They don't really want diversity

Eugene Volokh, April 17, 2006 at 2:25pm] 1 Trackbacks / Possibly More Trackbacks
Interesting Tidbit About the Ohio State (Mansfield) Controversy:

It turns out that Scott Savage, the librarian who is charged with sexual orientation harassment because he had recommended that the school assign to freshmen an apparently anti-gay book, is a conservative Quaker who has given up many modern things, including conventional schooling — his wife home-schools (or at least home-schooled) their five children — and cars; he takes a horse and buggy to work.

This has little to do with the specific legal and academic freedom issues raised by the complaint against him, but I just thought the juxtaposition of Scott Savage's e-mail-born controversy and his horse and buggy was interesting. And perhaps there is also a broader connection to the persistent talk about "diversity" on campus. I suspect that Scott Savage's presence and participation adds more to the cultural diversity of the campus than does the presence and participation of most other faculty, students, and staff. But of course one aspect of cultural diversity is that people who belong to some cultures might not share the dominant university culture's view on some aspects, such as sexual behavior, and might even say things that some see as offensive. What a surprise.