Diversity is More Than Non-Discrimination: Groupthink in Higher Education

(Excerpt) In this Article, we seek to advance three claims. First, intellectual diversity is an essential bulwark against groupthink. Second, conflating intellectual diversity and non-discrimination undermines both concepts. Third, intellectual diversity should be pursued for its own sake and recognized as a separate and important goal of higher education.

We begin by sharing a set of definitions to identify the problem more precisely. Next, we examine the stakes of groupthink setting in. Then, we will introduce some of FIRE’s research on campus climate, which suggests the presence of an existing monoculture. Through the lens of a case study at Harvard University, we illustrate how conflating intellectual diversity and non-discrimination makes the former invisible and the latter weaker.

Finally, we will consider what an institution might do differently to support intellectual diversity without retreating from non-discrimination efforts (or any other form of diversity, for that matter).