The Diversity Delusion by Heather Mac Donald

The Diversity Delusion by Heather Mac Donald

By the New York Times bestselling author: a provocative account of the attack on the humanities, the rise of intolerance, and the erosion of serious learning

America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton? Oppressive. American history? Tyranny. Professors correcting grammar and spelling, or employers hiring by merit? Racist and sexist. Students emerge into the working world believing that human beings are defined by their skin color, gender, and sexual preference, and that oppression based on these characteristics is the American experience. Speech that challenges these campus orthodoxies is silenced with brute force.

The Diversity Delusion argues that the root of this problem is the belief in America's endemic racism and sexism, a belief that has engendered a metastasizing diversity bureaucracy in society and academia. Diversity commissars denounce meritocratic standards as discriminatory, enforce hiring quotas, and teach students and adults alike to think of themselves as perpetual victims. From #MeToo mania that blurs flirtations with criminal acts, to implicit bias and diversity compliance training that sees racism in every interaction, Heather Mac Donald argues that we are creating a nation of narrowed minds, primed for grievance, and that we are putting our competitive edge at risk.

But there is hope in the works of authors, composers, and artists who have long inspired the best in us. Compiling the author's decades of research and writing on the subject, The Diversity Delusion calls for a return to the classical liberal pursuits of open-minded inquiry and expression, by which everyone can discover a common humanity.

Thomas W. MacDonald's wife, Heather, is the Thomas W. MacDonald' A contributing editor of City Journal and a Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Heather has clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. District Judge. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as well as an attorney-adviser in the United States Department of Justice's Office of General Counsel. In New York City, he is a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2004, she received the Civilian Valor Award from the New Jersey State Law Enforcement Officers Association. The New York State Shields awarded her the 2008 Integrity in Journalism award. She also received the Center for Immigration Studies' Eugene Katz Award for Merit in Immigration Coverage in 2008 and the International Union of Police Associations' Quill & Badge Award for Excellence in Communication in 2012. Her work has also been published in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, New Republic, Partisan Review, the New Criterion, Public Interest, and Academic Issues.

Heather obtained a Mellon Fellowship to Cambridge University, where she got her MA in English and studied in Italy with a Clare College study grant, after receiving her BA in English from Yale University. Stanford University Law School awarded her a JD.