Perhaps the best evidence of the degree to which racial modes of thought have preoccupied social discourse lies in the connotations of the word "diversity." The word has come to mean exclusively racial or ethnic diversity, though it is not clear why the meaning should be so narrow. Campus diversity might sensibly be defined in many ways, including broad-based racial pluralism. Diversity could mean that many different philosophical points of view are represented on a campus, that students come from a variety of socioeconomic or geographical backgrounds, or that students in a professional school bring a variety of skills and career objectives to their studies. It may well be that these forms of diversity are indeed reflected in a given educational environment, but they are very seldom discussed. Diversity, like many other terms, has come to be defined exclusively by race. Its narrow meaning stands as evidence of the degree to which race-based distinctions have come to permeate our thinking.
(J. Harvie Wilkinson III, "The Law of Civil Rights and the Dangers of Separatism in Multicultural America," Stanford Law Review 47 [May 1995]: 993-1026, at 1016 [footnote omitted])
