Say no to diversity training

The racist threats and slurs written on the Free Expression Tunnel of N.C. State University remind us that bigotry still exists on North Carolina’s campuses.

In response, UNC-system President Erskine Bowles has called for a task force to determine whether UNC-system schools should be required to offer “diversity training” to incoming first-year students.

Of course, to deny the presence of prejudice in any student body would be naive. But a single diversity training session at C-TOPS would hardly have the impact necessary for it to be worthwhile.

For those who hold on to discriminatory beliefs, an hour of forced exposure can’t undo a lifetime of intolerance.

In determining a positive alternative, the University must not overlook the greatest weapon in its arsenal: four years of experience that its graduates will cherish for a lifetime.

We should be confident that a student’s exposure to diversity in these four years is “training” that is not only sufficient in itself, but also ideal.

The alternative — coercing “diversity training” on an entire incoming class — sends the wrong message about the caliber of our student body.

It would reinforce the archaic stereotype that a Southern school necessarily attracts the most closed-minded people in the country.

It would tarnish the justified impression of new Tar Heels, like me, that they chose a globalized, cultured university.

And it would sap the confidence of minorities that they indeed enjoy as much acceptance as others that attend schools that do not mandate “diversity training.”

And so, to embrace an hour of diversity training is to diminish the four-year responsibility of a college to alter each student’s perspective in a positive way.

If we continue to act diligently on that responsibility, then we would be able to teach tolerance by example, not compulsion. Rather than chide ourselves for accepting the narrow-minded dogmatists of today, we would pride ourselves on changing them into the open-minded leaders of tomorrow.

We Tar Heels don’t need diversity training. We need a diverse experience.