In a new book, UC Berkeley legal scholar David B. Oppenheimer unearths the surprising history of diversity in Western thought. While high-level critics are trying to bury the idea, he says, research shows that diversity is good for society.

When learning to write an argumentative essay, students are introduced to the dreaded counterargument. Students are told they must state an argument they don’t believe in so that they can refute it in their next paragraph.

Conservative attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion accelerated sharply following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending the use of race in admissions in higher education. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that the educational benefits of diversity are not “sufficiently coherent” to pass constitutional muster.

On the last day of October 2022, as the Supreme Court heard challenges to the admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, Justice Clarence Thomas said he was “flummoxed” by the very idea of diversity. “I don’t have a clue what it means,” he declared.

During a time when the word “diversity” has been tossed around as a political talking point, Berkeley Law Professor David B. Oppenheimer is doing something necessary: he is insisting that we dig deep into history.

Is the diversity movement purely ideological? Does it arise out of partisan political ambitions, a Trojan horse in the hands of ethnic minorities and the dispossessed as part of a selfish quest to seize greater power, wealth, and status? Or is it a nuanced socio-political perspective with deep academic and historical roots, and aspirations reaching toward some universal social good?

Readers on intellectual diversity and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.