The Washington Post’s ombudsman had a really silly column on “Newsroom Diversity” over the weekend. As is usually the case when the “business imperative” of diversity is touted, the touter ignores the fact that (a) preferences on the basis of race, ethnicity, and sex are illegal, and (b) the justifications boil down to the crudest stereotypes (the column endorses, I kid you not, the suggestion that whites are opera lovers and blacks are basketball players). Refreshingly, the online comments on the column are almost uniformly negative, including one by yours truly.