PLF opposes racial discrimination by community college

A community college recently planned a “happy hour” event about diversity.  The college sent an e-mail about the event to all of the college’s staff members – and the e-mail explained that white people were not invited.

The administration of the college – the South Puget Sound Community College in Washington State – wisely apologized for the e-mail and canceled the event.  But the program coordinator for the college’s Department of Diversity and Equity, who helped write the e-mail, maintained that the event would have been better without white people present.

Pacific Legal Foundation opposes all forms of racial discrimination.  That is why PLF wrote a letter to the president of the college, commending the school for canceling the event and apologizing for the planned racial discrimination.  PLF’s letter noted that excluding a group of people because of their race is the antithesis of diversity and worsens racial tensions.  The most productive way to have a conversation about racial issues and diversity is to include people of all races.  To quote one Supreme Court majority opinion by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, treating people differently because of their race “threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters—a goal . . . to which the Nation continues to aspire.”