Encountering Diversity Online: The University and Affirmative Action
As one of those lucky enough to be born into the digital age, I was among the first wave of students to conduct my college search entirely online in the summer of 1998. I admit: I would not have chosen or even considered the small, Mennonite college I ended up at had it not been for their webpages detailing the school’s service and social justice mission. Since that time, universities have been more fully utilizing the web’s various tools as recruitment aids; almost all university homepages are heavily skewed toward “Future” or “Prospective” students, with large sections dedicated to providing the most basic information about the university’s programs, student activities, and scholarships.
I start with the assumption that university websites, as visual rhetoric, primarily work to persuade incoming students to join the university’s community. Secondarily, the sites provide information for current students, faculty, and staff who are already embedded in the university’s culture and ideologies. Some documents, however, are for both incoming students and current community members; these documents tend to be online versions of university policy and procedures. While not the “official” policy and procedure documents, these web documents certainly are powerful rhetorical constructions that help constitute the public image of the given university.
In this essay, I will analyze the online version of Affirmative Action plans of four universities in the Midwest. As a publicly contentious idea, Affirmative Action plans prove to be rich grounds for rhetorical and ideological analysis, particularly when they must also work within the university web pages’ recruitment goals. In these texts, two genres—“legal document” and “recruitment tool”—blend, resulting constructions of “race” and “diversity” that some might find objectionable.
I have selected four state-funded universities in the Midwest as representative texts. As state schools, these universities must meet federal requirements of employment. Purdue University (IN) states on its “Reaffirmation of University Policy on Equal Employment Opportunity” page that “As a federal contractor, each campus within the Purdue University system is required to develop and maintain a written affirmative action program which is a set of specific results-oriented actions and procedures to which the University commits itself.” The universities are not required to post these on their websites, but most choose to do so, since these policies are supposed to be available for review by the public. In addition to Purdue University, I have selected the Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Iowa for this analysis.
The Liberal Tradition
Why focus on universities? As institutes of higher education, “the” university tends to represent not only sophistication and culture, but the cutting edge of the arts and sciences. Traditionally, universities have been considered part of the political “left,” having some stake in that agenda. When the University of Michigan tried to remove part of its Affirmative Action clause from its admissions policy, many argued that, as a university, the institution must uphold the clause; it was the university’s duty as a representative of higher education. Additionally, universities are often connect to what Critical Race Theorists refer to as “white liberalism”—that set of ideologies connected to “color-blindness,” Enlightenment logic, and affirming “diversity,” which the editors of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement refer to as “a value which in the liberal vision is independent of, perhaps even at odds with, equality of opportunity or meritocracy” (xv). They go on to condemn “the poverty of the liberal imagination,” which tries to simply erase race instead of actually confronting it as a real ideological force (xv). In the liberal tradition, the question of “race” often transforms into a question of “diversity”, a multiculturalism in which all races are treated as equally important and the addition of people of different races to a group is considered inherently valuable. Throughout these webpages we see the liberal tradition in the near absence of the word “race” and the use of the word “diversity” as a floating signifier, representing both “race” and “multiculturalism.” In what follows, I give an overview of the genre by detailing the accessibility, the rhetorical construction, and the resulting ideologies that are formed in these websites. Screen captures of the main pages are available in the attached appendix.
Access
Most university homepages feature information for incoming students. Finding information about policies and procedures requires either first hand knowledge about the departments and offices of the university, or a well-termed Google search. Simply searching for “diversity” will yield several different sites per university, all located in different offices. For this case study, I have limited my search specifically to employment, but have still found difficulty navigating the pages even of my own school, Purdue. In Purdue’s “employment” pages, for example, users can select either “human relations” or “human resources”; it is not immediately obvious which of these pages will hold Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity information, and neither page is accessible directly from Purdue’s homepage. The University of Michigan and the University of Iowa have similar structures, however on these pages, Affirmative Action is the main focus of the human resources page—no further searching is required.
