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Promoting diversity has negative effect, Harvard study says

The assault on America's culture in the name of diversity is having some interesting consequences today. Most of them — well, not so good.

Earlier this year, prominent Harvard professor Robert Putnam's five-year-study on the effects of ethnic diversity went largely unnoticed. Probably because his findings, according to him, were so troubling to him that he delayed their release until he could develop ideas to counter the apparently negative effects of diversity.

No fool, Putnam. The last man to speak candidly about a critical issue at Harvard was the university's president at the time, Lawrence Summers. Summers delivered a speech, curiously enough, on "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Work Force."

Summers offered an analysis of academic studies - not his opinions - on the dearth of women in the sciences. Despite the fact that he said nothing new, Summers was crucified after a witch-hunt led by women's studies groups and other leftists to silence him. He resigned. No doubt Putnam had that evisceration in mind when he decided to find ways to soften the response from his critics.

"It would have been irresponsible to publish without that," Putnam said.

Sure. Regardless of their field, researchers should never publish their findings — particularly if those findings travel against the left's politically correct idea of how life should be — until he or she can twist up a study to appease the voices of tolerance.

Putnam offered a glimpse of his research, however. The Financial Times described it as "a bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity."

Among Putnam's findings is that rather than making us a more tolerant, loving, trusting society, "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us," Putnam allowed.

Putnam emphasizes that his results are all over the short and medium terms and that, over the long term, he believes communities and societies adjust.

Take New Mexico, for example. Growing up in New Mexico, I was as likely — and fortunate — to have Hispanic teachers or bosses as whites. It was the way it was, and it never occurred to me to question it.

It was a blessing — a fantastic way to grow up. So much so, that when we started a family we wanted to live here and not in Northern Virginia. This was no small decision. We have good friends in the D.C. area. The schools, doctors, arts — all are excellent. But it's also an area where multiculturalism and diversity worship is preached with a bullhorn.

Not so here. Diversity wasn't prescribed, it just happened.

Of course, we're not immune from activists who are more than willing to shred us apart on ethnic lines. But as Putnam's research and our community demonstrates, we should resist this at all costs.