Academic Diversity Issues

(See also IT and Ethnic, Gender, and Other Minority Populations)

General Resources
Affirmative Action on Campus
Multiculturalism and the "Culture Wars"
"Globalism" and the Academy
The "Canon" Debate

= More Info (see policy on "more info" links)

General Resources

• Affirmative Action and Diversity: A Web Page for Research (large, well-organized set of pages with links and info designed to present "diverse opinions regarding Affirmative Action topics. The site also houses policy documents and an annotated bibliography of research and teaching materials") (Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, U. California, Santa Barbara)
• CLNet Diversity Page (U. California)
• Diversity Web ("links Colleges and Universities that are working to engage the diversity of United States society in educational mission, campus climate, curriculum focus and connections with the larger society") (Assoc. of American Colleges and Universities / U. Maryland) | General Diversity Resources
• Dinesh D'Souza, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (New York: Free Press / Macmillan, 1991)

Affirmative Action on Campus

• Affirmative Action and Diversity: A Web Site for Research (large, well-organized set of pages with links and info designed to present "diverse opinions regarding Affirmative Action topics. The site also houses policy documents and an annotated bibliography of research and teaching materials") (Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, U. California, Santa Barbara)
• Amy Allina, Beyond Standardized Tests : Admissions Alternatives that Work (Cambridge, MA: Fair Test, 1987)
• Hillel Black, The Truth About College Entrance Exams and Other Standardized Tests (New York: Hart, 1963)
• Michael J. Bugeja, Academic Socialism: Merit and Morale in Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: Orchises, 1994)
• Steven M. Cahn
  1. ed., Affirmative Action and the University: A Philosophical Inquiry (Philadelphia, PA: Temple Univ. Press, 1993)
  2. ed., The Affirmative Action Debate (New York: Routledge, 1995)
• Diversity Web
  1. Affirmative Action
  2. Institutional Diversity Initiatives
• David F. Labaree, How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The Credentials of Race in American Education (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1997)
• "Making Education Work for Mäori" (Adobe Acrobat files) (Ministry of Education, New Zealand)
• Karen J. Maschke, ed., Educational Equity (New York: Garland, 1997)
• David McCallum, The Social Production of Merit: Education, Psychology, and Politics in Australia, 1900-1950 (London /New York: Falmer, 1990)
• Minority Affairs Forum (information and resources on immigration, affirmative action, and race relations) (Norm Matloff, UC Davis)
• Jeanne Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1985)
• Felix M. Padilla, The Struggle of Latino/a University Students (New York: Routledge, 1997)
• Representations 55 (Summer 1996): Special Issue on "Race and Representation: Affirmative Action" (includes excerpts from the articles)
• Univ. of California Decisions (Affirmative Action and Diversity Page)
• Women in Higher Education (monthly newsletter)

Multiculturalism and the "Culture Wars"

