Henry Ford—himself a certified bigot—famously quipped that his customers could order cars in any colour they liked as long as that colour was black. For all its failures, this misunderstanding of the concept of diversity at least has the benefit of self-awareness, and very nearly humour. Alas the same cannot be said for the movement that’s dominating politically correct energies around here.
Evidence abounds that our society is still reeling from the reign of the white Protestant male syndicate. So it’s not surprising that diversity tends to be construed as the simple absence of sexism and racism. But this is a reduction of the principle. Like its older sister equality, diversity demands quite a bit more than the mere absence of bigotry.
Now don’t mistake my meaning. We live in a place where skins tones span a spectrum of hues, genitals come in more than one shape (to say nothing of size), and sexual preferences are the subject of seemingly limitless imagination. So it would be distinctly suspicious—and also creepy—if only the most pale, phallic, and sexually conventional among us were represented at the bar. But, while ridding the school of sexism, racism, homophobia, et cetera is an achievement (although belated), it represents only the most elementary step towards producing a diverse community.
Law school isn’t a Benetton catalogue, or some multicultural stock photo accompanying Government of Ontario press releases. It’s actually rather easy to have diversity in a pictorial representation. But we don’t trade in still images. Our currency is ideas, principles, modes of thinking. So what kind of diversity is it where everyone is groomed to think, act, and talk the same way?
The term has been limited to a few pre-approved categories for so long that it’s nearly been robbed of its broader meaning. Not that moving the goalposts around has really helped anyone. The Faculty of Law can’t even consistently achieve success on this most superficial front. The admissions department’s own data reveals that its recent tinkering with the acceptance criteria has actually led to a reduction in diversity by as much as four percent, while at the same time lowering the average GPA of the entering class. (Affirmative action, meet negative action.)
In trying (and failing) to achieve diversity that’s only skin-deep, there’s another kind of diversity that manages to remain excluded even from this tender rainbow pallet that is the Faculty of Law in 2014. In many ways it’s the only kind of diversity that matters: diversity of thought.
Consider the Supreme Court of Canada, whose commitment to diversity must always be balanced with its proclivity for unanimous opinions. Faced with a recent vacancy, the Chief Justice of Canada was uncharacteristically outspoken in advocating the appointment of more women to the bench. The retirement of Justice Fish did indeed leave a gap on the Court. Fish himself has expressed such concern. But at no point did he ask to be replaced with one of his coreligionists. Rather, he drew attention to the plain fact that in his absence the nation’s highest court will be left wanting for a strong advocate for rights of the accused.
The Prime Minister’s office positively scandalized the nation by appointing a conservative jurist who is strongly suspected to have opinions different from those of the mainstream. But one has come not to expect much from the Court that quotes the following gospel from the late Elmer Driedger with a confidence usually reserved for the bearers of divine prophecy: “Today there is only one principle or approach,” in the field of statutory interpretation. Or so it is written anyway. And it’s not just that one approach is in vogue, mind you. It’s that only one approach is permitted. Another diversity-free zone, it seems.
The perfunctory obsession with this kind of surface diversity—the sort that can be measured only in hormones and melanin—comes at a price. Fix your eyes on some sideshow and not only will you lose the ball, but you run the risk that it will be passed tauntingly between your legs.
Lyndon Johnson may have hit the high-water mark for diversity when he added Thurgood Marshall to the American Supreme Court. Marshall was not only black, but had a distinguished record as a Civil Rights activist and had helped end segregation through his role in Brown v. Board of Education. When faced with the politically touchy task of naming Marshall’s successor, George H.W. Bush split the difference, and the difference has been split ever since.
Justice Clarence Thomas not only had the right skin tone, but was approximately as conservative as Stonehenge. And so a bargain was struck whereby diversity on the bench was to remain a purely superficial matter. Of course being more conservative doesn’t make one any less black. But in what sense does appointing yet another paleoconservative member of the Federalist Society contribute to diversity?
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. And pudding, as you know, can only be either chocolate or vanilla. So what kind of colourblind utopia has the diversity movement yielded? Well, one where women and men of any colour are drawn from an ever smaller cadre of the most elite and exclusive (and expensive) schools. All students, no matter their hue, are inseparable from and in equal part victims of a mind-numbingly conservative curriculum, where subjects as various as business contracts, corporations, and trusts is mandatory. (Really, how many people out there have a trust?) Folks of all creeds and confessions are welcome to study our Constitution, which is based explicitly on “the supremacy of God”—and don’t pretend you don’t know which god they mean. What could be more vanilla?
We are so damn progressive that people of all dispositions are welcome to dress up in flowing black (only black!) robes and—until remarkably recently—grey horsehair wigs, and imitate all the worst behaviour of premodern English aristocrats. If this is diversity, then maybe we could do with something different.
