Black Student Union Co-Chair Ricardo Sparks

Black Student Union Co-Chair Ricardo Sparks It's not that I don't understand their perception of insult in the menu choice, or the hyper-sensitivity of young people who feel isolated and ignored because they are collectively such a tiny sliver — 2% — of the demographic pie of the Orange County campus.

When you wake up to find the N-word has been scrawled on your dormitory door, as Black Student Union Co-Chair Ricardo Sparks did two years ago as a freshman, it is easy to be suspicious of a gesture that seems to equate a civil rights giant with a finger-licking-good soul food standard.

But the public hoopla over the incident has turned the students into symbols of misguided political correctness, backed the university into an unnecessary series of mea culpas, and may have hijacked a dialogue that could pave the way for better relations on campus.