• Eliese Sherman Abram & Marcela Grosner (U. Toronto), "Multiculturalism and Education" (1996) ("Part one reviews Ontario Government documents regarding Curriculum, Technology, and Multicultural and Antiracist Education Guidelines. . . . Part two examines Web sites suitable for utilization in a course of study that might require multicultural resources")
• C.L. Barney Dews and Carolyn Leste Law, ed., This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class (Philadelphia, PA: Temple Univ. Press, 1995)
• Paul Berman, ed., Debating P.C.: The Controversy over Political Correctness on College Campuses (New York: Dell, 1992)
• Daniel Brandt, "Multiculturalism and the Ruling Elite" (1993) ("Opportunity is rapidly vanishing, poorly masked by an institutionalized preference for diversity. Leftist academics in ivory towers are hooked on designer victimology but fail to notice the real victims -- the entire next generation. Meanwhile the rich get richer. Have a nice New World Order") (NameBase NewsLine)
• Broad Minds Collective, Ourselves as Students: Multicultural Voices in the Classroom (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1996)
• Chronicle of Higher Education, "An Artist Unexpectedly Finds Herself Transformed Into a Technology Advocate", June 12, 1998: A23 ("Va. Tech's Lucinda Roy pushes to insure minority students aren't left out of the computer revolution") (online version for Chronicle subscribers only)
• Culture and Affirmative Action (Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, U. California, Santa Barbara)
• Diversity Dictionary ("guide to specific uses of terms used within the diversity community") (Diversity Web)
• "The Economy and Its Impact on the Religious Right" ("multiculturalism is a genuine phenomenon in the New Communities. . . . this multiculturalism can be attributed to some degree to the liberal [and 'politically correct'] university educations most residents have received. But there seems to be a broader, more fundamental process at work here: to put it crassly, money! Participation in the economic process . . . demands a multicultural ethic. Why? . . . the multinational corporation") (Institute for the Study of Religion in Politics)
• Electronic Resources for Ethnic Studies (Ethnic Studies, USC)
• Ethnic World Survey (links to ethnic, native, and national resources around the world) (CIEMEN)
  1. Africa
  2. Americas
  3. Asia
  4. Europe
  5. Oceania
• Geneva Gay (U. Washington, Seattle), "A Synthesis of Scholarship in Multicultural Education" (overview essay) (Mining Company)
• Todd Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars (New York: Henry Holt, 1995) (esp. Chap. 5, "Marching on the English Department While the Right Took the White House")
• Nathan Glazer, We Are All Multiculturalists Now (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1997)
• David Theo Goldberg ed., Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (Cambridge, Mass., and Oxford: Blackwell, 1994)
• Avery F. Gordon and Christopher Newfield, ed., Mapping Multiculturalism (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1996)
• Christian Gregory (U. Florida), "The Future of an Illusion" (1998) (Workplace)
• Gregory S. Jay, American Literature and the Culture Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1997)
• Alvin Kernan, ed., What's Happened to the Humanities? (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997) | Preannouncement by Kernan: "A New Volume of Essays: Changes in the Humanities since World War II"
• Lawrence W. Levine, The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History (Boston: Beacon, 1996)
• "The Many Voices of Diversity" (1992) (report of the Librarians Association of the Univ. of California whose premise is "that in order for the University to maintain its eminent position as a global research institution it must strengthen its collections and services which deal with under-represented groups within California")
• Peter McLaren, ed., Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millennium (Boulder, Colorado: Westview / HarperCollins, 1997)
• Meaghan Morris (U. of Technology, Sydney), "Sticks & Stones & Stereotypes" (1997) (Morris on political correctness) (Australian Humanities Review)
• Multicultural Education (Mining Company)
• Multicultural Resources (Multicultural and International Center, La Salle U.)
  1. Multiculturalism in Higher Education Bibliography (annotated)
  2. Multiculturalism & Curriculum Development (annotated)
  3. Multiculturalism Theory Bibliography (annotated)
• Multiculturalism and Disability: A Collection of Resources and Issues (includes annotated bibliography) (Susan O'Connor, Syracuse U.)
• National Association of Scholars (NAS) (pro-canon, anti-political-correctness, anti-theory professional organization of literary scholars; "the only academic organization dedicated to the restoration of intellectual substance, individual merit, and academic freedom in the university")
• Cary Nelson, Manifesto of a Tenured Radical (New York and London: New York Univ. Press, 1997)
• Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1997)
• Standards: An International Journal of Multicultural Studies | Issue on Education (1997)
• Bruce Robbins, "Othering the Academy: Professionalism and Multiculturalism," Social Research 58 (1991):355-72
• Kevin Lee Thomason, J.D., "The Binary Split: Race and Technology at the End of the 20th Century" ("how recent advances in information technology will affect this already divided country") (Seamless Website)
• Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, "Multiculturalism Can Be Taught Only by Multicultural People," Phi Delta Kappan 71 (1990): 610-11
• David C. Troy, "The Limits of Multiculturalism Establishing Standards for Cultural Exchange and Human Rights" (1995)
• U. Maryland Diversity Database ("comprehensive resource index of multicultural and cultural diversity resources")
• Web Resources for Multiculturalism in Education (TIPS: Teacher's Internet Pages)
• John Wilson, The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1995)
• Peter Lamborn Wilson, "Against Multiculturalism" ("Let there be no mistake: multiculturalism is a strategy designed to save "America" as an idea, and as a system of social control")

"Globalism" and the Academy

• Martha Nussbaum, "Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism" (1996) (Boston Review)

