Considerations of race have no place in scientific arenas

In the context of the recent heated discussions about the
consideration of race for faculty positions, I feel it is important
to note that diversity is not universally critical.

While a broad cultural background may be valuable under certain
circumstances, there are circumstances under which racial diversity
among the faculty is unimportant. The departments of UCLA are by no
means homogeneous; a priority to one school is often a non-issue to
another. It is inappropriate to universally apply, either now or in
the future, a policy with costs and benefits that vary widely
within this scope.

Engineering departments, for example, have little to gain and
much to lose from a plan that promotes diversity at the cost of
quality. A professor’s ethnic background has nothing to do
with his ability to explain orbital mechanics. The lightness or
darkness of a faculty member’s skin does not change his
description of the mathematical properties of Eigenvalues.
Engineering is based on the empirical, on mathematics and on
reason, and is therefore inherently unrelated to race and cultural
viewpoints.

I doubt there is a “one-size-fits-all” solution for
every department at UCLA. If there is one, I don’t pretend to
know it, although Martin Luther King Jr. said it is better to judge
individuals not by the color of their skin, but by the content of
their character ““ and I happen to agree.

It is unwise to blindly apply the same policy to women’s
studies and computer science, and ridiculous to expect identical
results. Race doesn’t (and shouldn’t) play a role in
math, science or engineering. If it does play a role in liberal
arts departments, so be it; but racial consideration has no place
in Boelter Hall.

Articles have recently been printed in the Daily Bruin
suggesting that quality minds among the teaching staff are not
entirely necessary. This is simply not true. My peers and I stress
our professors’ knowledge and experience every term; if we
didn’t, we wouldn’t be doing our job.

Engineering students striving for excellence require access to
top minds and the richest pool of experience possible ““
relevant to engineering. Achieving this relevant pool of experience
does not include assembling the most colorful faculty possible (as
it may in other departments). It does not include the immolation of
the overrepresented minorities in favor of the underrepresented. It
has to do with finding those individuals best able to think, to
reason, and to understand. And, unlike so many others, I am not yet
ready to declare that a person’s ability to reason or
understand is subject to the color of his skin.

If racial considerations are given priority over qualifications
in engineering or related departments to any degree then quality is
sacrificed. The truly unfortunate aspect of this is that my
education and the education of my fellow students pays the price.
This price will be multiplied for every person and every segment of
society that would benefit from our being better engineers. The
reputation of UCLA will deteriorate as employers recognize that our
training has been replaced by the forced promotion of an
irrelevant, superficial policy.

The brightest and most determined students will always flock to
universities where development is self-guided and education is the
most relevant. These students will abandon schools where the
politics of some other party are forced down their throats. These
students will leave behind institutions that have nothing to offer
or that are too simple to realize each department has different
goals and different methods of achieving those goals. If excellence
is given second priority to diversity, the excellent students will
pursue their education elsewhere ““ someplace where their
needs can be met.

If UCLA begins to consider race over qualifications in
departments to which race is irrelevant, then this school will no
longer be a symbol of excellence; it will be a symbol of mediocrity
stifled by the stigma of racism.

Davidson is a fourth-year computer science student.