Recently, a local Wilmington, North Carolina news station (WWAY) ran a news story on my satirical column “My new contribution to educational racism.” Local news stations like to run news stories on my satires because the proliferation of crack, heroin, methamphetamines, prostitution, and illegal immigration in my town is not sufficiently newsworthy.
In the midst of important business negotiations (money talk), I declined to do a recorded TV interview for the WWAY Top News Story of the day, which was my satire. Instead, I offered the following statement intended to make things more exciting in the workplace when I return in mid-August:
The comment, which was expected to produce a blanket denial of racial discrimination by UNCW officials, appears to have had the intended effect. Here’s what WWAY reported as my employer’s response:
While WWAY carefully avoids “preferrential” treatment for serious journalism, UNCW officials are guilty of avoiding preferential treatment for the truth about the school’s racial policies. In a letter posted on the UNCW website, Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo had this to say to those who want to do business with the university:
Despite the “all possible means” language, I assume that DePaolo would stop short of asking employers with only 9% minorities to kill a couple of white employees in order to exceed the 10% quota. Nonetheless, the point is established. UNCW uses racial quotas and meets them via the “preferential treatment of minorities” they so blandly deny.
Now that Rosemary has expressed her “personal expectation” for a 10% rate of minority employment among contractors, maybe she will set her sights on a graduating class at UNCW that is actually 10% minority. It will take a lot of preferential racial treatment to offset that pesky beach three miles from campus – the one that keeps attracting all of those diversity-impairing white students.
But, in the meantime, UNCW has established a separate black graduation ceremony to hide the lack of blacks in the mostly-white-but-not-to-be-referred-to-as-“white” graduation ceremony. The medals given to blacks at the “black graduation” are not seen as a form of preferential treatment of minorities. Nor are UNCW officials concerned about holding black graduation in separate facilities. They insist that all educational facilities are “separate but equal.”
Note that in DePaolo’s letter she refers to the university Diversity Initiative Plan (DIP) released in September of 2004. Among other things, the DIP (the report, not DePaolo) says that UNCW should:
1…“Build a Pool of Prospective Students From Underrepresented Populations and Recruit Them to UNCW to Develop a Rich and Vibrant Learning Environment.”
2…“Recruit and Retain a Critical Mass of Diverse Faculty.”
3…“Recruit, Develop and Retain a Critical Mass of Diverse Staff and Administrators.”
All of the above goals show that when Rosemary DePaolo is not writing letters to contractors reminding them to engage in preferential treatment of minorities, UNCW administrators are practicing what they preach by also engaging in preferential treatment of minorities.
When I first read that “UNCW officials deny any preferrential [sic] treatment of minorities,” I considered offering my testimony concerning specific instances of preferential racial treatment I have witnessed first-hand in recruiting as a UNCW employee. I also planned to place a wager of $5000 dollars on the outcome of a polygraph examination if these “UNCW officials” dared to question the truthfulness of my accounts.
But a cursory examination of the university Web site now shows conclusively that UNCW officials are lying just as they recently lied to the Wilmington Star News about the departure of our popular (and now former) men’s basketball coach. Indeed, counting the number of black people on the UNCW campus is easier than counting the number of lies UNCW administrators have told since the onset of the DePaolo administration.
Now that I think about it, I may really have to change my classroom policies this year. Instead of changing my position on lateness and cell phones in accordance with UNCW’s racist policies, I think I’ll change my policies on lying and cheating.
In fact, as of now, I am abolishing the requirement that my students conduct themselves in an honest and truthful manner. I want each one to have the character and integrity of a UNC administrator.
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