The "Canon" Debate

• African American Cultural Literacy (gravity)
• Harold Bloom (Yale U.)
  1. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (New York: Riverhead, 1994)
     • The Western Canon, by Harold Bloom (publisher's info page about the book; includes b/w version of the cover with Raphael's School of Athens and a small set of hyperlinked quotations) (Riverhead Books)
     • Marion Long, Interview with Harold Bloom: A Western Canon, Jr. ("Recently, Bloom shared exclusively with HomeArts his ideas about the authors and books that might form A Western Canon, Jr.--an imagined book about the best of Western literature for children. When we talked with Bloom in his home near the Yale University campus, he showed all the enthusiasm of a child as he spoke about his past and present as a reader") (HomeArts Network, Hearst Corp.)
       • Why Should Children Read?
       • Bloom's Western Canon, Jr.
       • How to Encourage Your Child to Read
• The Canon and the Web (site for a special session at the Modern Language Assoc. convention, Dec. 1996) (Alan Liu, U. California, Santa Barbara, and Laura Mandell, Miami U., Ohio)
• The Concept of Literary Canon: An Overview (Kathryn B. Stockton, U. Utah, and George Landow, Brown U. / Victorian Web)
  • The Literary Canon, Introduction
  • Canon: Dictionary Definitions
  • Feminist Questions about the Literary Canon
  • Feminist Responses to the Idea of a Literary Canon
  • Calling into Question the Concept and Practice of the Literary Canon
  • Inserting Women Writers into the Canon
  • Developing a Counter-Canon
  • Alternative Readings of Canonical (Male) Texts
• Cultural Literacy: Culture as a Field of Contest (quotations from recent critical and theoretical works that bear on the issue of canonicity) (Laura Mandell, Miami U., Ohio)
• Matthew M. Davis (U. Virginia), "The Association of Literary Scholars and Critics" (laudatory info piece on the conservative ALSC, here called a "counterrevolutionary organization" that "would combat this decay, a society that would promote high standards and scholarly research instead of deconstruction and trendy theorizing") | Update on the 1st national (U. S.) conference of the ALSC in 9/95
• David Denby, Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World (description of 1996 book) (Simon & Schuster)
• T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (Project Bartleby)
• Robert M. Fowler (Baldwin-Wallace C., Ohio), "The Fate of the Notion of Canon in the Electronic Age" (1994)
• Great Contemporary Literature (Hatteras: A Journal of Conservative Thought / www.jollyroger.com)
• John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993)
• E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
  1. Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (New York: Vintage, 1988) [orig. pub. 1987]
  2. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Is It? (brief description of the book by Hirsch) (IntelliFinger Reference Engine, Inso Corp.)
• Paul Lauter, Canons and Contexts (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991)
• Alan Liu (U. California, Santa Barbara), "Canon Revision: History, Theory, Practice" (graduate seminar) | Canon Dreaming (online anthologies and courses designed by students)
• Robin Markowitz, "Canonizing the Popular"
• The Master Works of Western Civilization ("hypertext-annotated compilation of lists of major works recommended by Drs. Adler and Eliot, Charles Van Doren, Anthony Burgess, Clifton Fadiman, the Easton Press, and many others"; links to online texts) (Mason West)
• NASSR-L (Discussion List of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism)
  1. Discussion Thread on Recent Romanticism Anthologies & the Canon (Oct. 1995 - Feb. 1996) (Laura Mandell, Miami U., Ohio / Romanticism on the Net)
  2. Discussion Thread on Felicia Hemans, Aesthetics, Sentiment, and the Canon (July 1997) (Romantic Circles)
• Trevor Ross (Dalhousie U.), "The Emergence of 'Literature': Making and Reading the English Canon in the Eighteenth Century" (1996) (ELH; only accessible to institutions subscribing to Project Muse)
• Romantic Circles: Anthologies Page (provides "comprehensive list of all the major anthologies currently available for the study of Romantic literature, tables of content for those anthologies, supplementary anthologies that assist the study of Romantic literature, and errata for various anthologies") (Harriet Linkin, Laura Mandell, Rita Raley) | (see also NASSR-L Discussion of Recent Romanticism Anthologies & the Canon (Oct. 1995 - Feb. 1996))
  • Selected Resources:
  • Major Anthologies of the Romantic Period
  • Discussion of Anthologies
  • The Anthologies and Miscellanies Page (tables of contents of 18th- and 19th-century British literary anthologies, miscellanies, and "beauties" of historical relevance to the canon debate; includes discussion of site philosophy) (Laura Mandell, U. Miami, Ohio / Rita Raley, U. California, Santa Barbara)
  • Romantic Canons: A Bibliography (and an Argument) ("contains an annotated list of critical and theoretical works about the activity of canonizing as it arose during the Romantic Era"; argues in annotations to the bibliography that canonicity as a concept is definitively 'Romantic.' ") (Laura Mandell, Miami U., Ohio)
• The "Rutgers Reading List" (an attempt by a Rutgers professer to remember the shape of the "classic" or "traditional" English literature major by "reconstructing the English comprehensive reading list used at one eastern liberal arts college [Dartmouth] between the 1940s and the mid-1960s, the specific purpose of which was to guide reading for senior comprehensive examinations"; this list has been circulating in "underground" manuscript form among students at various colleges) (William C. Dowling, Rutgers U.)
• The Western Canon ("the purpose of this site is to provide a single location where the Internet community can come and find links to the most important written works of western civilization") (Paul John Barnette, Jr.)
• What Should You Read? Who Says So? ("The list below includes almost 900 recommendations found in a variety of sources identifying 'important' books") (Alexander H. McIntire, Jr., U. Miami)

Special thanks to The Affirmative Action and Diversity Project: A Web Page for Research (Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, with Rita Raley, U. California, Santa Barbara) for some of the citations on this page.