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:

"North Carolina's most notorious bigots, racists and segregationists are no longer found within the leadership of the KKK. They are found within the leadership of the UNC system."

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:

"UNCW officials deny any preferrential [sic] treatment of minorities."

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:

"As a contractor seeking to conduct business with the University, it is my personal expectation that you will exhaust all possible means to meet or exceed the minimal 10% minority participation goal that has been established through the North Carolina General Assembly."

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.” Continued...