Oct. 16, 2000

Expos Hiring Fair

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To the editors:

The Crimson's "Diversity Lacking in Expos Program" (News, Oct. 5) left us wondering what the article's motive was. If its aim were to uncover a history of unfair hiring practices, then surely the program's director, Dr. Nancy Sommers, allayed those fears right from the start by explaining the difficulties of minority recruiting.

If, however, its aim were to suggest that instructors shouldn't teach material they don't have "personal experience" with, then the article may have been headed down an intellectually dangerous road.

Personal experience is no guarantee of deep insight or good teaching. And the misguided demand for authenticity, if played out, could easily lead to exclusive and homogenous academic departments--by that reasoning, a white person is as little qualified to teach African-American literature as a non-white person is to teach Shakespeare.

It's too bad The Crimson didn't consider more thoroughly what our colleague, Mohammad T. Nezam-Mafi, had to say about how "limiting" it was for an instructor to be expected to teach only what he "represent[s]." By not doing so it lost an opportunity to reflect more responsibly on the important question of what we want when we demand "diversity."