Diversity

[Martin Hash]

My youngest son, Haven, is off to college. All freshman are required to attend Freshman orientation so we dropped him off at the school for a three day stay. He called after two days and asked us to pick him up. When we got there he said that he was asked to leave.

“You failed Freshman orientation?” I exclaimed. “How could you fail Freshman orientation?”

“Well, first she wanted us to have a group hug,” he began.

“You failed because you wouldn’t participate in a group hug?”

“No, I did the group hug, then, during the campus tour she showed us the Hispanic American Student Union, the African American Student Union, the Native American Student Union, the Asian American Student Union, and she said not to ask why there was no White American Student Union, so I asked why there was no White American Student Union, and she got angry and said that, 'All buildings are White American Student Unions!'”

“You failed because you asked about Student Unions?”

“No… But then she said that even though we don’t want to admit it… All whites are born prejudiced.”

“Oh my, that’s the most prejudicial statement I’ve ever heard. What did you say?”

“I asked if it was anything like ‘original sin’ - where every baby is born inherently evil and they must accept Jesus Christ as their savior before being admitted back into the kingdom of God?”

“That would do it,” I agreed. “…Let me talk to this person.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Dad.”

........

“I assume your students attend diversity training?” I asked the woman.

“Oh, yes. Haven attended all three hours.”

“I feel diversity is very important,” I said. “Because people need to understand diverse lifestyles – take mine for example: at my home we don’t abide chanting.”

“Oh, I assure you there was no chanting,” she said smugly. “Haven mislead you if he said there was chanting.”

I looked her straight in the eyes. “Rah. Rah. Rah. Go. Team. Go.” I said.

It took her a moment to understand what I meant, then her eyes narrowed and she blurted, “We’ve had over 600 students through this program, and not one has ever complained.”

“Sounds to me like you don’t have enough diversity,” I pointed out.

Afterwards, Haven was saying, “I told you, Dad.”

“At least we feel better,” I replied.

“But now she put a hold on my registration,” Haven said forlornly.

“Let’s go to the Engineering Department and see if they can help us. You’re going into engineering.”

The Engineering counselor looked at Haven appraisingly. “Your SATs are high enough you don’t have to take the placement tests, and you had two years of Junior College while in High School. Here, let me get you registered for Electrical Engineering. Hey, somebody put a hold on your account - let me take that off of there.”

Ten minutes later, we were done and gone. I’ve always liked engineers.