It has become a truism that COVID-19 has widened the gap between America’s haves and have nots. As the wealthy add to their corpus, the poor struggle to survive. But beneath this master plot lie millions of disparity narratives, stories that repeat themselves over and over. So it is with the narrative of English Language … Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 15: English Language Learners – by Carlos Cortés
Completing her second year as a pediatrics professor at the University of California, Riverside, Adwoa was focused on providing clinical training for her medical students. A retired UCR history professor, Carlos had no way of imagining that he would soon be joining the staff of a medical school. . Then the UCR School of Medicine … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 14: Health Equity – by Carlos Cortés, Adwoa Osei
Historians devote their lives to predicting the past. So when called upon to predict the future of cultural expression, as the editor did for this issue, I had to distance myself from my disciplinary comfort zone. Not for the first time. Two decades ago I had to do this when completing my book, The … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 21: Predicting the Future of Cultural Expression – by Carlos E. Cortés
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” In those memorable opening lines of his novel, The Go-Between, writer L. P. Hartley captured many dilemmas. The dilemma of memory. The dilemma of change. The dilemma of misunderstanding. It also captured the dilemma of generations, particularly conversations across generations. We did things … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 20: Communicating across Generations – by Carlos E. Cortés
The theme for this month’s edition: what gender related issues should be addressed and how can they evolve productively? Let’s up the ante. What gender related issues must be addressed? Here’s one: transgender women in sports. Oh that all equity conflicts could be resolved simply by mouthing diversity clichés. Not this one. With regard to … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 19: The Gendered Sports Dilemma – by Carlos E. Cortés
Hate speech may be the thorniest point of contention between diversity advocates and free speech absolutists. Of course most people oppose hate and detest hate speech. But what should we do about it? That’s where disagreements begin. Let’s look at hate speech from four perspectives. Legal: what does the U.S. Constitution say about hate speech? … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 18: Hate Speech – by Carlos E. Cortés
2020 turned into a momentous year for diversity training. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many diversity trainers, myself included, to re-invent themselves by adapting their workshops into an online format. The Memorial Day killing of George Floyd thrust anti-racism into the center of diversity training, challenging those presenters who had generally soft-pedaled the issue. President Donald … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 17: Diversity Training – by Carlos E. Cortés
The May, 2020, Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd launched thousands of anti-racism proclamations. Millions took part in that performative aftermath. Include me among those millions. Like many people, I wear multiple hats. One is chairing the Mayor’s Multicultural Forum in Riverside, California. My half-century hometown is a sizable (330,000-person) city, whose steady but not … Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 16: Creating an Anti-Racism Vision Statement – by Carlos E. Cortés
Education, particularly higher education, has become ground zero for the clash of inclusive diversity and robust speech. Many administrators and professors proclaim their support of both. So do I. Yes, they can co-exist. But there will be clashes, inevitably. Which means decisions, tough decisions, will have to be made. In the wake of the Memorial … Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 13: Education and Equity – by Carlos E. Cortés
For the past two years I have been writing a series of columns about the complicated intersection of inclusive diversity and robust speech. Although my last column appeared just two months ago, in some respects it seems like ancient history. Maybe it is. Because on Memorial Day, May 25, 2020, a Minneapolis Police Officer … Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 12: Systemic Racism – by Carlos E. Cortés
