The Folly of House Diversity

Your December 12 article about the study on house diversity reveals the absurd and self-contradictory lengths the search for an artificial numerical diversity can reach.

Apparently the Harvard administration is distressed because the proportions of humanities majors, Hispanics, students on scholarship, Asians, etc. in each house does not closely match the overall proportion of these groups in the College.

If the administration ever attains its goal, every house will be a characterless clone of every other, and diversity within houses will have been achieved at the price of diversity among houses.

The rationale for demographic diversity is that these designated groups bring to their houses differences in perspective, experience and ways of life.

Yet the moment these groups express their differences by showing different patterns of house preference (with resulting clusters), the administration sees failure.

If students choose their houses purely randomly, regardless of group membership, Harvard would achieve its goal of "non-differentiated house communities." But if group membership makes no difference in one's behavior, what's the point of seeking diversity? Gerald Zuriff, PhD '68