DAILY BEAST: Lincoln University, the nation’s first historically black college in Oxford, Pennsylvania, has decided that a handful of students won’t be getting their diplomas this spring. It wasn’t because they were underachieving kids caught in a “senior slump,” had pending library charges, or even disciplinary issues. This group of over two dozen African American students will not get to walk across the stage and shake hands in front of their proud parents because they’re fat.
In 2006, the university implemented a mandatory semester-long program entitled “Fitness for Life,” which aimed to educate the portion of their student population with a body mass index of 30 or higher on physical fitness, nutrition, and the health risks associated with obesity, and how to maintain (or obtain) a healthy physique. While this sounds like a promising initiative that certainly caters to the demographic that needs it most—young black Americans—two dozen of the 92 hopeful graduates who registered as freshman with a BMI of 30 or higher (qualifying them as obese) decided not to enroll in the course. Professors and students are now divided over what role the university should play in students’ nutritional education and whether being overweight should deny anyone a diploma.
Unreal. The rules/requirements should be for everyone. Not for a specific class or target. That’s discrimination.
Schools in general are just a joke and a waste of money. Schools are nothing but broken promises and dreams. They teach people nothing of real value. The only thing schools teach is how to be subservient under a “one world government”. No free thinking, no creativity, no independence in schools.
Better off using the internet for learning and education. You learn a lot more than being inside the box. A degree/diploma is nothing but a piece of paper.
Hmmm, if you go just for a degree and not for education then you’ll make dumb comments like “schools are a joke.” Education is the difference between success and failure. You don’t have to go to school to succeed, but how many of the poor and downtrodden have degrees?
Lincoln U. should be ashamed of it’s institutional self.