Our Cutting Edge Isn’t Cutting It

Abstract

During the past several years, various writers and commentators have argued that as part of their affirmative action efforts, universities should enroll more students of working-class origins because socioeconomic integration ensures greater social equity, democracy, and intellectual diversity. The present study shows that the justifications applied to student diversity pertain equally well to professors. This discussion proposes that if public administration were first to use socioeconomic status–based affirmative in faculty hiring, it would prove the discipline’s willingness to meet its self-imposed obligation to be cutting edge, a promise studies have shown it has yet to fulfill.