When it comes to diversity, the University of Virginia is one of the more politically correct--and hence procedurally fraught--campuses in the country. The school has (an almost certainly unconstitutional) speech code designed to protect the woundable sensibilities of just about anyone on campus who is not straight, white, and male. And now, in response to a prolonged push for some sort of "diversity requirement" (a push that received a great boost last winter when the current student body president, Daisy Lundy, was mysteriously assaulted on the eve of her election by an unidentified and still unapprehended white man who told her that "No one wants a nigger to be preisdent"), the school plans to institute mandatory diversity training for all students. Soon, you won't be able to register for courses at UVa until you complete an online course on how you ought to think and feel about race and racism. UVa is effectively making conformity to a particular political and social orthodoxy a condition of enrollment at the school.

The newly formed Individual Rights Coalition, a student group dedicated to tracking, publicizing, and protesting UVa's violations of students' constitutionally protected freedoms, explains on its website:

On May 31 of this year, in response to acrimonious allegations that our student body is hopelessly mired in ignorance and racism, our Board of Visitors mandated an online "diversity training" program to be imposed upon all undergraduates at the University. Students will be blocked from registering for classes until they have completed this "training", making it mandatory in the strictest sense of the word. As a justification, administrators claim that students must be "trained" in certain values of sensitivity, diversity, and multiculturalism in order to ensure smoother and friendlier discourse around grounds. It is not allegiance to the flag they want -- it is allegiance to a way of thinking.

The desired long-term effect of this soon-to-be-implemented diversity training program is the improvement of race relations around grounds. The intermediate goal, however, is to re-educate private citizens in their views on matters of race, ethnicity, and social dynamics. This effort comes not through open debate in the free marketplace of ideas, but through coercive impositions at the hands of those in power. A captive audience of students will be forcefully subjected to a message that is labeled "neutral, but is in reality crafted specifically to alter their core personal and political beliefs so that they conform to administrators' ideas on diversity and multiculturalism. The proposed method of thought reform is truly frightening and indeed antithetical to the deepest principles of liberal education. Instead of presenting their ideas to be critically evaluated and discussed in an environment of intellectual openness, administrators will preach their views from a powerful bully pulpit that is literally unavoidable. By abusing the considerable state-endowed power that they wield over students, they seek to circumvent the process of free debate and heavily privilege their opinions and their way of thinking about diversity above all others. This is not how hearts and minds are won in a free society, and it is absolutely despicable, no matter what goal is named to justify it.

The way to educate people, to increase their awareness, or to expose them to alternative viewpoints is by discussing and arguing in the public forum, not by using government authority to compel people to attend indoctrination sessions. With the blessings of free speech and a free press to support the dispersion of ideas, the means of ìenlighteningî the public need not rely upon coercion. If the views of administrators are as meritorious as they claim, let them prevail through the trials of open debate. Let people be convinced through the process of reasoned discourse, not via compulsory attendance policies and mandatory "training."

The Individual Rights Coalition is sponsoring a petition that can be signed by students and faculty who oppose the new mandatory training. Online petitions are of limited value (as James Taranto unrelenting demonstrated last winter with his withering lists of the false names people were posting to the Not In Our Name petition). But the idea of creating a place where people can register their discontent is worth pursuing--I hope the folks at freeuva.com come up with a credible and effective way to enable concerned members of the campus community to voice their opposition.

UPDATE: John Rosenberg has much more.

UPDATE UPDATE: I am assured by the people at freeuva.com that they will be verifying all "signatures" on their electronic petition. Here's hoping the administration takes this group's position as seriously as it does that of those thr group opposes.