The world does not get better by accident. It gets better because there are champions who insist on change, who pursue change, and who effect change.

The president's cabinet should be judged for their ideology, experience, and character, not because of what boxes they check off on their census form.

More Americans from every color and creed are now earning college educations so college faculty should reflect that. While students can certainly learn from people outside their own sex, ethnicity and belief system, faculty with similar backgrounds provide stronger role models.

Just as our previous melting-pot mixture allowed our nation to become great, the demographic shifts we are currently experiencing can work in our favor, as well. We need to foster cultures of inclusion, where the differences that make us unique are celebrated and harnessed for innovation.

By expanding their applicant pool to include more veterans, universities might achieve not only a more desirable racial and economic balance, but also a greater diversity of experience and perspectives.

Conformity, whether rationalized or simply imposed, undermines our government, our press, and our educational systems. We've had to learn some hard lessons about this in the last 10 years. Surely one of them is that we must defend diversity as a tool for innovation and for responsible decision-making.