Anna Gould, a reporter at the University of Wisconsin's Daily Cardinal, was looking at the cover of the school's admissions brochure. It featured jumping, screaming fans at a Badger football game.

At first glance, the photo appeared to be perfectly ordinary, but "I thought something looked funny," Gould said. Closer scrutiny told her why. The day the picture was taken was clearly overcast, and the students' faces — most as pale as the white cheddar cheese the state is famous for — reflected it. But in the lower left-hand corner, bright sunlight was glinting off the smiling, African American face of Diallo Shabazz.

Shabazz could have been sitting in the only sunbeam on a cloudy day — but he wasn't. In fact, Diallo Shabazz wasn't even in the stadium the day the picture was taken; He was attending a Welcome Week event elsewhere on campus. In an effort to make the school appear racially diverse, campus graphic artists had digitally inserted Shabazz into the stadium crowd.

When the digital deception became public, the most colorful controversy to hit the university in years ensued.

"They cheated!" shrieked one newspaper headline. "A cheat and a lie!" admonished a Chicago paper. "Someone should be punished for this," thundered a writer to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Shabazz himself — who received an apology from the school — stayed calm. The doctored photo was, he said, "Just a symptom of a much larger problem, which is the lack of diversity on this campus and the way the university is addressing that."

Bosh. If anything, the photo is evidence the school is deeply committed to racial diversity — so much so that it perhaps went a little too far in trying to prove it. The reality is that few, if any, schools will find themselves perfectly reflecting the racial make-up of the states in which they are located — and for good reason.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Black enrollment stood at 2.19 percent in 1981. Today — after years of dedicated minority outreach — it stands at 2.15 percent. The reality is that the University of Wisconsin — located as it is in an exceptionally white state — may be about as racially diverse as it's ever going to be. At a certain point, when high school students decide where to spend the next four years, other factors come into play — things colleges can't do anything about: size, geography, weather, and course offerings.

For example, how many Hawaiians attend college in North Dakota? (A wild guess: None). Does that mean North Dakota discriminates against Pacific Islanders?

Let me give a more personal example. My husband attended Washington State University, in Pullman, Wash., in the 1980s. It's located some 300 miles from Seattle, right on the border between Washington and Idaho, smack in the middle of some of the most productive farming country in the world (the school's nickname was, and probably still is, "Moo-U.") If you have to go to school there, it helps if you like wheat fields and county fairs, and ... well, wheat fields. (I didn't: he had to drag me kicking and screaming). You go to WSU to major in things like agriculture and veterinary medicine. In a region bereft of big city culture, or even a decent mall, tossing cow patties passed for entertainment.

By contrast, the University of Washington is located in Seattle — the side of Washington that has a near-monopoly on beauty: breathtaking beaches, lakes, and mountains, not to mention grunge bands, Starbucks and a thriving, big city atmosphere. I'd be willing to bet UW does a better job at recruiting minorities (far more of whom live in and around Seattle than in Pullman) than WSU.

Even if you live in the exact middle of the state, which would you rather do: Attend a school located near Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier, or one located in the middle of wheat fields? It's a no-brainer. Unless you're going to inherit the family farm, or want nothing more than to become the next James Herriot. Black or white, you'll probably choose UW. (Yes, I'm from Seattle, and yes, I'm prejudiced against cows and mall-challenged small towns.)

Does the University of Wisconsin have a "problem" with racial diversity? Yes, if "diversity" must precisely reflect the racial population statewide. Yes, if you think students should be coerced into going to schools they'd prefer not to attend, simply to make the multicultural math work, and make the multicultural magicians happy.

Does ANY school exactly reflect its regional population profile? I doubt it. Those who think we shouldn't give up until we have exact proportionality of race on every American campus ought to recall what happened when feminist groups attempted to force exact, male-female proportionism on college sports programs. "Equality" between men's and women's sports was rigidly interpreted to mean equal numbers of males and females had to participate in sports, despite the fact that far more men were interested in taking part than were women. In the end, many colleges were forced to cut popular men's sports programs in order to ensure "equality of outcome." It didn't help collegiate women — and it did a lot of harm to sports-minded college men.

If the diversity cops were paying attention, they'd see that it's not just race that is and always will be (e.g., historically black colleges) out of balance. Women's colleges will be similarly out of balance where sex is concerned.

The small college I attended started life 120 years ago as a women's college. The school graciously began accepting men some 60 years ago, but when I was a student there in the late 1970s, women still outnumbered men two to one. That ratio probably reflected both the school's feminine roots and its best-known degree programs: nursing and education.

Ditto for historically black colleges. How many of THEM reflect their state's racial demographics? Probably none of them. Does that mean there's something wrong with these schools, or that they're hostile to non-blacks? I doubt it.

Actually, any real hostility to diversity these days seems to be reserved for people, not of the wrong race, but of the wrong religion. Remember the Yale Five — Orthodox Jews who told Yale administrators that the school's co-ed housing and bathroom arrangements violated their religious beliefs? They were politely told where they could stuff their faith. Diversity indeed!

And conservative evangelical students have become accustomed to outright attacks on their faith in the classrooms — attacks by hostile professors who enjoy ridiculing their faith. Such attacks would get professors fired if they directed these attacks at racial, instead of religious, minorities.

Offhand, I can't think of a single college that perfectly duplicates America's religious diversity. (For example, although evangelical Protestants make up a substantial percentage of the population, you'll find very few of them at that bastian of tolerance and diversity, Harvard University. But don't look for the school to hire a campus evangelical-outreach officer anytime soon. Harvard evidently doesn't care if evangelicals apply or not. While that may make some evangelicals mad, it shouldn't — unless there's evidence that the school is deliberately keeping evangelicals out.)

Even if we could force a perfect diversity on every campus — racial, religious, sexual — would we really want to? Such a thing would reflect a false perfection — something not found anywhere in the outside world. Assuming a student matriculated at Diversity U, where would he then go? Into what perfectly balanced city, racially speaking, would he take up residence? Such a city does not exist.

Which means that the ideal college is one that is not — and doesn't aim to be — an exact replica of national race statistics. Most of us will likely live in a number of cities in our lives — cities that may be majority black or white, Asian or Hispanic. We must learn to be comfortable in all of them, perhaps as minorities for the first time in our lives — unless whites plan to turn down jobs in (heavily Asian) Hawaii, blacks plan to turn down work in (Hispanic) San Antonio, or Hispanics plan to refuse jobs in (mostly white) New Hampshire.

That would be a pity, because it can be exhilarating to plunge cold turkey into a culture radically different from your own. I once traveled through a country in which I was a racial, religious and political minority — a place where Western women were not held in high regard. At times, the way I was treated was maddening — but overall, the experience was invigorating. It was, as teachers would put it, a learning experience.

The number of African Americans attending college has steadily gone up, nationwide. That's something we should all celebrate. Colleges should continue to seek out those who have historically been excluded, but we should take care not to carry a good thing to harmful extremes.

If your most important criteria for college are student bodies that look just like yours, by all means, pick one that is all male, all female, mostly Black or white, or almost entirely Catholic.

But if it's diversity you want — try going to one full of folks you'll never meet in your neighborhood at home.