Efforts to form a white student union recently failed at Eastern Illinois University. Let’s hope the idea never gets off the ground here.

The group at EIU failed because it could not obtain a faculty adviser. This has not, however, been a problem at Florida State or Temple, each of which have student unions formed to represent the interests of white people.

Hopefully, this is some sort of aberration, instead of a trend. A white student union is a cynical and childish response to perceived white discrimination.

For starters, any kind of racially-oriented student group has the ironic side effect of furthering the racial polarization of a campus. If the EIU students were forming the union merely to question the legitimacy of racial groups it would only be a self-defeating and confusing act.

But if the students were in earnest, they would be hard pressed to justify the need for the union.

A group such as the Black Student Union works to improve the lot of blacks—who are victims of discrimination the BSU had no part in fostering. In this way, the benefits of the group outweigh the racial dividedness it regrettably promotes.

A white student union has no such justification. White people in the United States have an economic dominance that is, to a large extent, the result of the denial of opportunities to other racial groups.

This dominance, in a society where most neighborhoods and towns are racially divided, directly translates into better schools, and better education for the average white student, and worse for others.

Today’s students are not responsible for this situation, but are still being affected by it. A white student union leader at Florida State who claims to oppose double standards in admissions and campus life blindly ignores the double standards that routinely result in superior education for whites.

A fully integrated society is the only way to end racial discrimination and this goal can be helped best with a better-integrated NIU. A white student union is the last thing this campus needs.