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The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture
by
By the national bestselling author of The War on Cops a provocative account of the erosion of humanities and the rise of intolerance
America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton? Oppre ...more
America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton? Oppre ...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
September 4th 2018
by St. Martin's Press
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Sometimes hysterical, openly biased, often dripping with scorn and irony, this is still a fair take on today's academic holy grail, racial and gender equity.
Mac Donald's thesis is diametrically opposed to the ways I have been taught to understand diversity, so when I began reading I was both curious and apprehensive ... curious about her data, worried about her attitude. The author carefully refrains from political name-calling (I don't recall seeing the word "liberal" used once with its politic ...more
Mac Donald's thesis is diametrically opposed to the ways I have been taught to understand diversity, so when I began reading I was both curious and apprehensive ... curious about her data, worried about her attitude. The author carefully refrains from political name-calling (I don't recall seeing the word "liberal" used once with its politic ...more
We Chinese can spot a Cultural Revolution when we see one. This disease must be contained.
Beyond me to describe this author's experiences and her pure bravery taking on the current "we think" of the title subjects.
How these faculty and supposedly wise elite university administrations and assorted tenured "teachers" prime these people with such ire, mean-spirited and in some cases sadistic self-hate identity issues as core of an education for a "better" life? Beyond despicable!
Her witness and empirical data both are probably the most depressive non-fiction I've read this year. And I ...more
How these faculty and supposedly wise elite university administrations and assorted tenured "teachers" prime these people with such ire, mean-spirited and in some cases sadistic self-hate identity issues as core of an education for a "better" life? Beyond despicable!
Her witness and empirical data both are probably the most depressive non-fiction I've read this year. And I ...more
I will quote a previous review that I thought embodied my thought
"Sometimes hysterical, openly biased, often dripping with scorn and irony, this is a unique take on today's academic system, racial and gender equity."
This book holds so many strawman arguments, you would think this author had already had a conclusion from the outset of doing her research for her book. She seems to pick the most fringe and most unpopular view and claims it as the mainstream of most colleges.
It is really surreal.
"Sometimes hysterical, openly biased, often dripping with scorn and irony, this is a unique take on today's academic system, racial and gender equity."
This book holds so many strawman arguments, you would think this author had already had a conclusion from the outset of doing her research for her book. She seems to pick the most fringe and most unpopular view and claims it as the mainstream of most colleges.
It is really surreal.
Folly and delusion are a common feature in the fall of civilizations. In order to ameliorate the sense of sadness that ensues from reading this book, a learned reader may want to find solace in conjuring historical analogs to this decadence: the Cultural Revolution in China, the subprime mortgage crisis, etc. etc. etc. Things can go bad, very bad, and then sometimes, things get better. When will the decay in higher educations reach its nadir? The book makes no forecast. The book is not for the f
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Amazing, wonderful, a breath of fresh air, I'm not sure I'll be able to find enough superlatives to express my enjoyment of this book. My only regret with the work is that while the Western canon of literature is certainly a better foundation than anything anyone's come up within the last 100 years, it's sand compared to the Bible, but the canon is of course downstream from the Biblical headwaters.
I decided to read this book thinking it was going to be an unbiased look at where our country has gone wrong in trying to diversify our schools, workplaces, government, and other areas. What I read instead was an individuals personal perspective, from a pro-Trump, white supremacy view of why they think everyone is trying to take from whites and not have to contribute. In the final chapters she blatantly states that there are no racists professors on college campuses. She also says many times tha
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An important rebuttal to the Social Justice Warrior hysteria.
My bias: I think racial/gender equality are important. I also think the Left doesn't approach it rationally. I'd put myself on the Left on many social issues, but I do not agree with Leftist politics/strategy.
MacDonald makes some good points, but this book ultimately read like a 300 page rant. In other words, it's preaching to the choir.
What MacDonald got consistently right is that the Left is deeply delusional when they state that a ...more
My bias: I think racial/gender equality are important. I also think the Left doesn't approach it rationally. I'd put myself on the Left on many social issues, but I do not agree with Leftist politics/strategy.
