There have been several times in the last few years when I thought that the diversity movement at my university (University of North Carolina-Wilmington) had reached its peak in terms of absurdity. However, I recently realized that the movement has reached a new level of lunacy that even I could not have foreseen. This realization came as I was driving by the university and saw an advertisement for an upcoming university-sponsored concert featuring the rapper Ludacris.

For those who don't already know, Ludacris was recently dropped from an endorsement deal with Pepsi-Cola as a result of negative publicity generated by the anchor of the Fox News program The O'Reilly Factor. Bill O'Reilly seemed to have little trouble convincing the public that Ludacris was an undesirable Pepsi spokesperson, given his penchant for writing songs about "n______s," "b_____s," and "hos."

After making a few phone calls, I found out that the UNCW Ludacris concert was being funded by $60,000 in student fees, which was being matched by $60,000 in funding from the university. In other words, $120,000, which could have funded 10 four-year full scholarships for minority students, would be spent on a few hours of live renditions of songs such as "Move B___" and "Get the F___ Back (or Luda Make Your Skull Crack)."

I raise the issue of minority scholarships because of the reason that the university supported the idea of bringing in Ludacris: It was believed that the rapper would help promote "diversity" at UNCW. The university has long been concerned about the fact that less than 10 percent of its student population is black. In fact, the highest proportion of black students in UNCW history is only 6 percent. Now that the Office of Campus Diversity has spent its first million, the proportion of black students is 4 percent.

Fortunately, the appearance of Ludacris at UNCW is not being embraced by every member of the so-called diversity movement. Recently, the director of the UNCW Women's Resource Center (WRC) indicated that there would be a likely protest because of the rapper's misogynistic lyrics. However, some are not taking the threat of a WRC protest seriously due to their recent decision to sponsor the play The Vagina Monologues, which they advertised on campus with signs saying "P_____s Unite . . . for the Vagina Monologues." Apparently, the WRC objects to references to women as "b_____s" and "hos" merely because they prefer the term "p______s."

To make matters even less understandable, the university recently banned the playing of the song "Cotton Eyed Joe" at university basketball games. After a modern version of the song had been playing at the games for three years, an African-American member of the UNCW Board of Trustees demanded the song's removal from the playlist at all university athletic functions. This was based on a false claim that the song contained references to the ownership of a black man. In reality, the version played at the games was a modern rendition that deleted the offensive references. Of course, reality is less important than "perceptions" and "feelings" in the eyes of diversity proponents.

Many observers following these recent free speech controversies are wondering why the university would sponsor the rapper Ludacris while banning "Cotton Eyed Joe." When asked to explain the contradiction, the co-chair of the university's Diversity Task Force said she supported the banning of "Cotton Eyed Joe," even though she had never read the lyrics of the song. She called the song she had never heard both "offensive" and "disturbing." She did not object to the Ludacris concert, however. In fact, she said she "respected" the rap artist. When asked to justify the banning of one and not the other, she said that the issue was "too complex to explain."

Actually, the chaos currently prevailing on our college campuses is very easy to explain. Our constant emphasis on "diversity" has led to a prevailing campus philosophy of moral relativism, which claims to consider all ideas to be equally valid. That philosophy was articulated recently by the UNCW dean of students when he was asked why the university was facilitating rather than blocking the appearance of Ludacris. He responded, "We don't want to be in the business of imparting values of right and wrong."

In reality, university administrators do promote their version of diversity as a value that they consider to be "right." And the inherent contradiction in dubbing moral relativism an absolute truth seems lost upon them all. That is why the university experience itself has become rife with hypocrisy and contradiction.

Never before has higher education been so truly ludicrous.

This article is adapted by permission from one that originally appeared at BreakPoint Online.