CSU East Bay will host a total of five commencement ceremonies for 2015 graduates. The nature of these various ceremonies represents a catastrophic leap backwards in social progress.

Sadly, none of us is quite old enough to remember a time in America and in higher education in particular when success wasn’t color-coded and what mattered wasn’t between your legs or woven into your pigment.

CSU East Bay administration should end all non-academic graduation ceremonies in the name of peace and meritocracy.

In the real world, you don’t get brownie points for being Black, white, Mexican, gay, straight, male, or female. Glass ceilings are quietly shattered every day by individuals who practice honesty, pursue intelligence, and promote integrity.

Momentary lapses in judgment that manifest themselves in racial or sex-biased exclusion are quickly and efficiently punished in the marketplace. Businessmen do not dare to refuse services to people of a certain race or sex.

This is not because there are laws against discrimination. Belief in the idea that discrimination laws are what stops discrimination is a delusion.

The profit mechanism stops discrimination. Discriminating based on sex or race earns a business hatred amongst the community, loss of profit, and eventually bankruptcy.

Keep in mind that despite all the politically correct social justice laws against discrimination, businessmen and women still have the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason. If it were, in fact, true that rogue racists would stomp on minorities if not for the force of the state, then this right to refuse service would be exercised frequently. But it’s not.

Constant focus on race and sex, manifested in devoting actual graduation ceremonies to them, is the lifeblood of racism and sex discrimination.
To suffocate racism and sexual discrimination, college authorities should focus on merit, and individuals should focus on virtues. Not on race. Not on sex.

The proposal here is not to ignore differences in race and sex. The proposal is to acknowledge them as a general condition of humanity and then to quickly focus on things that actually matter.

In college, academic success is what matters and that, and that alone, should be celebrated. In life, kindness, integrity, honesty, and determination matter. In your life after graduation, celebrate those and you will be celebrated for practicing them.

I’ll undoubtedly be accused of speaking from white, male privilege by the politically correct social justice crowd. These individuals are ignorant of my published record that speaks against violent discrimination (usually by the government). Instead, what I propose here is to radically and defiantly reject the racist cultural narrative that society has beaten into us.

Reject religious race-obsession. Reject religious sex-obsession.

Celebrate others for the content of their mind and heart, not for their skin and sex.