The "Diversity Syndrome" has raised its ugly head again, this time appearing – not for the first time – in the Lexington Herald-Leader of June 17 as a re-visitation to – also not for the first time – columnist Merlene Davis. She is afflicted and conflicted by the fact that the university prez, Lee Todd, has been given a huge bonus in spite of the fact that he scored only somewhere in the mid-nineties with respect to diversity-acuity and diversity-achievement (whatever that is), in his latest evaluation.
A couple years ago, the syndrome afflicted Davis in the form called "fear of the university." She explained that black students simply feared going to the University of Kentucky and that a gaggle of them had headed on over to Louisville. If memory serves, she didn't explain what engendered the fright and flight, only that they existed. Last year, enrolment of black freshmen picked up considerably at UK, so the syndrome must have been somehow neutralized, but there's never been an explanation how that happened. According to Davis, Todd had nothing to do with it, since he's the guilty party with respect to the syndrome's reappearance.
However, the syndrome this time around seems to have more to do with faculty appointments. Davis noted that three black professors had been offered positions but had turned them down, apparently because of the "Diversity Syndrome," the disease now attacking UK again, as well. The syndrome must be responsible, since Davis did not give any reasons for the prospective teachers eschewing university positions.
Diverse is defined as "differing from one another," and syndrome is defined as "a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality or condition" (Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition), so "Diversity Syndrome" can probably be defined as an affliction having as it main symptom a "particular abnormality or condition in people who differ from one another." Maybe the folks who turned down the teaching positions felt like they were too different from all the other professor-types to be successful, so they just opted out, being particularly abnormal.
Or, they might have felt themselves far too different in that they were simply too academically superior to fit in at an institution that actually prided itself, along with the prez and the athletics director, who makes much more than the prez, in winning six football games last season. Davis mentioned, also, that UK has a new basketball coach and that president Todd has been going around telling folk that UK will be a top-20 school one day, though she didn't say these startling facts would be the reason.
Davis mentioned, also, that the black basketball coach's head had been requested "by the people" at the same time the prez eventually received a bonus, meaning, apparently, that somebody thought letting the coach go was the proper thing to do and Todd just did the deed. It was the syndrome that got the coach, though, since his particular abnormality was in winning only 20 games a year instead of the required 25-27. Besides, the university had only allowed him ten years on the job, and he didn't make much more than $2,000,000 per year, only a bit more than five times as much as Todd.
The suspicion is that the purpose of Davis's column had less to do with diversity than with the change in basketball coaches. When Tubby Smith was hired, Davis stopped just short of warning him that the KKK would burn a cross on his front-lawn every night in this racist town and that rattlesnakes would appear in his mailbox upon occasion. Davis was right, of course, since Tubby only lasted ten years and probably didn't make much more that a cool $15 million, give or take a few million either way. Who knows?
Diversity is GOD right now with the politically correct crowd, but people responsible for operating the university understand that competency trumps diversity every time if an institution is aspiring to top-20 status, or even a respectable status, for that matter. Until Davis provides the reasons the three refused teaching assignments, she perhaps should stick to just the usual racist routine for Lexington and leave the university alone for a while. Otherwise, the "Diversity Syndrome" is the culprit…that particular abnormality or condition business. Davis ended her piece by saying she probably would have to run this same column next year. It's a lead-pipe cinch that she will.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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