ABSTRACT
The word "diversity", which echoes in every campus debate about affirmative action nowadays, joins ambiguity to ubiquity. This chapter explores an educational/epistemic value of perspective-diversity. The educational/epistemic argument for diversity is not wrongheaded or unpersuasive. It certainly might sometimes justify the university taking race and gender into account in selecting students and faculty. Diversity, however construed, does not require proportionality, often regarded as a hallmark of affirmative action policies, or even the significant representation of any particular minority group. The diversity rationale appeals to generalizations about the strength and influence of group loyalties, or about the degree of fellow feeling and understanding between group members. In practice, the commitment to diversity may degenerate into an interest in the exotic. Moreover, those minority students who have led lives of inclusion and privilege may resent the expectation, however innocent, that they have unusual tribulations to share.
