Thurgood Marshall College, high on its horse of self-proclaimed multicultural sensitivity and diversity appreciation, is guilty of fraud against its students.

According to its Web site, Marshall college aims to challenge students to “”develop an informed sensitivity to the many cultural perspectives that have shaped modern American society.”” The college also claims to help students critically examine the state of life within “”our diverse American society.””

Politically, I feel that both are extremely important and worthy goals — but Marshall college has carelessly trampled over each of them with its divisive, insensitive and naive plans for the June commencement ceremony.

Marshall college allows its graduates to invite two individuals (read: two parents) to cross the stage with them as they receive their diplomas. This concept seems, at first, to be a thoughtful gesture through which a student may “”thank”” two people (read: two parents) for the support, encouragement and financial contributions they lent to his undergraduate education. However, Marshall college’s ceremonial “”thank you”” blatantly ignores the diversity that is today associated with family life in America.

Imagine all the Marshall students who come from divorced or never-married families, wherein the parents no longer speak peacefully (remember, 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce these days and many couples never marry). I imagine these students will now approach graduation day with anxiety and added stress, since Marshall administrators have created a series of awkward situations for them: They must choose to bring neither parent in order to avoid a tense situation, effectively disappointing both parents, or they must force their parents’ interaction and demand that it be peaceful.

For these students, choosing to bring neither parent across the stage in hopes of avoiding a difficult situation opens a host of other conflicts — will parents be insulted as they watch other students being happily accompanied to the stage, realizing that their child deliberately chose not to be escorted?

Students from hostile, “”broken”” or nontraditional families are unlikely to be pleased that Marshall college is forcing them into such clumsy situations on a day that is intended to be one of joy, celebration and reflection. In fact, I already know one student who is so anxious about the prospect of his unpeaceful parents being near each other during graduation that he has opted to take his sister across the stage with him instead. He knows his parents will be disappointed, but the cost of an uncomfortable environment as he crosses the stage is far outweighed by the risk of offending them with this decision.

There’s another segment of the student population seemingly disregarded by the escort policy — those who have lost one or both parents. These students will already be sadly reminded of that absence on such a special day, and forcing everyone else’s parents onto the stage for the audience to recognize and celebrate is simply a method of rubbing salt into wounds.

What about students whose academic careers are solely the fruits of their own labors? I imagine that to most students and to the parental-aged administrators who probably devised this idea, allowing us to invite two people to cross the diploma threshold must seem like an appreciative gesture that can be extended to whomever has most helped us through our undergraduate education.

Realistically, however, some students truly feel that no one in their lives has provided a level of support great enough to merit their participation in the graduation walk. However, telling everyone in your life that this is how you feel isn’t the easiest feat. Marshall college’s graduation policy, then, will force such students either into offending their families and friends or into allowing someone to accompany them in spite of feeling that no one deserves the honor.

Not all of us have two parents, let alone two parents who get along well enough to cross the stage with us without adding more stress to the big day. Not all of us have two parents present in our lives, period. Not all of us feel that our parents — or anyone — contributed so much to our education that they should be honored with the chance to cross the stage with us. Not all of us want every Marshall graduate to see that we have only one parent to bring up to the stage with us, or that our parents are nontraditional in any other way.

It’s not a far-fetched concept that the two-person escort option will cause distress for some graduates and their families — at least, it isn’t far-fetched if one gives the subject an ounce of thought.

That leaves two options: Either Marshall college failed to give the subject an ounce of thought, or Marshall college didn’t care to embrace diversity as it applies to modern American families. Either option leaves me — for the first time in four years — frustrated, disappointed and simply angry to be a Marshall student.