Friday, February 22, 2008

Mandatory diversity training for Campus Press staff

How unexpected:
The University of Colorado student newspaper's staff will undergo diversity training and meet other measures outlined Thursday by CU officials in response to a column published earlier this week that said Asian people should be rounded up, "hog-tied" and "forced to eat bad sushi."
Specifically, the paper will "schedule a series of diversity-awareness workshops for the entire staff with the CU Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, with participation of professional journalists of color."

And, of course, a lesson has been learned:
"I'm confident that the current crop of editors has begun to develop a new, more nuanced understanding of the delicate balance between absolute free speech and journalistic social responsibility," [j-school dean Paul] Voakes wrote. "I also want to apologize on behalf of the school for the upset that our student publication has created."
CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard was unctuous: "I think they learned words have power to wound and to hurt."

God, what a school.

Update: Slapstick Politics wonders, "Where are the Ward Churchill acolytes to defend Karson's free speech protections?"

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