MacDonald makes some good points, but this book ultimately read like a 300 page rant. In other words, it's preaching to the choir.
What MacDonald got consistently right is that the Left is deeply delusional when they state that a ...more
Eye-opening yet depressing read about the dire state of American universities — particularly the humanities. The classical educational model (which has produced some of our greatest achievements and thinkers) is being tossed out like so much garbage in favor of generating a body of race- and gender-obsessed warriors. Academic standards are lowered in service of this approach; efforts to teach the classical canon are met with screeching hordes of infantile students claiming they will “LIKE, LITER
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This was a great book. And published in 2018 so current. It really is shocking and disappointing how major colleges (including my own alma mater UCLA) have given over their curriculum to identity politics and given up on western civilization as racist and unworthy of study. She makes a pretty bold point that the lowering of admission standards in order to diversify the student body has hurt the people they are trying to help by not setting them up for success.
It's important to read this well-ci ...more
It's important to read this well-ci ...more
If you are not a fan of political correctness you will love this book. Heather MacDonald takes it all on—full frontal! And she does so with an abundance of research and data that can’t be just swept aside.
Her primary targets are the bastions of secondary education. She writes, “…the characteristic academic traits of our time: narcissism, an obsession with victimhood, and a relentless determination to reduce the stunning complexity of the past to the shallow categories of identity and class poli ...more
Her primary targets are the bastions of secondary education. She writes, “…the characteristic academic traits of our time: narcissism, an obsession with victimhood, and a relentless determination to reduce the stunning complexity of the past to the shallow categories of identity and class poli ...more
A good look at how the belief in diversity is not what it purports to be, especially on campuses and inside organizations. Students equate nonconforming ideas with hate speech. Safe spaces imply that some places on college aren’t safe. This is soft totalitarianism. Mac Donald places a lot of the blame on faculty and administrators on campuses. When speakers need police escort on and off campuses, alarm bell should be going off. If the right blocked Elizabeth Warren from speaking on campus, they’
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Heather MacDonald has written a great book. It is difficult to read for a man of my age (64) because the state of education today is a sorry substitute for the education that I was able to enjoy. The book is a sobering reminder that we are in for a very rough ride in the future.
what a trash book written by a trash person. white people and white women need to stop with their feigned victimization and white tears and stop upholding white supremacy.
A sheltered white man enters his first year of college. Having grown up in a culture where his beliefs about white male superiority are never questioned, the white man is shocked and horrified when an academic and/or fellow student challenges his views with facts and data. In response, the white man throws a veritable temper tantrum, running around screaming that universities are mean to him. Using his cultural power as a white man, he succeeds in getting professors fired and students expelled f
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I was disappointed. I do believe one should read works that oppose their views. I read this for class and was throughly intrigued. I am going to point certain points in a straight forward way
-I do believe she made some valid arguments but they were weak in her light citations which made much of her statements seem like assumptions and speculations. She never cited Mary Koch's research and even alters the study's data to prove her point.
-Many reviews claimed she didn't do politically correctionne ...more
-I do believe she made some valid arguments but they were weak in her light citations which made much of her statements seem like assumptions and speculations. She never cited Mary Koch's research and even alters the study's data to prove her point.
-Many reviews claimed she didn't do politically correctionne ...more
A gut punch of reality. It’s hard to not get frustrated reading of what has happened to our education system. The author discusses diversity indoctrination and numerous agendas at work to control the universities. To me, her examples of actual events highlight the hypocrisy of the Diversity cabal and their attempts to rewrite history and culture.
What are we to make of today’s university culture where students may not be subjected to spoken or written words that make them feel uncomfortable, where diversity is achieved by abolishing objective standards not just in the social sciences but in the STEM fields as well, and where the diversity bureaucracy is actively undermining the centuries-old mission of higher education. That is a big subject, but in The Diversity Delusion Heather Mac Donald breaks it down into its constituent parts and e
...more
I have taught in universities since 1987. First as a PhD student at a large flagship state school, then at a premier HBCU while finishing my PhD, then at a small campus of the SUNY system (tenured), and now as an associate professor at another campus of a state-affiliated system. What is in her book is true. Period.
