Coleman develops this same point: "More than 50 years of changes in higher education have taught us that the more diverse the academic environment, the more vigorous its discussions. Our parents' generation learned this from the GI Bill in the 1940s and '50s, when thousands of young men became the first in their families to go to college, and a fresh breeze blew through our campuses." Here, Coleman reminds us that American universities were once the playgrounds of the well-to-do, and that the experience of history supports the view that widening the diversity of the dialogue will generally improve the quality of the ideas that emerge from it. We need the "robust exchange of ideas" that diversity promotes.

The statements by Coleman and Powell recall significant passages in John Stuart Mill's 1859 essay "On Liberty," the most important analysis in modern thought of the issues involved in freedom of inquiry. Here, Mill argues that, "only through diversity of opinion is there … a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth. … The interests of truth require a diversity of opinions."

The discovery and promulgation of truth is the essential reason that universities exist, and freedom of inquiry is the necessary condition of these tasks. Diversity of opinion, of character and of culture are essential preconditions of the exercise of that freedom.

I commend Coleman and the University of Michigan for carrying forward the dialogue on this crucial issue, and I hope that the members of the current Supreme Court will endorse the wisdom of Justice Powell's opinion. These positive ideas and actions merit frequent reinforcement, since we have built so much upon them that is good.

— Dr. Mac A. Stewart is vice provost for minority affairs at The Ohio State University.