It's the Brian Laira Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I don't have to tell you that the idea of diversity has become such a political lightning rod in recent years, right?

And people tend to think of it perhaps because it's been so in the news just recently as relatively

new and maybe left wing, you know, tied to affirmative action, which only dates back to the

1960s, to DEI, which is an even

newer phrase, maybe modern campus politics. And those debates have, of course, only intensified

since the Supreme Court's 2023 decision students for fair admissions, which struck down

race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and UNC and prompted

universities across the country to roll back or think, rethink, rethink, diversity initiatives.

And then there's the war on all things, DEI, from the Trump administration.

But our guest now, Berkeley Law Professor David Oppenheimer,

argues that the whole conversation is missing something fundamental. The idea of diversity

didn't begin with modern wokeness, if you want to use that word, and it hasn't always been

so partisan. His argument boiled down is that diversity was originally understood

not mainly as a moral project or a form of restorative justice, but basically as a utilitarian

concept about how knowledge works will explain. David B. Oppenheimer is a clinical professor

of law at the University of California, Berkeley,

and the new book is called The Diversity Principle, the Story of a Transformative Idea. Professor Oppenheimer,

thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC. Thank you so much, Brian. That's a thrill to be here with you.

Go to the title of the book, The Diversity

Principle. Is there a principle? There is a principle. And that is that when you bring together

people with different backgrounds and experiences, including people of different ages and religions

and races and ethnicities and genders and disabilities and cultures,

...