One of my least favorite terms in our vernacular is "politically correct." I wince when people say that environmental sustainability and diversity are "so PC." (I haven't heard such a statement at High Meadows, by the way.) Such a perspective reduces these important themes to things that we HAVE to discuss because not doing so would create displeasure among people we do not want to offend. It implies that there is a political agenda behind the promotion of environmental stewardship and diversity.
Over the past decade, environmental sustainability has, for the most part, earned greater mainstream respect as an issue that goes well beyond politics. Unfortunately, I don't think diversity has. Large-scale efforts to understand and support diversity often fall short of their goals. Corporate (and sometimes school) diversity "trainings" often only scratch the surface and leave many participants feeling half-empty and resentful that time has been stolen from productivity. The focus on learning "sensitivity" has been widely lampooned--I recall an episode of "The Office" in which the manager takes it upon his ignorant self to train people in diversity, to predictably disastrous (and, I must admit, hilarious) results. It's so misguided that it's funny.
It's not that I don't respect the heart behind such approaches, it's just that they're not authentic. They do not resonate because they are artificial, forced, and feel imposed from the top down. Such approaches inadvertently create the feeling that diversity is about politics. About being "PC." About walking on eggshells around people so as not to offend.
The active support of diversity is not a political issue; it is a human issue. Put simply, diversity creates strength in any community. In his book Diversity and Complexity, Scott E. Page writes, "In complex adaptive systems, such as an economy or a tropical ecosystem, diversity makes fundamental contributions to system performance." To translate from Princetonese, diversity is critical to making any complex system--a corporation, a school or a society--strong and enduring. Human diversity is no different. The Co-Intelligence Institute has this to say about human diversity: "To the extent that people's differences ARE recognized and truly heard or seen, they become contributions to the co-evolution of new insights, solutions, activities, experiences, possibilities and relationships that enrich a group or community and move it ahead to a fuller realization of the best that it could be."
That's why we embrace diversity at High Meadows, and why we expanded our guiding principles to define the importance of doing so. Our Statement on Diversity underscores the importance of "moving beyond simple tolerance." "Tolerance" implies that if we can just deal with each other, things will be fine. That's not enough. Our students need to know that understanding, embracing, supporting, and promoting diversity makes all of us stronger. And that strength profoundly impacts their interaction with--and enrichment of--any system, be it the cross country team or a Fortune 500 company. And who among us, regardless of our political beliefs, does not want that for our children?
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