Community
Kudos to Williams President Adam Falk for articulating the efforts to build community at Williams (“The Community We Aspire to Be,” June 2011). Too often the idea of diversity has betrayed itself. Instead of focusing on a true diversity of ideas, background and culture, institutions have settled for superficial diversity based on sex and race that masks a stifling intellectual groupthink. Why assemble a group of people who may look different but all think similarly? President Falk is correct to point out that diversity can backfire if certain groups of students remain separated on campus or fail to thrive.
Difference is a welcome starting point, but only if it fosters the central goals of education: to study, think and speak well, interact with others respectfully and pursue the truth, which in some cases is very hard on “diversity.”
—Jay Haug ’73, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla
President Falk’s editorial points out some of the many dimensions of diversity too often left out in public discourse. Notably absent is disability.
According to the World Health Organization’s first-ever report on disability, roughly a billion people worldwide (15 percent) qualify. Yet this group has largely been relegated to the margins of society, first through de jure segregation in institutions and later through de facto discrimination in access to educational and employment opportunities.
Here in the U.S., little progress has been made on the employment front since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. I believe the overwhelming reason is a lack of a “true celebration of difference” that President Falk aspires to at Williams. Only when American companies and organizations incorporate and embrace the many dimensions of disability in their talent management initiatives will our country move closer to the lofty ideals established by our founders over two centuries ago.
—Adam Kaplan ’95, founder, Big Tent Jobs, Southfield, Mich.