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31 J.C. & U.L. 417 (2004-2005)
Attacking Diversity: A Review of Peter Wood's Diversity: The Invention of a Concept

handle is hein.journals/jcolunly31 and id is 447 raw text is: ATTACKING DIVERSITY: A REVIEW OF PETER WOOD'S DIVERSITY. THE INVENTION OF A CONCEPT ROGER CLEGG* The word diversity is ubiquitous these days, especially in academia. Peter Wood, a professor of anthropology at Boston University, has written an invaluable book, Diversity: The Invention of a Concept,' that explores the rise of the concept and, one hopes, will hasten its demise. There is, I must quickly add, nothing wrong with diversity per se, meaning a variety of people, with different skin colors and national origins, outlooks, and experiences. The trouble is that, whenever one hears the term, it is almost certainly because the speaker has an agenda that favors racial and ethnic discrimination in order to achieve a particular and predetermined demographic mix, while opposing merit and assimilation to American culture.2 This brief review is divided into three parts. Part I summarizes and discusses Wood's book, with particular emphasis on its treatment of the Supreme Court's Bakke decision;3 part II adds some additional criticisms of the diversity agenda; and part III discusses how the Supreme Court's recent acceptance of the diversity rationale as compelling might be attacked in future litigation. I. REVIEW OF PETER WOOD'S DIVERSITY: THE INVENTION OF A CONCEPT Peter Wood begins his book by discussing Martin Luther King's repeated declaration that all people are tied together in a single garment of destiny, which Wood finds to be a striking image of human unity.'4 It is, however, to be contrasted with the current concept of diversity, which, Wood says, bids us think of America not as a single garment, but as divided into separate groups-on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex, for starters-some of which have historically enjoyed privileges that have been denied the others.'5 Moreover, the concept is more than a propensity to dwell on the separate threads that make up the social * Vice president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. J.D., Yale University, 1981; B.A., Rice University, 1977. Portions of Part III of this essay were drawn from an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court in the University of Michigan cases and cowritten by the author with C. Mark Pickrell. 1. Peter Wood, DIVERSITY: THE INVENTION OF A CONCEPT (2003). 2. See Roger Clegg, Why I'm Sick of the Praise for Diversity on Campuses, CHRON. HIGHER EDUC., July 14, 2000, at B8. 3. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978). 4. WOOD, supra note 1, at 3. 5. Id. at5.

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