ABSTRACT
The ‘new racism’ became an issue in America in the mid-1980s. Responses at universities drew public comment. Indeed comment on such matters as curriculum change and speech codes outweighed that on events provoking these and general patterns informing them (e.g. Economist 10 Feb. 1990, Esquire Nov. 1990, Los Angeles Times 12 Feb. 1991). Yet discussing the issues at the colleges themselves is difficult. The rhetoric of ‘anti-racism’ is such that to question it is to lay oneself open to the charge of being racist; to question such tags as ‘diversity’ or ‘multiculturalism’ is to risk being thought an appalling bigot and perhaps to be marginalized in institutions that promote the terms.1
