College apologizes for high school line-up by skin colour

OKLAHOMA CITY – A college president has apologized after a recruiter told students at an Oklahoma City high school to line up by the skin colour and hair texture.

At an open campus meeting Sunday, Oklahoma Christian University President John DeSteiguer called recruiter Cedric Sunray’s actions at Harding Charter Preparatory High School “offensive, harmful and inappropriate.”

Harding student Korey Todd told KFOR-TV that during the Feb. 24 assembly Sunray “barely talked about the school itself.” Todd says Sunray ranked students based on whose hair was the most “nappy.” Student Rio Brown said, “He told us to line up nappiest hair in the back and straightest hair in the front.”

DeSteiguer says the university had parted with Sunray within an hour of the incident.

Sunray, who is white, wrote in a lengthy statement published Monday in the Christian Chronicle that his motives behind the exercise were not racist. “Nothing I spoke at Harding Charter Preparatory during an initial ‘ice-breaker’ session had any intention of promoting a racist agenda. My presentations are the opposite. They are intended to take a hard look at issues such as this,” he wrote.