http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/opinion/29ROTH.html
"Moreover, diversity fails to deliver even when all else is equal. When we controlled for other demographic and institutional factors like the respondent's race, gender, economic background and religion, or an institution's public or private status, selectivity and whether it offers an ethnic or racial studies program, the results were surprising. A higher level of diversity is associated with somewhat less educational satisfaction and worse race relations among students."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2519545,00.html
"The 21st century reality is that you want your students to be exposed to the best thinking from around the world,'' Bristow said. ``You also want your students to have faculty members from different backgrounds.''

I made a similar comment about Mark Klieman's post. (March 25th.) Results derived from purely logical mechanisms do no more than reflect the data put into them. In statistics, as they say, if shit goes in shit comes out. So now we know there's less racial tension on a segregated campus. I am impressed.

I grew up in a largely segregated city in a predominately black and lower middle class section of an integrated neighborhood. I was one of only 2 white kids of my age on the surrounding blocks. Most of the families had less money than my parents did, and there was a good deal of poverty. What this means is that I did not grow up nervous around blacks, I grew up nervous about what my neighbors were nervous about: working class whites. Its always amused me how Alterman is constantly trying to make his bones with the working class machismo that terrified me, and my brother, when we were young. I don't want to think about what my childhood would have been like if I had grown up closer to it then I did.
I know what many black men see when they look at a white cop. I grew up knowing it.