Keen On

"Great minds think alike? It's completely wrong. It's not that great minds think alike; it's that different minds are great." — David OppenheimerIt's diversity week. Yesterday, Brian Soucek argued in favor of what he calls the "opinionated university" to protect free speech. Today David Oppenheimer, law professor at UC Berkeley, on The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea. Oppenheimer reminds us that diversity isn't a modern invention. It traces back to Wilhelm von Humboldt's University of Berlin in 1810, which admitted Catholics and Jews to what would otherwise have been an entirely Protestant institution. And to John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty—written with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill—might be renamed On Liberty and Diversity.Oppenheimer's case for diversity is partly moral, partly utilitarian. Diverse boards result in more profitable corporations, he says. Diverse science labs make more significant discoveries. Diverse classrooms generate better ideas. The phrase "great minds think al