Insistence on the symbolism of ‘visible’ diversity in a diversity officer hinders real advancement.

In a “post-racial America,” we are to believe that the playing field has been leveled, the opportunity structure rendered color blind. This is an illusion.

How individual and group differences are respected has framed my entire adult life dating to the Kerner Commission report, which I encountered in college almost 42 years ago. Recently, I had an experience that had immediate consequences for me but, upon reflection, more enduring implications for higher education. They are intertwined.

As a candidate for the “diversity” position (newly created) at two research universities, I became a finalist in one search and a semifinalist in the other. In both cases I was the only non-minority who made the short list.

In one case, I met for 90 minutes with the search committee, including the provost. We established immediate rapport. Convinced that my performance merited a return trip and a meeting with the university president, I observed to my wife, “yet I may be the token White.” Indeed, no reason was given for turning me loose a week later.

In the other case, colleagues on campus reported that I won over most every constituency I met in two days of formal interviews and informal chats. After six months, the provost called to say “the search was derailed” and no appointment would be made. Shortly thereafter, he turned to an “internal interim” candidate, a woman of color as it turns out.

So I have experienced what many persons of color, regardless of credentials, have encountered in the academic workplace — the suspicion that you are there for reasons other than your accomplishments. I conclude that my accomplishments got me in the door, but the position I was seeking de facto is for a person of color. This is not an issue of not being good enough. Rather, it is an issue of “fit” between expectation and the incumbent. It is the difference between “visible” and “enacted” diversity. Criteria were specified: the position description in one stipulated a “national research profile.” But there are differences between scholarship and bringing a certain perspective. In my efforts to sort out what happened, several issues surface: