Repressive Tolerance and the “Management” of Diversity

Introduction

Inclusion and diversity are some of the biggest buzz words across American education, indeed American society, today (Vavrus, 2014). Pretty much any contemporary organization will make a public commitment to creating an inclusive workplace environment, and to celebrating the diversity of its employees. Diversity is often stated to be the organizational factor that releases the entrepreneurial spirit and the intersection of the different racial, cultural and ethnic backgrounds of organizational members are assumed to spark some creative synergy (Mendez, 2017). Most educational organizations are proud to document how they are striving to have more diversity of representation at every level. There are student scholarships created for minority applicants, attempts to recruit faculty of color, the creation of multicultural services offices and high profile leadership appointments. The assumption is that having a more racially diverse community on campus will lead automatically to a more anti-racist institution. This effort to increase minority representation is often paralleled in curricular terms where instructors across the disciplines do their best to incorporate resources from scholars of color, integrate an analysis of race into their curriculum whenever possible, and be alert to the presence of racist behaviors and micro-aggressions in class (Wing Sue, 2010).