William S. Meyer: Can Spellings learn?

Can the healing begin? Let us presume that incoming UNC system President Margaret Spellings is sincere about mending divisions and building bridges, and let us give her doubt’s benefit that through this process she will be a person of good will who knows that she must earn the trust of the sizable communities who view her appointment with some mixture of alarm, disdain and incredulity.

What must she do? To begin, she must never, ever, ever again say the words “those lifestyles” (“UNC’s next chief ready for challenge,” Oct. 24 news article) when referring to people in the LGBT community. The person who uses such a phrase draws attention to herself as insensitive, naive, bigoted and out-of-touch.

Is this education leader educable? We shall be watching.

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "William S. Meyer: Can Spellings learn?."