Opinion Board | Defenseless Diversity

Diversity as an abstract value is one thing. Emphasizing it at the expense of merit is quite another.

Last month, the School of Engineering and Applied Science touted its recruitment of three female professors. Engineering Dean Eduardo Glandt even boasted that having "three female faculty is a record in our history," and said that he hoped "to sustain this in the future."

That's a troubling attitude.

These professors, along with many other minority faculty members, aren't here (hopefully) because they were the right gender or race. They're here because they are talented, passionate academic leaders in their fields.

And when the University pays too much attention to the minority status of faculty members, it marginalizes their accomplishments as individuals.

Unfortunately, Penn isn't alone in this regard. The tendency reflects a long-standing trend among many institutions of higher education, where administrators overemphasize gender or race during the faculty-recruitment process.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the University of Oregon spent nearly $500,000 per year to compensate departments for recruiting minority faculty members. Departments could receive the funds only if they used them to specifically recruit members from underrepresented groups.

Penn might not have gone this far yet, but openly bragging about the recruitment of minority faculty sets a dangerous precedent. If universities are truly concerned about promoting an equal society, they need to realize that the color or gender of a faculty member doesn't make that person more valuable to students. Instead, it's that person's merits that matter most.

Women and minority faculty are perfectly capable of attaining professorships and top-level positions at universities without misguided efforts to incentivize their hiring. To imply otherwise is simply insulting.

Editorial | Follow Up

Last Thursday, we asked high-level administrators to respond to rising crime and the recent sexual assault near campus. To their credit, it didn't take them long. Amy Gutmann, Ron Daniels and Craig Carnaroli sent out an University-wide e-mail that night acknowledging the incident and outlining new safety measures. We hope this marks the beginning of a trend of open communication from our top administrators.

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