Experiences vary at different schools, and at different departments within schools. If you're teaching at a smaller state school you won't see as much of the worst of what's described ...more
Experiences vary at different schools, and at different departments within schools. If you're teaching at a smaller state school you won't see as much of the worst of what's described ...more
What a delight —Sort of
The book is a delight as is all that MacDonald writes. The reservation is the content. To read what is happening in the US (as an ex-pat for 27 years) is dispiriting. It is worth the wait as is awaiting her next article or book.
The book is a delight as is all that MacDonald writes. The reservation is the content. To read what is happening in the US (as an ex-pat for 27 years) is dispiriting. It is worth the wait as is awaiting her next article or book.
Oct 27, 2018
♠️ TABI ♠️
marked it as to-read
idk I just like reading controversial things
A well researched survey of these timely issues written in her penetrating and accessible prose.
Apr 23, 2019
Owlseyes inside Notre Dame, it's so strange a 15-hour blaze and...
marked it as to-read
Whooo! She had a lot to listen to. She'd been called a "fascist", a "white supremacist", a "warhawk", a "transphobe", a "queerphobe", a "classist" and an "ignorant" (regarding "domination" systems).
That's America College 2019.
The lawsuit accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian Americans made me curious about affirmative action and race-based preferences in academia and hiring. I always felt it was unfair, but couldn't quantify my feelings. Diversity initiatives are expensive and unnecessary bureaucracies in schools and workplaces. Evidence and facts trumps emotions people may have on this subject. I highly recommend Ms. Heather Mac Donald's book to better understand how these programs don't work.
https://cato ...more
https://cato ...more
This is a must read book if you want to understand what is happening to the university campuses of the United States and ultimately the culture.
Excellently researched and referenced this book should have a devastating effect on the current culture of education if only it can reach those who most need it. Unfortunately the gatekeepers are armed with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in order to protect their patch so it will be a challenge.
Excellently researched and referenced this book should have a devastating effect on the current culture of education if only it can reach those who most need it. Unfortunately the gatekeepers are armed with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in order to protect their patch so it will be a challenge.
A very important book ripping off the covers of Political Correctness. Heather describes in depressing detail the collapse and economic ruin of the University of California education system. UC has completely lost its way as they worry about Identity Politics and a victim under every rock syndrome. UC spends CA and federal tax dollars like a bunch of drunken sailors (no offense to drunken sailors).
Diversity Delusion is a straightforward polemic, as revealed in the title, and not just a polemic, but one which cannot avoid treating opposing arguments with unrestrained snark and belittling. Of course, there are plenty of voices on the opposite spectrum engaged in the same behavior. Both presentations, however, produce more alienation than truth and subvert the bonds of civility.
Sep 03, 2018
Jeremy
marked it as to-read
Stunning.
Jan 18, 2019
Molly
added it
No stars, because it’s trash.
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“The academic obsession with identity is ironic, since its roots lie in a philosophy that denied the very existence of the self. In the 1970s, the literary theory of deconstruction took over humanities departments with a curious set of propositions about language. Because linguistic signs were arbitrary, successful communication was said to be impossible. Most surprisingly, the human subject was declared to be a fiction, a mere play of rhetorical tropes. In the 1980s, however, the self came roaring back with a vengeance as feminists and race theorists took the mannered jargon of deconstruction and turned it into a political weapon. The key deconstructive concept of linguistic “différance” became identity difference between the oppressed and their oppressors; the prime object of study became one’s own self and its victimization”
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“Diversity” in the academy purported to be about bridge-building and broadening people’s experiences. It has had the opposite effect: dividing society, reducing learning, and creating an oppositional mind-set that prevents individuals from seizing the opportunities available to them. It is humanistic learning, by contrast, that involves an actual encounter with diversity and difference, as students enter worlds radically different from their own. Humanistic study involves imaginative empathy and curiosity, which are being squelched in today’s university in favor of self-engrossed complaint. Teaching the classics is the duty we owe these great works for giving us an experience of the sublime. Once we stop lovingly transmitting them to the next generation, they die. For decades, universities have drifted further and further away from their true purpose. Now they are taking the rest of the world with them.”
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