Proponents of "diversity hiring" insist that faculty members of color have a different perspective on issues of race and ethnicity that will increase students' understanding of the multiracial, multicultural world they will inhabit in the 21st century. The mere presence of "diverse" faculty members will prepare students for workplace realities, proponents argue. Moreover, minority faculty members are needed to serve as mentors to a growing number of students of color. In this article, the author argues that while the goal of diversifying college faculties may be a worthy one, academic circles have largely ignored problems inherent in the practice of "diversity hiring." She contends that such hiring practices are not only legally questionable, but that they also go against everything a half-century of antiracist educational activism has taught us about the meaninglessness of visible racial characteristics. She believes that, in insisting that "race" is a legitimate factor in hiring and salary decisions, diversity-hiring policies not only undermine hard-won antidiscrimination laws, they also reinscribe racial categories with social meaning.