Demographics out of Joint

The worries about the Reed student body being insufficiently diverse are motivated by many good desires for the college and for society as a whole. I agree with Joel Batterman ’10 [Letters, June 2011] that missing out on a variety of perspectives impoverishes the Reed community.

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Reed should be deconstructing and shattering these categories, not using them to chase some kind of percentaged ideal, as if students with particular backgrounds are meant to be landscape elements or pinches of spice. Sometimes the language of targeted recruitment sounds quite patronizing, hardly the tactic to invite people who are looking to transcend centuries of racism. I am reminded of a radical feminist adage from the 1970s, “You cannot break your chains by polishing them.”

—Scott Rausch ’92

Seattle, Washington