In our struggle against discrimination, America has come a great distance, but a terribly long journey remains.  Separate ÒwhiteÓ and ÒcoloredÓ drinking fountains passed from the scene decades ago, but the racism that remains is, if anything, more subtle and more difficult to root out.  Women still face violence, discrimination, and sexual harassment.  Millions of our citizens languish in depressed inner-city and rural areas, struggling valiantly against terrible schools, desperate poverty, and minimum-wage jobs.

To be a public university is to accept the challenge of egalitarianism.  But simply opening doors, providing access, has not been enough.  Many groups suffer from social, cultural, and economic discrimination.  Those who have managed to find their way here have faced immense barriers in a university culture still largely designed to serve the needs of a white, male majority.  For too long, Michigan was blind to the pain of campus life for those who were Òdifferent.Ó  We cannot undo the past, but we can work to change the present and the future.

We know that twenty-first century America will be the most diverse nation in the world.  Yet, our students arrive on campus from increasingly segregated communities.  One of our greatest challenges will be to model egalitarian democracy in our own community, resisting the often violent splintering in our society and world.

As we face these challenges, we are also learning what an incredible intellectual asset diversity brings.  Many years ago, the historian Thomas Kuhn pointed out that even in the natural sciences, advances in knowledge fundamentally depend on fresh points of view, new ways of seeing old material.  Increasingly we are realizing that academic success itself depends directly on our ability to not merely tolerate but to harness the potential that plurality brings.

We should be proud of our real successes these past ten yearsÑwe are far more diverse today than at any time in our history.  Yet immense barriers still remain.  Diversity is not just about ÒnumbersÓ; it requires profound structural change.  An egalitarian community cannot be created in a single mighty actÑit requires a dialogue that never truly ends.