The SCC Files: Sandhills Community College & Moore County Chamber sponsoring DEI training for all

Our beloved local college — snuggled deep in the heart of bright-red Moore County — appears to be working overtime to make DEI (“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”) the new official religion for the local area.   The Chamber and the community college are the lead promoters and sponsors of an upcoming seminar featuring a nationally-renowned DEI cheerleader. 

What’s DEI?  Some jokingly refer to it as “Didn’t Earn It.”  It’s actually a whole lot of Marxism-Leninism flavored with a generous topping of “Make Whitey Pay.” Under DEI, you get hiring based on race, gender, sexual orientation and other left-wing sacred cows.   It also affects curriculum.  At Sandhills, students are actually confronted with essay questions dealing with topics such as how to make Independence Day and Thanksgiving more “sensitive” toward “people of color.”

We’ve written extensively on the college’s left-wing mischief perpetrated right under the nose of an apparently clueless board of trustees.  A dean of DEI and an actual DEI office were established on campus under former college president John Dempsey. Dempsey is long gone and the campus is now under the rule of president Sandy Stewart.  I’ve spoken with four different members of the college’s board of trustees.  (One of them has actually written op-eds slamming DEI.). All four swore to me that DEI was “gone, gone, gone” from Sandhills.  

How, you ask.  I was told that an alleged “strategic plan” lays out a strategy for ending DEI at Sandhills over a four-year period.  (The UNC system managed to remove it from all of its campuses with ONE vote.). To a person, DEI at Sandhills was dismissed by my sources as just “another loony idea” from John Dempsey which should have been killed off long ago. 

None of my sources could produce this alleged strategic plan for me.  Of course, it’s not available on the college’s web site.  The college has been notorious for not being transparent with its governance.

Not long after those discussions, we found a few things leading us to believe the college had simply changed the name of the DEI program, but kept all of the employees and programming. 

Now, comes word of a “symposium” to be hosted on The Sandhills campus:

Four local organizations are joining to sponsor a seminar later this summer dealing with workforce recruitment and development.

The Moore County Chamber of Commerce, Sandhills Community College, the Southern Pines Land and Housing Trust and the Small Business Center at SCC are sponsoring the Aug. 15 Talent Symposium at SCC’s Bradshaw Performing Arts Center.

The event is designed to bring together business leaders, educators, and community members to discuss and explore approaches to workforce development and excellence.

The event’s featured speaker will be author Raven Solomon. A news release describes Solomon as “a global diversity, equity and inclusion thought leader and nationally recognized keynote speaker who helps organizations get future-ready by understanding generations and DEIB at their intersection.”

It describes her talk as a way “to foster productive working relationships, drive business results and prepare organizations to compete.”

“The Talent Symposium is a unique opportunity for our community to come together and address the evolving needs of our workforce,” said Linda Parsons, president and CEO of the Moore County Chamber. “We are excited to have Raven Solomon with us, whose expertise and dynamic approach will undoubtedly inspire and equip attendees with the tools necessary to cultivate excellence in their organizations.”[…]