From the BI Staff
Tuesday night, in its final meeting ASUW passed a bill to put its future senators through diversity training. Surprisingly, the bill did not pass unanimously.
An ASUW education senator made remarks at the meeting, saying, “There’s only one thing that’s ever caused a problem in this world – that’s right, you got it right there – diversity.”
The fact that this comes from an education senator is alarming – someone who will be molding the minds of future generations should embrace the idea of diversity, and welcome the opportunity to learn more about it.
This comes during a swell of discontent over the changing USP requirements. Many students and faculty alike feel the university is compromising students’ competitive value in future job markets in the name of a fast-tracked education.
The Branding Iron supports ASUW diversity training, and opposes the elimination of the diversity requirement from the university. We believe the comments made at last night’s meeting paint a dismal picture of a world where diversity education is not valued.
The last time fear of diversity was the status quo was in 1940s Germany, and we all know how well that turned out. The University of Wyoming is going to produce a bunch of bigots if some serious changes are not made immediately.
Nobody benefits from this kind of incendiary, ethnocentric, ignorant rhetoric. Let’s try and lead Wyoming out of the Holocaust mindset.
Instead of ignorantly questioning the importance of diversity education, we should embrace vibrant social and cultural differences. We should all understand the harmful history that has caused so much violence so as not to repeat it.
If you claim to not know what diversity is, there is a fundamental flaw in the way you have been educated; what better place to rectify that glaring mistake than on a multi-cultural university campus?
In our estimation, there is only one thing that has ever caused a problem in this world, and it is not diversity; rather, the majority of today’s problems are born from an inability to embrace diversity, and what it can offer.
