A university workshop on white privilege and racism was a major flop – attracting just nine students out of the 30,000 enrolled in the school. Last year, the course sparked outrage over the perception that it was ‘whites-only’.

The White Consciousness Conversations at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte first drew national headlines in September of last year. The scheduled events for students and staff were said to be “for white people” by the school website. Following public backlash, the description was changed to explain that people of color would be welcome to learn about white privilege and racism, too.

This year, the university brought the Conversations back, but apparently failed to draw the interest of the intended audience. The UNC Charlotte campus has around 30,000 students, but only nine showed up last week, conservative education news outlet College Fix says.

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Of those nine, two were journalists there to cover the workshop, and two said their professors offered them extra credit for attending. The remaining five were members of the university’s chapter of conservative group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), who came “more out of curiosity and concern about the nature of the seminar.”

The latter apparently were not moved by what they heard about “the meaning and implications of whiteness.” The lesson was, according to the report, that racism is what white people do to people of color and should not be confused with racial discrimination, which covers all other forms of mistreatment based on race.

“I think the creators of this event had good intentions, but… we had two different definitions of racism. Unfortunately, if we can’t agree on the definition of racism then we can’t make any meaningful steps towards productive change,” YAF member Kelly VonEnde told the Fix.

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While racism remains a problem in the US, including among college students, the way the liberal camp has been dealing with it has faced criticism for being ineffective or even detrimental to the cause, with campuses no longer viewed by many as bastions of free speech and honest debate.

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