At Ohio State’s employment page, Affirmative Action appears under the tab labeled “Policies;” and is available only as a PDF document. The document seemed a little thin to me, so I Googled “diversity and Ohio State.” In this search, I found OSU’s “Diversity” pages—a large batch of pages dealing with race, gender, religion, ability, age, etc. Included in this set of pages is further information about Affirmative Action, although it is separated under each heading (i.e. Affirmative Action and race, Affirmative Action and Ability, etc). Here the issue is not that the information is buried, but that it is prolific: finding the exact policy one is searching for is difficult in this mass of diversity-related resources.
Once the correct page is found, for most of these universities, the policy must be downloaded. While this is less a problem in the age of high speed internet than it was a few years ago, some may have difficulty downloading PDF files. Others may not know which files apply to a given case: while Ohio State only has one Affirmative Action PDF, Purdue, Michigan, and Iowa all offer several documents about current policy, past policy, and grievance procedures. There are also policy-like statements available; under the page titled “Vice President for Human Relations Initiatives” on Purdue’s page, a document titled “Strategic Directions” seems similar in content to the VPHR Initiatives page—only those familiar with Purdue bureaucracy and departmental organization would recognize why the two are separate entities. Iowa lists five policies on “human rights” and two on “equal opportunity,” the titles of which sound similar: For human rights: “Nondiscrimination Statement--Using the Statement on Printed Materials, Policy on Human Rights (link to Operations Manual), Statement on Diversity, Accessibility Statement--Using the Statement on Printed Materials, Policy on Violence (link to Operations Manual); and for Equal Opportunity: Disability Protection Policy, Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Statement of Policy and Purpose (“Policy index”). The difference between a “statement” and a “policy” is unclear.
The difficulty with navigating these pages could be simply a sign of problems in web design in general; however, many of these pages have been posted for several years. That “diversity” is not a key component of a university’s homepage—that these pages are difficult to find within the hierarchy of sites—is most likely a symptom of the genre: Affirmative Action in employment is for those who are not prospective students, but prospective employees. Because the homepage must appeal to eighteen year old high school students, we can expect Affirmative Action policies to be placed deep within the structure of the site, under a more general category of “employment.” Although the lack of diversity on the homepages is probably unintentional, the buried pages do imply what the university values. Only the University of Michigan, with its very public Affirmative Action lawsuit has placed a “diversity” link on its homepage. Other sites imply a colorblind policy for admissions; students of color may appear in images on the homepages, but their presence is not commented upon. Racial difference, these sites imply, is outside of the concerns of most viewers; those who want information must search for it.
Visual Design
In general, the websites keep to the colors, organization, and themes of the university’s homepage. Purdue, the University of Iowa, and Michigan use their respective school colors as the basis of design. Perhaps the most interesting, visually, of the four sites is Michigan’s page on “Human Resources and Affirmative Action.” The blue background matches the school’s colors, but the designers (listed as the Human Resources Department) have also used that blue in the image of a clouded sky in the page’s header (see Fig. 2). While this has nothing to do with diversity or Affirmative Action as far as I can see, the colors are peaceful, natural, and soothing. Unlike Purdue’s harsh black and gold Arial font on a plain tan background (Fig. 1), the Michigan site is visually inviting. The sky image is complemented by a flower which changes as the user clicks through various policy pages, and the main human resources page includes a clipart that asks us to “Think Spring!” The text in the center of the main page instructs users how to use the navigation bars, and includes links to the most often used pages. The navigation and titles are easy to use and understand, and various outside links are colored to match information on similar “levels” in the hierarchy. The “spring” theme, I assume, changes with the seasons, making the site seem up-to-date and relevant. More importantly, the use of natural images differs significantly from other sites, and draws attention away from the logical, legal, and professional ramifications of the information included on these pages.
