Elizabeth Martinez on Allan Bloom

“All-out opposition to diversity mounted when Allan Bloom fired a major salvo with his 1987 bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind. That same year, the National Association of Scholars in Princeton, New Jersey, was founded to defend "excellence" from extinction with the help of intellectuals like D'Souza and magazines like the Atlantic. The Anglo generals in the war soon had a few lieutenants of color, like African-American professor Shelby Steele of California State University in San Jose (and later Ward Connerly, also of California). Steele attacked affirmative action, saying it represented over-reliance by minorities and women on "the power of being victims." In its place we should follow the Horatio Alger formula for attaining success through individual responsibility and hard work. Not long after came a few Chicano academics who also advised Raza students to forget affirmative action; just stop whining, study hard and help your mom sell more tamales, you too could be Hispanics.”

“An array of such ostriches, heads in the sand, began flapping their feathers noisily with the publication of Allan Bloom's 1987 best-selling book, The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom bemoaned the decline of our "common values" as a society, meaning the decline of Euro-American cultural centricity (shall we just call it cultural imperialism?). Since then we have seen constant sniping at "diversity" goals across the land. The assault has often focused on how U.S. history is taught. And with reason, for this country's identity rests on a particular narrative about the historical origins of the United States as a nation.”