David Friedman has some thoughts on diversity:
Imagine that a university department has an opening and is down to two or three well qualified candidates. They learn that one of them is an articulate supporter of South African Apartheid. Does the chance of hiring him go up or down? If the university is actually committed to intellectual diversity, the chance should go up—it is, after all, a position that neither faculty nor students are likely to have been exposed to. In fact, in any university I am familiar with, it would go sharply down.
What’s most interesting about this is that if you’re looking for real intellectual diversity, you have to seek out opponents of “diversity.” It’s the supporters of diversity that demand uniformity of thought.
Friedman’s post pairs nicely with this gem from Yglesias. Yglesias is trying to explain away the fact that writers at Slate are less politically diverse than voters in rigged elections in authoritarian countries.
Fear not, gentle reader. There is much diversity nonetheless:
Is Obama’s manufacturing boosterism is a good idea? I say no. Do municipalities over-regulate food trucks? I say yes. Would single-payer health care lead to catastrophically low incomes for American doctors? I say no. Should we try to reduce the level of online copyright infringement to zero? I say no. Do we need more expansionary monetary policy? I say yes.
I’m willing to wager that the opinions on these topics are as skewed as those on Presidential politics. Nevertheless, such is the best defense of diversity of thought in The Cathedral.
