Dogma is defined as "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true."  Progressives pride themselves with the conceit that they are above baseless reliance on dogma.  Dogma conjures up thoughts of religion — which, surveys tell us, progressive liberals detest.  But is this true?  Do progressives really reject dogma?  I say no.

The diversity dogmas is help up by believers in progressive liberalism as an unalloyed, unmitigated, unquestioned good.  More and more, this diversity ideal is becoming the core dogma held by schools, universities, corporations, government bodies, the media, the tech sector, and a host of other industries that make up the progressive liberal flock.

What is and is not diversity to progressive liberals?  John Fonte defines it like so: "Diversity" does not mean ... traditional pluralism that is the result of differing interests, ideas, talents, and opportunities in a free society.  Today 'diversity' means that society is divided into adversarial ethnic-racial, gender, and sexually orientated groups.  There are the dominant oppressor groups (males, whites, Christians, heterosexuals, native-born English speakers) and the marginalized and oppressed victim groups (women, ethnic and linguistic minorities, LGBT, illegal immigrants)."  The true definition, underneath the platitudes, is based on a Manichean reading of who is and isn't "diverse."  A group made up entirely of the former is not diverse, while a group made up entirely of the latter is diverse — or at least is not subject to criticism in the same way.

If an organization or group is judged as "not diverse," two concordant principles follow — the lack of diversity definitionally is caused by discrimination, and it is the job of the state or corporation or entity to force said non-diverse group to become diverse.  This process works out fairly simply.  The diversity evangelists demand that an organization tabulate specific "diversity" criteria.  Then they decide whether or not that organization is diverse.  Typically, these statistics look at race, gender, and sexuality.  But sometimes other "marginalized" groups such as non-English speakers, the disabled, religious groups, immigration status, and a host of other "protected" groups are counted.

Take what the Black Liberation Collective asked of the University of Toronto as an emblematic case.  In December 2015, the university began collecting data to show the racial composition of the student body.  Why would this group make this demand?  To "reveal that Black students at U of T are underrepresented relative to their demographics in Canada — and that this will prove the existence of discrimination that can be rectified by demographic engineering."  Similar efforts have been made here in the United States in countless government bodies and corporate human resources departments, schools, Hollywood, Wall Street, and so on.

This dogma falls apart under criticism.  For example, does racial diversity include geographic breakdowns?  Are women interchangeable whether they are from Appalachia or San Francisco or rural Texas or Los Angeles?  Surely, blacks from the Dominican Republic, or the Bronx, or Montgomery, or Kansas City, or Minneapolis are not interchangeable?  The diversity dogmatists cannot tell us, but instead tell us you're probably a racist or a sexist for raising these objections.  Looking at survey data at the University of Toronto, George McKeown actually noted that the groups most underrepresented were "men, Indigenous peoples, and whites, relative to Canadian demographics at large."  Only one of those groups are "protected" victim groups; diversity matters only when oppressor groups are dominant.

Belief in "diversity" is widely accepted with unquestioning zeal throughout many quarters of the United States — despite the apparent problems it brings.  Writing for National Review, Victor Davis Hanson notes that "for some reason, contemporary America believes that it can reject its uniquely successful melting pot to embrace a historically dangerous and discredited salad-bowl separatism."  For this supposition, Hanson has been called a "white nationalist" and a "racist" by various leftist groups.  Yet they have nothing to say about the evidence he puts forth that undermines the idea that e pluribus without unum might not be such a good idea.  Evidently, the bloodbaths that took place in the diverse (and long dead) Ottoman, Russian, Austrian, British, and Soviet empires are not admissible as evidence, as they so clearly indict the "diversity" project.  To point out the modern messes that took place in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan as diverse religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups tore those countries apart is to trespass on hallowed ground — or, rather, to question the diversity dogma is to pronounce blasphemy to progressive liberal ears.