Los Medanos College advertises itself as a community college that allows everyone to access higher education, and provides the support students need to achieve their goals — all while being inclusive. 

The college publicizes its diverse environment to empower students and highlight certain values: diversity, excellence, integrity, respect and responsiveness.

Diversity is important to highlight inclusivity for its students, so they can improve workplace behaviors.

LMC’s value of excellence is based on its mission, which is pursued with integrity through continual development. 

My take on LMC’s value of respect is that everyone should be treated the same. The college prioritizes students and community by providing the best kind of education there is to offer. 

Since these statements about inclusivity are posted frequently, whether they are on the website or on campus, one might believe they are true.

And they might be when it comes to race — but they’re definitely not true when it comes to gender. For instance, LMC only offers sports to certain genders. For a school that stresses equality, it sure doesn’t seem that way. If they make it seem like diversity is one of their most important values, shouldn’t it be done correctly? 

Everyone should be equal. If people of all races are getting the exact same opportunities despite their appearance, then genders should automatically get the same treatment. LMC should offer the same sports to both genders, or at least make them gender-neutral. This can be accomplished easily by removing gender names from each sport so that they are inclusive.

I understand it is easier for students to join a team knowing they’ll be surrounded by people who share physical traits, but it’s not fair to the opposite sex — nor does it demonstrate the best example of the values, mission or vision for this college. 

The least LMC could do is remove the mentioned sex and include a picture of both genders to make it seem like everyone has a chance to make it on the team and feel accepted.

Something else they can do to highlight gender equality is allowing students or athletes to add comments on the sports page. 

LMC should stop highlighting inclusivity on their site when they don’t do it correctly.