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09/30/2003 Archived Entry: "Imaginary Friends"

HOW TO FAKE YOUR WAY PAST THE DIVERSITY POLICE: I was lucky. When I entered university (1991) I didn't have to run through the gauntlet of diversity police because Laurentian University was out of the mainstream enough to not have instituted the policies yet and its PC Police wasn't all that powerful. Things have changed baby. By my third year I heard of the horror stories of what the frosh was forced to do such as sitting around in circles and pretending to be gay or learning how to put a condom on a banana. Frankly, I never understood that last one...I've never had to put a condom on a banana.

Peter W. Wood offers an easy way for freshman students to fake a diversity essay and it's funny as well as true.

But the "diversity essay" isn't merely a smokescreen. It is also a device to ensure that candidates commit themselves, at least rhetorically, to the campus ideology of diversity. I suspect most high-school students are plenty capable of figuring out what kind of essay they need to submit to earn the "diversity bonus" that will vault them ahead of academically better qualified candidates. But The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that leaders of some campus groups expressed fear that "young applicants might have difficulty writing essays that adequately reflected the impact of their race or ethnicity on their lives." A UM senior, Ricardo Valle, declared that, prior to coming to college, "I did not know what diversity was or how to interpret my experiences as a Latino youth."

Mr. Valle had to go to college to learn how to give up his individuality and conform to the categories of Leftist identity politics, but help is on the way. Students who need assistance concocting testimonials to the prejudices they have endured and the hardships they have overcome already have a choice of websites and consultants who will help. But in a spirit of public service, I am willing to lend a hand too. Herewith some advice for the high-school student aspiring to attend a college that requires a diversity essay.

Read on.

Replies: 7 comments

This is off-topic but the first time I went skiing it was in the
Laurentian mountains.

Posted by Izzy @ 09/30/2003 01:48 PM EST

Hi Steve, I was more politically incorrect at LU than you! Nyah..nyah... On a more serious note, thank-goodness for Alex McGregor during the LU years.

Posted by Pete Vere @ 10/01/2003 12:32 AM EST

The Laurentian mountains are nowhere near Laurentian U. But both would probably benefit from closer contact.

Posted by angua @ 10/01/2003 01:09 AM EST

Laurentian University would benefit from a good dose of fire...and plenty of it.

This is true, Peter Vere was more politically incorrect then I was at Laurentian University...but I was more famous :-)

Posted by Steven Martinovich @ 10/01/2003 01:44 PM EST

Yes Steve, but I was more infamous! That being said, what was your favorite politically incorrect moment at LU? Mine was when, in response to a homosexual activist who was heckling him in front of the class, Prof. McGregor gave the lad $20 and told him to give it to the most beautiful woman in the class.

Posted by Pete Vere @ 10/01/2003 11:49 PM EST

I liked the outrage over my column about founding a Men's Club on campus. It was hilarious to hear that the university's administration went out of their way to say the group would be outlawed before it could even launch.

Posted by Steven Martinovich @ 10/02/2003 03:14 AM EST

LOL! I remember that because I had actually tried to found one, remember? Heather what's-her-name from the SGA really came down on me hard until she discovered I was AEF.

Posted by Pete Vere @ 10/02/2003 01:05 PM EST