UNCW officials have decided to move forward with hiring their first ever Chief Diversity Officer. This is happening despite recent revelations that one of their current diversity officers had been involved in illegal political campaigning using university property.
Last year, a task force suggested replacing an associate provost position with a Chief Diversity Officer to promote diversity and inclusion on the campus and in the community. The former chancellor who was run off campus initiated that task force. Now the North Carolina taxpayers are about to pick up the bill for his bad decision to expand UNCW’s already bloated administration.
But the search continues nonetheless. Last week, CDO candidate Ame Lambert-Aikhionbare traveled to UNCW to present at a forum at Lumina Theater. Lambert is like most so-called diversity experts. She’s black but went to an elite private college without many black people. In fact, her alma mater, Champlain College, is less than 3 percent black. It’s even less “diverse” (read: “black”) than UNCW. That probably has something to do with the $47,000 annual cost of attending the elite private college.
Nonetheless, the candidate answered questions from faculty, staff, students and community members. She also shared her goals for making diversity a necessary goal on campus – without mentioning the fact that UNCW already has five diversity centers managed by a small army of administrators.
The new CDO is supposed to work to make Affirmative Action, Equal Employment Opportunity, and LGBT issues and inclusion issues a priority at UNCW. That means that we will no longer be bombarded daily with reports of taxpayer expenditures for leftist political causes like redefining marriage and killing unborn babies. Now, we can expect to be bombarded with those messages on an hourly basis.
According to UNCW officials, they are searching for a candidate with strong communication skills. It’s a good thing Max Allen isn’t applying. Here’s what our Special Black Assistant to the Chancellor had to say to a local news outlet:
"I think someone who is very much able to communicate across all lines, whether you are talking about a chancellor or a grounds crew or you are talking about someone out in the community, so someone that can communicate well."
What sheer intercultural brilliance. It really takes a PhD to convey such insight in a single poorly constructed run-on sentence.
But we really should listen to Max Allen. He knows all about the importance of healthy racial dialogue. Several years ago, I posted an article on Townhall.com that correctly criticized the UNCW administration for lying about black enrollment and minority hiring practices. The column also criticized our affirmative action policies in general. So Max Allen sent the column link to a black member (now former member) of the UNCW Board of Trustees named Linda Pearce. Here is how she responded:
“Lord Have mercy. I only hate I’m going to add to his hits to his website. I suggest we give that man a black boss – Diane Emerson would be great !!!!!!!!! (Just kidding, but what is going on with her?) If I am ever in this man’s presence, please let me know. Linda.”
Take a moment to imagine what would happen if the racial roles had been reversed. 1) A black professor writes a column criticizing the (lack of) affirmative action policies. 2) A white special assistant sends a column link to a white trustee. 3) The white trustee recommends giving the black professor a white boss as punishment for exercising his First Amendment rights.
Of course, former trustee Linda Pearce did say she was kidding. But she really wasn’t kidding. In the very next sentence, she asks Max Allen to identify me in public so she can excoriate me for exercising my civil rights via the First Amendment.
Fortunately, I was able to use that email as an exhibit in my recent First Amendment trial. Anyone who wonders how I was able to win a unanimous verdict against all defendants including the UNCW Board of Trustees now knows the answer. It’s because Linda Pearce is a careless bigot with a loose tongue and a really big ego. Thanks Linda. The jurors were not impressed with your commitment to tolerance and diversity.
Of course, the bigger issue is Max Allen. Internal email records show that he started reading my columns and sending them to leaders in the black community back in 2006. Many have wondered for years exactly what Max does to earn his six-digit salary. It’s pretty simple: He’s our Chief Divisiveness Officer. He just foments racial unrest in order to justify additional diversity expenditures.
Reasonable people realize that race relations won’t get better at UNCW just by adding another elitist black liberal with a hyphenated name. But race relations will get better once someone has the guts to fire Max Allen.
Of course, it’s never going to happen. The brother has a white boss.
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