| Summary |
We've heard plenty from politicians and experts on affirmative action and higher education, about how universities should intervene if at all to ensure a diverse but deserving student population. But what about those for whom these issues matter the most? In this book, Natasha K. Warikoo deeply explores how students themselves think about merit and race at a uniquely pivotal moment: after they have just won the most competitive game of their lives and gained admittance to one of the world's top universities. What Warikoo uncovers talking with both white students and students of color at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford is absolutely illuminating; and some of it is positively shocking. As she shows, many elite white students understand the value of diversity abstractly, but they ignore the real problems that racial inequality causes and that diversity programs are meant to solve. They stand in fear of being labeled a racist, but they are quick to call foul should a diversity program appear at all to hamper their own chances for advancement. The most troubling result of this ambivalence is what she calls the "diversity bargain," in which white students reluctantly agree with affirmative action as long as it benefits them by providing a diverse learning environment racial diversity, in this way, is a commodity, a selling point on a brochure. |
