The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture

I was inspired to purchase this book after having come upon a YouTube video in which the author, Heather Mac Donald, detailed some of the ideologically inspired lunacy that was taking place in modern academia. Now, this was not altogether new to me as I had been aware of such madness in universities for more than two years, but the stories she told made me wonder if the academic world was beyond saving, and, by extension, Western culture and civilisation, for this disease has spread way beyond the university campus and infects almost every institution and workplace in the West. In this wonderful book, Heather examines the many false narratives of the left - microaggressions; implicit bias training; campus rape culture - and exposes them to the light of reason. We can only hope that reason wins out...

This is eye-opening. I've always felt as a white male who up until recently identified with purely left-wing ideoligy felt that I can't comprehend race and gender biases and that they must exist to such an extent for so many people in minority groups to feel oppressed, but what if the invisible oppression is merely that? What if it doesn't exist? What are the causes for relative "failure" by minority groups and are we really trying to help them? Are they really trying to help themselves? Can differences in groups be attributed by innate differences in those groups rather than due to direct oppression from the outside Word? Is it time to demolish the idea of groups and celebrate individual responsibility? Have we become so afraid to be racist in today's world that the only safe way to live is be racist enough to identify and favour those groups we don't belong to. I'm only half way through, but already this is something I would have benefitted from 10 years ago when I was trying to understand the supposed oppression we face.

An extremely important and brilliantly written analysis of identity politics and its consequences. Should be prescribed reading in every high school !

Ideally a book like this would provide a balanced, insightful argument about the state of our higher education system, and our society, based on evidence. Instead the book is an ideologically driven polemic from someone whose mind is already made up. Likewise, it seems to be written for people whose minds are already made up, or possibly for people who find the world frightening and confusing and, because of the right wing propaganda, feel that their own lives will become worse if others are respected and given equal rights. They get easy, potentially comforting answers here, but not a lot of compassion, or reality. Don't waste your time.

Until the current obsession with politically correct attitudes, universities stood for knowledge, learning, debate and a deep respect for freedom of speech and civilised debate. Academic courses were disciplines, requiring rigorous thought and open-mindedness. Not all students lived up to these lofty ideals, but all but a small minority respected them. Intellectual curiosity and humility were the great virtues. Our heritage from the 18th century enlightenment in particular was cherished. As Heather Mac Donald demonstrates in this persuasive study, for decades now these treasures of civilisation are in the process of increasing subversion.In her incisive introduction the author reveals the enemies of all that has sustained us for hundreds of years. Essentially, they are identity and diversity politics, victimology and above all violent attempts to shut down free speech. In the pages that follow, she expands on these crucial issues via extensive research and trenchant argument. Instead of an openness before life, we have increasingly insularity, self-pity and intolerance. If we are not already alive to the key issues, we learn in the body of this fine argument the ways in which universities have kowtowed to the bullies.New courses have mushroomed, almost all around the themes of race, ethnicity and gender. Students, who were once expected to be resilient are now such sensitive beings that they require warnings that the content of books prescribed for study might touch upon their tender vulnerability to offence. The great works of literature from Chaucer, through Shakespeare to Milton, Pope, Wordsworth and onwards are no longer considered to be suitable, since they incorporate the values of white, male-dominated society. As the author potently says: ‘universities should be where students encounter the greatest works of mankind – what makes them touchstones of human experience’. Now, owing to pressures upon universities to admit wholly unqualified students simply on the grounds of their member ship of numerous minorities, some turn up at freshers’ time barely able to read.What is perhaps most alarming is the pressures upon teaching staff to conform to the accepted political attitudes. Not a few have lost their jobs through giving voice to ideas that fall foul of student prejudices. No longer are speakers invited to campuses to express unconventional and minority views. They are shunned, and when they do pass the initial obstacles they are mobbed with ignorant screaming and threats of violence, shouted down with no chance to articulate their views.The author writes of the United States, but the evils of what she describes have permeated UK universities too, and perhaps even more here freedom of speech is under constant threat. As she says, the academic world does not exist in a bell jar; rather infects society in very many ways. It seems to me that this important book is a warning and a lament. I hope that it is not too late for sanity to prevail.