The other sites follow a general template I have seen not only in these pages, but at other sites for universities around the country. These pages general include the school’s logo at the top of the page, with a link to the university homepage somewhere nearby or in the image itself. A primary navigation bar conducts users through the “employment” pages, while a secondary bar on the left guides users through the specifically Affirmative Action-related pages (see Iowa, Fig. 3). Near the top we see a picture of (presumably) employees hard at work. As these are the Affirmative Action pages, the images show a wide range of peoples: women, people of color, the disabled, etc. These people are, of course, smiling, and not looking at the camera, a denial of knowledge of the user-viewer’s gaze. Instead of meeting our gaze as equals, the subjects continue on as workers, not individuals. The missing gaze toward the camera also implies a “candid” shot; we are to assume that these image reflect reality, both in their happiness to be at work and in the racially-appropriate composition of the workforce. Most of the workers shown appear as professionals—professors or administrative staff. I have yet to find an image of janitorial staff or other maintenance workers, despite the large custodial workforce these universities employ.
Ohio State University’s “Diversity” page (Fig. 5) features no images of people at all. Instead, the site uses design elements to imply a connection to human diversity. The open white space at the top holds the most recent and relevant links, for ease of navigation. Below, however, the designers have divided the issue of “diversity” into seven different areas in this order: disability, nationality, race/ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, veterans affairs, women/gender. Each link is a different earth-tone color, from slate gray to burnt orange. The word “Diversity” crosses all seven links as a shadow, unifying all seven elements under one heading. The titles of the links are left uncapitalized, as though to emphasize the equality of all of the categories. The design emphasizes simplicity and equality while drawing focus away from the real people involved in the issues at hand. “Difference” and “diversity” are implied through words instead of being shown, but without the images, that difference isn’t felt as acutely.
Assumptions, Values, and Ideologies
In the above descriptions, I have begun to tease out some of the underlying assumptions, values, and ideologies that these pages construct. We have already seen that there is a general denial of presence in the accessibility of these pages from the universities’ homepage. By erasing race and other signifiers of difference from the homepages, the universities construct themselves as homogenous. Any interest in racial, gender, or religious difference is deferred to pages that are most accessible by those in-the-know about the structure of the university. Difference is figured as an “extra”—an extra-curricular activity (in the form of cultural centers, clubs, and fraternities and sororities), or extra information added to an employment application.
When and where difference is represented and acknowledged, there is, not surprisingly, a liberal attitude apparent within the text and design. For example, in the University of Michigan’s page on “Services,” a vision statement includes “Respecting the inherent worth of all individuals evidenced through inclusiveness and diversity” and “Seeking quality/excellence of services which meet the needs of the organization as a whole and of the diverse groups which comprise the University” (“Mission and Vision”). In these statements, we see first, the emphasis on respect for all individuals—deemphasizing the group identity of that individual—whose worth is “inherent” and not connected to any one identity except that of “human”—as in “human” resources. The University of Iowa has a similar sentiment in its “Mission Statement,” which explains the purpose of the Office of Equal Opportunity as “foster[ing] a welcoming and collaborative university climate where individual ideas, contributions, and goals are acknowledged, respected, and valued” (“Office”). Again, the emphasis is on the individual and his or her abilities, not his or her identity as part of a racial or ethnic group.
Also important in these statements is the emphasis on merit. In the liberal tradition, merit or ability is the true measure by which we should judge others; in Affirmative Action, merit is ability minus racial impediments (or disease impediments, or class impediments). The ideal of a colorblind workforce is hiding in these statements; the first statement wants to remove race as a factor of judgment while the second statement wishes to better the workforce as a whole by adding in “diverse” peoples whose very presence as different will improve the work environment.
The constant use of the word “diverse” and “diversity” throughout all four websites points to a gap in the language available to discuss race in a way that appeals to both the liberal tradition and college-seeking high school students. “Diversity” can stand for “multiculturalism” which is non-threatening to whites, who may feel that discussions of race implicate them as racist. On Ohio State’s webpage, itself titled “Diversity,” race is only one of seven categories, and is paired with ethnicity by a slash, as though the two were nearly synonymous (the same is done with “women” and “gender,” which makes the transgendered category somehow less strange). Purdue University’s seventy-nine page Affirmative Action plan (oddly titled “genderplan_000.pdf”) uses the word “race” only in conjunction with “color” and only in a list of other markers of difference.
