“Do you have any religious or ethical reservations about what kind of bone we put in your mouth?” That question both startled and pleased me. As I answered with a simple “no,” I broke into a broad smile. Some context. My young periodondist was in the midst of trying to save my 90-year-old mouthful of … Continue reading Renewing Diversity No. 7: A Sliver of Bone – by Carlos Cortés
“Can we finally stop talking about trans sports?” read the headline in the February 11, 2025, Los Angeles Times. Of course this was followed by a column talking about — you guessed it — trans sports. So the answer is no, we have to keep talking about trans sports for the same reason that people … Continue reading Renewing Diversity #6: Trans Talk – by Carlos Cortés
In his new book, A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present, historian Glenn Adamson muses, “every story about the future is also a demand to intervene in the present.” I should also add that every story about the present has its roots in the past. I was trained as a historian, … Continue reading Renewing Diversity #5: Wrestling with History – by Carlos Cortés
Somewhere during my ninety-year journey I developed a three-line, fifteen-word personal action mantra. It goes like this. “Look unflinchingly at the past. Apply it to the present. Then pivot to the future.” So when I think about diversity in 2025, I think about pivoting for renewal, not merely defending the diversity past or doubling-down on … Continue reading Renewing Diversity #4: Pivoting to the Future – by Carlos Cortés
In 1999, Malcolm Gladwell weighed in with his praised and criticized bestseller, The Tipping Point, a provocative exploration of the process of social change. A quarter century later, in 2024, Gladwell revisited the topic via Revenge of the Tipping Point, a meditation on where he had been right and where he had gone wrong … Continue reading Renewing Diversity #3: We Failed George Floyd – by Carlos Cortés
In July, 2020, the two of us became the inaugural co-directors of the University of California, Riverside, School of Medicine’s new Health Equity, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism (HESJAR) curricular initiative. Since then the teaching of health equity to medical students has been a journey of continuous renewal. Publications about health equity emerge nearly … Continue reading Renewing Diversity #2: Teaching Health Equity – by Carlos Cortés, Adwoa Osei
We may be living through the most turbulent half decade in the history of the diversity movement that took off in the late 1960’s. In the process, the very idea of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been taking a shellacking, including legislative restrictions on its very existence. Consider some of events. The publication of … Continue reading Renewing Diversity # 1: High School Ethnic Studies – by Carlos Cortés
I never really thought much about turning 90. That is, until April 6, 2023, the day I turned 89. That’s when my daughter, Alana, asked me the life-altering question: “Dad, what are you going to do special for your 90th birthday?” “As little as possible,” I responded in my best bah, humbug voice. “Maybe Laurel … Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 46: The Art of Turning 90 – by Carlos Cortés
Keeping up with the ongoing changes in diversity language has become a matter of lifelong learning. For a near-nonagenarian (I turn 90 on April 6), this means continuous learning as well as relentless unlearning. That is, trying to unlearn old uses of language that decades of repetition have deeply wired into my brain. Take gender. … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 44: Generations of Gender Talk – by Carlos Cortés
Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the world has been convulsed by the carnage emanating from the Middle East. That convulsion has migrated to the United States, where it is expressed daily in protests, demands, threats, and moral-grandstanding often reeking of dehumanizing language. The carnage has claimed the lives of thousands in Gaza … Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 43: How 3 College Presidents Flunked Their Speech Midterm Exam – by Carlos Cortés
