Destroying Unity for Diversity
PUBLIUS
The so-called “diversity initiative” seems to be temporarily stalled while the current Clemson administration works to weigh the demands of some 80 students, faculty and staff – generously counted – opposite nearly 6,000 who want to keep Tillman Hall with its original name.
The multiculturalists will not quit after this quarrel.
They demand more “diversity in hiring,” the construction of a new multi-cultural center as a “safe place” (presumably from some type of discrimination), and more funding for so-called “under-represented” groups (internationals, students of color, LGBTQA, etc.).
These requests are unmerited, and should be denied.
Multiculturalism is a movement to dress everything academic in “racist,” “homophobic” and “patriarchal” clothes. Under the guise of “differences” they want to reform the campus into a hodge-podge of groups who don’t have any contact with one another. This balkanization of Clemson, and its curriculum, is the exact opposite of historical liberal individualism, personal values and freedom that have been at the core of the American, and the Clemson, ideal.
Cultural diversity is little more than a screen to tear down allegiance to shared values and campus unity. The effect of multiculturalism is always the same: it hinders assimilation of students on campus, and unfairly labels people into ethnic, sexual and class groups. It replaces learning with “empowerment,” and recasts ideas into a dogma of victims.
Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I and Margaret Thatcher seemed to have been fine without a “women’s leadership” curriculum; why do we need one? The “concerned students” never seem to recall the heroic stand taken by the Clemson Board of Trustees in 1962 to integrate the university, after disastrous racial incidents at Ole Miss and the University of Alabama brought national scorn. What of that first African-American graduate from Clemson? Harvey Gantt became a successful businessman, mayor of Charlotte, N.C. and candidate for governor.
Governor Ben Tillman’s well-known racial prejudices cannot erase the fact the he was the governor who granted the charter to Clemson University in 1889. Should we bulldoze the campus, including John C. Calhoun’s house, dig up Thomas Green Clemson in Pendleton because he is buried in a cemetery with a Confederate general, and demolish Hardin Hall just to right the whims and preferences of a group bringing political pressure?
If Clemson, and South Carolina, are so racist, then why was this state the first to elect an African-American to the United States Senate in 124 years? Tim Scott was the top vote-getter in the 2014 general election, but that fact escapes the “concerned students” because he was a conservative Republican. They are only interested in an academically prejudiced and unwholesome agenda that should fall on a tin ear because it doesn’t fit the facts. The current Clemson administration should not appease these “politically correct” requests based on pressure and misinformation.
If these concerned students really want to help Clemson, they should support the construction of a new building named for Jeff Duncan, the first graduate of the university to represent it in the U.S. House of Representatives. Or maybe, they would join in supporting a study building named for Tim Scott, for the reasons mentioned above.
Minority identification, separation and isolation are not the way to reconciliation, not the way to a “One Clemson;” they only make the alienation worse. President Clements in his letter talks about “family” and “being connected.” By accommodating this initiative Clemson has begun a course of tearing down what is precious in our moral and political landscape. The administration would do well to remember William Butler Yeats, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” by multiculturalism.
