Diversity Principle

The surprising two-hundred-year history of diversity in education, commerce, and science from the scholar the New Yorker dubbed Americas a diversity detectivea ? As a war on diversity upends government, corporate, and education policies, the history of the idea of diversity has never been more important. In this contrarian book, David B. Oppenheimer, a diversity skeptic turned admirer, chronicles how diversity became a foundational value of higher education over the last two hundred years, how it evolved as it was adopted in commerce and science, and the implications of the current backlash.The diversity principlea "e;the idea that people with different backgrounds, experiences, identities, and viewpoints produce better work by engaging with one anothera "e;was a core tenet of the first modern research university, founded in Germany in 1810. It was the inspiration for John Stuart Mills On Liberty, a touchstone of academic freedom; a hallmark of Charles Eliots remaking of Harvard in the late nineteenth century to promote the a clash of ideasa ?; and a foundation of the twentieth century efforts toward equality of Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Pauli Murray. In telling the story of the diversity principle through the experiences of these and other remarkable thinkers, Oppenheimer argues for affirming diversity as a central value of education and an essential ingredient for a robust intellectual and political culture.