The tally of occurrences of a PC buzzword on academic and other websites seems to corroborate the suspicion that we're quickly abandoning "e pluribus unum" as the governing principle for treating individuals justly. In its place is the new image of America as a melange of competing interest groups. In this NAS research on comparative usage, word-counts indicate that higher education, more than any other opinion-determining segment of our society, is exalting the fractious concept of "diversity" over such unifying ideals as freedom, liberty, democracy, and equality. (Contains 8 tables and 9 notes.)