By Jessica Barber, published in OUDaily, March 13, 2015

Following a week filled with anger after a video surfaced of OU Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members singing a racist chant, Mahatma Gandhi’s message of peaceful transformation through nonviolence has never been timelier.

Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, spoke Thursday evening at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication offering insight and inspiration to a campus brimming with emotion and tension.

Arun Gandhi spoke of the need for mutual respect, understanding, interconnectivity and living peacefully with each other in a culture that subscribes to violence.

Education can be the key, he said, suggesting classes for all students to learn the differences between people. A university is a place to learn, to understand others, earn an education and be enlightened.

“Diversity is superficial,” Gandhi said. “We are all the same inside, so why do we focus so much on the superficial and not enough on the internal?”

Focusing on the internal and changing ourselves will ultimately lead to a change in others, said Gandhi.

“Civil rights gives us the ability to all sit in this room,” said Gandhi. “But civil rights cannot make people love and respect each other.”

Read the full article here.