The University of Texas at Austin has brought in its first “diversity officer.” Break out the air sickness bags, this could get bumpy:

Vincent will be vice provost for inclusion and cross-cultural effectiveness at UT-Austin.

Gregory Vincent has held similar jobs at the University of Oregon, Louisiana State University, and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Mr. Vincent’s services have been appropriated for the university because of a 2004 report on race relations at the institution.

According to UT’s “diversity page”:

Moreover, a diverse campus community enhances the learning environment, because it affords a broad range of cultural experiences that few of us encounter in the home neighborhoods of our youth.

What do “diversity” and “cultural experience” have to do with learning? I thought learning was a universal human activity and that we were supposed to ignore superficial things like skin color. How silly of me.

A university is a place, rare among institutions in our society, that engenders respect for others and demonstrates daily that what we have in common is far more important than our differences.

“What we have in common” is that we are human beings and Americans. What difference does it make whether we are black, white, brown, or green? Apparently the university’s president believes that the rest of American society is racist and corrupt and only the Leftist bastions of Academia can show us the way by appointing highly-paid diversity officers. Why are Liberals so obsessed with dividing us into groups?

People of all backgrounds should be encouraged to improve themselves with higher education, regardless of skin color. Most Americans support this, and don’t need holier-than-thou college presidents or insulting race quotas to tell them so. The great promise of the United States is not "diversity," it is that anyone, from any background, can make something of themselves.