Fifty years ago, I arrived in America as an Asian undergraduate student, speaking very little English. I had very few expectations for this new land, as I often had heard the expression "He does not have a Chinaman's chance." Things have improved vastly for me and other minorities, thanks to the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King. I have stayed here ever since, since I do not know of any other place on earth that would offer me a heartier welcome and greater opportunity than the United States.
In comparison, I know of no Asian engineer who serves as a dean of a great European university, nor any non-Japanese dean in a great Japanese university. This is not to say race no longer matters in America — indeed, there is a great deal that can and should be improved. America has reached a consensus in the last few decades that when it comes to legal rights, economic opportunities and respect, race should not matter. But America is like a parade — there is a vanguard with lofty ideals that points the way, a central core that quietly goes along and a rear guard that is being dragged along protesting.
Members of both the leadership and the core agree that America should guarantee equal opportunities. However, they believe current measures do not go far enough in settling the disparity of outcome among the races. But when it comes to the thorny issue of remedy — or how much intervention should be taken by the U.S. government by private organizations and by individuals to ensure equal outcome — America has not reached a consensus. Regardless of your position, there will be critics who say you are doing too much, and there will be critics who say you are not doing enough.
Ivy League schools serve as important gateways to power and influence and must implement policies to support diversity in their faculty and student bodies. While there are compelling reasons to promote diversity in all types of organizations including sports leagues like the NBA and the NFL, diversity plays an especially important role in educational institutions. Attracting minority students and faculty is one way to begin equalizing different groups.
One third of the undergraduates in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are women — twice the national average of 17 percent. There are striking differences between departments: Chemical engineering and environmental engineering have a higher percentage of females while the mechanical and aerospace engineering departments remains mostly male-dominated, reflecting the national trend. One-tenth of the faculty in the engineering school are women — seven of them have tenure. Recruiting women early gave us the best pick, but we never compromise on quality.
However, when it comes to enrolling black undergraduates, Princeton does not do much better than the national average, which begs the question: Why are we not leaders here, too? I believe in the theory that when we have more black faculty, more black students will follow. We should put this theory to an experimental test, according to the old scientific method.
Diversity of the collective student body is an important objective, and while many people believe students and faculty should be recruited purely on the basis of merit, an individual's merit can have many dimensions, including ethnic background. Listen to our colleagues in ecology, who are studying the dangers of mono-cultures. In the same way that you wouldn't want to grow only one type of food to feed the whole country at the risk of having the entire supply wiped out by a fungus or virus, you wouldn't want to educate only one kind of student.
Diversity not only makes life interesting, it is also a kind of insurance policy to promote hybrid vigor. We will run into people with racist views, but they are not necessarily bad people. Though we are sure we know something that they do not know, they are equally sure they know something that we do not know. The discussion that follows has the potential to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. James Wei is the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He can be reached at jameswei@princeton.edu.
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