In response to my post on the Justice Department's filing against Southern Illinois' race-based scholarship programs, blogger Jason Hinds adds a quote from SIU history professor Jonathan Bean. Bean wrote Hinds:

Actually, they missed the worst program of all, the so-called "cradle-to-grave" affirmative action program DFI (Diversifying Faculty in Illinois). This program pays members of certain racial groups--including Asians who are triply OVERREPRESENTED as faculty--to go to graduate school (plus $17,000 stipend) and they pay back by taking a tenure-track job at one of 34 institutions, including private colleges in Illinois (e.g., Northwestern). This program is different because, at SIUC's behest (I am told), the state legislature established it in 1985.
...[I]t's not just "anti-white," as the Sun Times implies. No "whites," no people from North Africa, no Middle Easterners, and no people from certain Asian countries need apply. However, if you were born in Latin America to a white businessman who works for a multinational -- bingo! You are "Hispanic." Defining race and distributing benefits on this basis is not only wrong and illegal, it often violates common sense (as the case of the Asians shows). When I challenged, in writing, the inclusion of Asians in the DFI program, I was later told by an administrator that, yes, they are triply overrepresented overall but still underrepresented in areas like English literature! What this means is they will never admit success: once a group is "in," it is in FOREVER.

Or, as someone noted in our piece on Professor Davis on Monday, some people of the same color are non-diverse while others are.
Categories: higher_ed