Thumbs Down

Thumbs Down

Thumbs down to a study by the National Association of Scholars that intended to show that universities are “obsessed with diversity.” The association, which includes conservative scholars Shelby Steele and Christina Hoff Sommers, visited 100 university Web sites and compared keyword searches of the word “diversity” and the word “liberty.”

When they compared results, they found that diversity references were five times more common than liberty references on most university Web sites and voilá — a 15-page “study” was issued declaring that universities place a higher priority on diversity than on liberty. Never mind that the keyword search also produced Yale University’s ITS billing system Web site, called “Liberty System.” So much for sophisticated research methods.

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