Wearing afro wigs and black face paint to a football game is offensive. Minstrel face paint is racist. But what's just as ugly as that is a university so afraid of taking on a teachable moment and touching a racial topic that it will instead allow a handful of idiots to dictate policy for the rest of a student body.

Parents send children to college so they can learn, and grow, and become socially and culturally educated. The aim of every place of higher learning should be to spit students out smarter, more aware and far more developed than when they arrived.

At

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Officials from the university announced that they've decided not to go forward with the "wear black" marketing campaign for Beavers football games this season. For the Oct. 20 and No. 17 games, tickets for season-ticket holders were printed telling attendees to wear black. Now, amid misplaced concerns and a desire to let a few long-gone idiots dictate policy for the rest of the student body, that campaign has been abandoned.

In 2007, a similar marketing campaign went sideways when a student participating in the "wear black" campaign wore black face paint and an afro wig to Reser Stadium. He should have been held up as an ugly example of how far we still need to come as a society. Instead, the fool was turned into a policymaker.

What should have resulted in the wake of this incident was a valuable moment that should have demonstrated to us all the power and reach of good education. Oregon State should have used the moment to preach sensitivity, and to demonstrate that the actions of a fool don't have to impact the thousands of well adjusted, normal, tolerant students who simply wore black (one of the school colors) and supported the team.

That didn't happen, obviously. And five years later, the university is again running when it should stand tall and teach. Last week a group of university administrators that included Steve Clark, a vice president at Oregon State in charge of marketing, met with athletic director Bob De Carolis, marketing officer John Rizzardini, Provost Sabah Randhawa, and Student Affairs Vice Provost Larry Roper to discuss the "wear black" campaign.

They talked about concerns from students about safety and cultural sensitivity. And what came from that wasn't a decision to help educate students, but to cancel the entire campaign. Just too dicey, apparently. And given that "wear black" campaigns take place at other colleges, including the University of Oregon, without incident and eye blinking from administrators, the outcome here says as much about the culture in Corvallis as it does anything.

The marketing campaign pitched, "wear black." As in clothes. As in T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, and other apparel. And if that needed to be emphasized to students, the university should have spent the time and energy to make that point clear. Personally, I think it was clear, even five years ago, and the issue should have been moot.

Canceling the "wear black" campaign doesn't educate students. It doesn't open eyes, or minds. It doesn't foster sensitivity. It doesn't do anything but make the university appear fearful and paranoid. In the end, canceling divides the student body into those who believe young people have the maturity to handle the responsibility of wearing black clothes and those who do not.

The hope here is that if some ignorant racists wore an afro and black face paint to a football game anywhere in America, they'd be treated like the fool they are the minute they walked into a stadium. If they somehow made it to their seats, the usher ought to call stadium security and eject them. Oregon State could have taught a lot here, and instead settled for very little.

By abandoning the marketing campaign now Oregon State isn't canceling the "wear black" event. It's just tip-toeing away from it, raising its hands in innocence, leaving the student body to figure things out for themselves. If there's any value at all in this, it's the sobering realization that students in Corvallis are making today.

There are idiots among us.

Never let them end up in charge.

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