this attitude: but I suspect many of you will.
I'm not in favor of a politically-determined quota system, wherein every part of every University must have representation from multiple political viewpoints on its faculty. There's at least one legislator in Iowa who has proposed such a system for the public universities in his state. We don't need or want that, but his attempt to bring that idea before his legislative colleagues does suggest that if we do not open our campuses to intellectual diversity, we may find outsiders imposing it on us.
There should be limits to diversity of opinion: I don't want advocates of racial genocide or infanticide to be represented on University faculties. But I am enough of an optimist to think that individuals with those viewpoints would show themselves to be poor scholars anyway, so they'd be excluded from faculty on other grounds.
So as you emerge from the ivy-covered halls of Illinois Tech, I'm challenging you to expose yourself to new and disruptive ideas. You'll be better off if you do, and so will the Academy.