"Diversity's False Solace" -- a provocative essay from the NYTMagazine by a professor at the Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, a large public school that's often recognized for its racial and ethnic diversity. But what about class difference, the great unspoken American divide? Should colleges try to offer students across all tax brackets an opportunity to attend, or would they be stirring up an even bigger hornet's nest than affirmative action? At Harvard, 90% of the students come from families making more than the average U.S. median of $42K/yr -- which takes the wind out of the recent announcement that Harvard students in that other 10% are exempt from paying their allotted tuition portion. This quote says it all: "In the end, we like policies like affirmative action not so much because they solve the problem of racism but because they tell us that racism is the problem we need to solve. And the reason we like the problem of racism is that solving it just requires us to give up our prejudices, whereas solving the problem of economic inequality might require something more -- it might require us to give up our money."