RALEIGH – It’s important not to let a perfectly good word be high-jacked by those who aren’t willing to use it meaningfully. A good example is the word “diversity.” In an academic context, it should refer to a condition in which varied and conflicting opinions, experiences, and perspectives are made available to students or to the larger community.

All too often, diversity has simply come to refer to the number of races represented, the balance between male and female, etc. Rarely do academic leaders seem interested in the manifest lack of intellectual diversity in their midst – distracted, as they are, by counting and categorizing heads. What should matter far more than the color or amount of hair on those heads is what is contained within them.

We’ve written in the past about the overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic nature of university faculty. Of course, even these labels may miss diversity in expressed opinion. Take the proposed war in Iraq. While many Democrats and liberals are staking out a skeptical or even openly antagonistic position to that of the Bush administration, others have concluded that intervention against Saddam Hussein is warranted. You can find quite a few supporters of the war among Democratic lawmakers (Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina may turn out to be one; wannabe senator Erskine Bowles already is, of a sort). You can find them among liberal journalists and even academics.

But apparently not among UNC “experts.” That was the message sent by a recent panel discussion on the war held at UNC-Chapel Hill. Actually, two days earlier, on Sept. 23, a collection of the usual leftist suspects held a “teach-in” on the campus to heap opprobrium on Bush’s war plans, but as the speakers were kooks it seems hardly worth examining their lunatic ravings about CIA conspiracies, oil-man conspiracies, and the like.

The event I initially referred to wasn’t just held on campus. It was co-hosted by two official arms of our state university: the UNC General Alumni Association and the Curriculum on Peace, War, and Defense. It featured eight professors discussing the potential war (see here: http://www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/09/26/3d93029676c2a?in_archive=1).

So, did this officially sanctioned event fairly present alternative views on the issue? Here’s how the “moderator” of the event, history professor Richard Kohn, characterized the outcome to the Daily Tar Heel: “The panelists had varying perspectives and disciplines. Overall, they expressed deep skepticism of whether it is in the national interest of the United States to engage in a pre-emptive war against Iraq without congressional and [United Nations] sanction.”

Perhaps, it could be argued, this is just how it turned out. Perhaps it was impossible to find, for a panel of eight, at least three or four UNC-CH scholars who favored the administration’s policy.

Exactly.