Today, we are at Guilford College celebrating ABC Wednesday. After reading the article in Sunday’s News & Record by Guilford College President Kent Chabotar, we were inspired to use Guilford College to represent “tolerance.” Chabotar, who has been president and professor of political science at Guilford College since 2002, reminds us that the college’s Quaker founders risked so much to promote peace and tolerance. He also quoted President Kennedy, saying that “(t)olerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the opression or persecution of others.”  

Increasingly, it is getting harder to find people who tolerate people with beliefs other than the ones they hold. We are a society dichotomized into democrats/republicans; liberals/conservatives; on and on. Chabotar says that to promote diversity of ideas, you need to “(t)hink it possible you might be mistaken” and we need to “(p)rotect the rights of others to be different.” Finally, he quotes Voltaire about dissent: “I do not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” (N&R, 5/27/12, p. H3, col. 3). As Greensboro becomes increasingly diverse, how can we maintain that core Quaker value- TOLERANCE?

Thank you, President Chabotar, for getting us to ponder: TOLERANCE.