The University of Iowa’s statement is very clear about what diversity means:
The University of Iowa values diversity among students, faculty, and staff, and regards Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action as tools to achieve diversity. The University believes that a rich diversity of people and the many points of view they bring serve to enhance the quality of the educational experience at The University of Iowa. (“Statement on Diversity”).
Here, diversity is an end goal to be achieved by adding in diverse students, faculty, and staff. Diversity can be “rich”—I assume this means “from a variety of cultures”—and is important because it will benefit the educational experience. Diversity is a tool for education; other values of inclusion are not considered in this statement or in others that I have found. The emphasis on recruitment is obvious: diversity serves the university, not the other way around.
What counts as “diverse” varies little in these documents. The list of race, ethnicity, disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, etc appears in some for in all of the documents. However, the visual design of most of the sites—the University of Michigan excluded—seems to focus on race and color. Even the Ohio State University’s people-less site emphasizes color in its earth-toned rainbow of links. The University of Iowa’s collection of sites has several pictures, all of which feature nonwhites: despite its statement about a more general diversity, no people with (visible) disabilities appear, and sexual orientation is difficult to spot visually. Women do appear, and appear quite often, perhaps even more than men of color. In these sites and in others I have examined, the most common image for a diversity webpage is an African-American woman; few show those of Hispanic heritage, and hardly any show Asian Americans. “Diversity,” according to these images, refers to race, and seems to especially refer to African-Americans, although such racial difference is not directly addressed.
Conclusions I have given a very broad overview of these sites; certainly each could be examined separately in more depth than I have given here. My goal, however, is to show how these pages construct an attitude toward “race” and “diversity” for the universities they serve. Ideally, these pages would be a direct representation of how the university operates, and ideally, we would see appropriate weight and consideration given to the pages dealing with Affirmative Action and diversity in general. Instead, we have to assume that these pages are a part of the university’s recruitment strategy and will most likely reflect in their hierarchy and content the concerns of high school students and their parents. While this mixing of genres—official document and recruitment tool—can help explain some of the constructions we see in these pages, persuasion to admission is not the only idea informing the design. These four pages invoke the liberal tradition’s commitment to colorblindness without actually referring to that concept; instead, individual merit and “diversity” is emphasized as being good for the educational environment. The past segregation and the social conditions that have denied many “diverse” people entry into higher education are never mentioned; only the future of the university matters.
Clearly I have not addressed all of the issues that emerge in this genre: the location of the school in question (urban/suburban/rural or Midwest/East Coast/West Coast), the type of school (public/private and community/traditional), the designers of the page (students/professionals/staff members), and the history of the school (as with the University of Michigan’s legal struggles) all play a role in the finished product. I have given this analysis not to condemn these schools or their page designers, but to point to an area that has not yet, to my knowledge, been examined for its potential effect on the attitude-formation of the university as a whole. The genre may be mundane, but the values, assumptions and ideologies it helps to build are anything but.
Works Cited
Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement. Eds. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas. New York: The New Press, 1995.
“Diversity.” Ohio State University website. 2007. 27 April 2007. http://www.osu.edu/diversity/
“Human Relations: Affirmative Action Office.” Purdue University website. 2007. 27 April 2007. http://www.purdue.edu/humanrel/aao/
“Human Resources and Affirmative Action.” University of Michigan website. 27 April 2007. http://www.umich.edu/~hraa/
“Human Resources: Policies.” Ohio State University website. 2006. 27 April 2007. http://hr.osu.edu/policy/index.aspx
“Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity.” University of Iowa website. 2004. 27 April 2007. http://www.uiowa.edu/~eod/
