The fact that a meeting of college administrators will take place at NIU in February is a sure indication the racial problems that have plagued the university in recent years are far from being solved.

And the fact that five administrators and student leaders recently received anonymous letters threatening acts of racism during the spring semester further emphasizes that observation.

Although the February conference could serve to further educate the ignorant regarding racism, it is a shame such a conference has to be held at all.

Ideally, there would be no need to continue efforts at blotting out racism.

Ideally, there would be no racism.

Unfortunately, racist individuals persist by hanging racist fliers, circulating racist publications and sending threatening letters to administrators. What these individuals hope to achieve through their actions remains a mystery—unless the unrest and hatred that results is their goal.

However, it is good to see the university will be undaunted by the letters, which threatened to disrupt special events planned for February—which is Black History Month.

It seems the author of the letters possibly hoped to see the cancellation of the scheduled events by writing. Perhaps the individual thought the administration could be easily scared by threats.

It is for this reason the university should, and undoubtedly will, keep up, if not increase, efforts to show such racist activities will not be tolerated at NIU.

The conference is only one piece of many in the puzzle holding the eventual solution to racial tension. But as long as the university continues finding those pieces and placing them where they belong, the odds the puzzle will some day be completed are increased.

For now, that seems to be the best we can hope for.

As long as there are ignorant individuals out there like the one who sent the letters last month, the fight for equality will have to continue full throttle.

And considering the recent track records of those individuals here at NIU, it seems the fight is far from over.