Since I started looking at Marquette University for my post-high school endeavors, I think I have heard the word diversity approximately 1,237,845 times.

Diversity is on every admissions mailing, it's mentioned during freshman orientation, it gets a shout out in plenty of classes and it is the administration's favorite word.

Student Affairs has a Diversity Committee and Marquette has a special statement on human dignity and diversity.

And it's no wonder. Just look around campus. Diversity is everywhere.

Diversity is in the plethora of white kids walking to classes on Central Mall. Diversity is evident in the sea of "white" and gold in the fan section at the Bradley Center. It's even more obvious in the few black or Hispanic students in most classes.

And the intermix of all this diversity is visible when you look at students in the library or the dorm cafeterias — white kids sitting here, black kids sitting there and Hispanic and Asian students at yet other tables.

Carlos Garces, senior assistant dean of admissions, said his office talks about diversity with prospective students. They tell them that Marquette is one of the most diverse schools in Wisconsin with students from every state.

"Nowadays a lot of students are very interested in that," he said. "They're looking for a diverse experience in college. We do provide it."

You certainly do. It's clearly seen in Marquette's numbers, which cannot lie — 82 percent of undergraduates are white. See? Diversity.

Five percent of undergraduates are black, four percent are Asian or Pacific Islander and 5.5 percent are Hispanic, according to an October report from Marquette's Office of Institutional Research.

In October, Marquette also boasted a whooping 141 international students, or 1.8 percent. As far as Jesuit colleges are concerned, Boston College, Georgetown University and the University of San Francisco usually have many more international students than Marquette, said Ellen Blauw, associate director of the Office of International Education.

CollegeProwler, a Web site that describes itself as a college guide written by students for students, gives Marquette a D- in diversity. This is Marquette's lowest grade and its only D.

Student comments on the site tell visitors that at Marquette "diversity at MU is pretty much nonexistent" and "the campus is not that diverse. It is composed mostly of upper-middle-class white kids."

On the site, a user who called himself "tokenblack" wrote, "Black people are treated as a commodity, and there are no places they can go."

I come from a small farming community in northern Illinois and the clear majority of my town and high school are white. When I chose Marquette, I was excited to meet people who were ethnically different than me, to make friends who would expand my horizons and to bring more inclusive ideas back home with me.

My horizons have expanded in Milwaukee, but diversity on campus is not why.

So here's to you, Marquette. Thanks for promising diversity and delivering with a failing grade.