If last spring's racist death threats, protests and the HUB-Robeson Center sit-in taught us anything, it is that the Penn State community needs better diversity education.

But neither the university nor the student protestors' recently-publicized plans to improve that instruction are enough to raise Penn State students' knowledge and open-mindedness about all aspects of diversity.

Last year's Plan to Enhance Diversity says that the administration will recommend that the University Faculty Senate strengthen the current diversity requirement by "focusing more clearly on diversity issues of greater relevance to our students."

In 1997, the Senate voted to phase out over a five-year period the requirement that students take at least one diversity-focused class.

In its place, the Senate plans to integrate diversity into all classes.

Penn State students should receive a diverse perspective in all of their classes -- but that's a given, not a new plan.

Why can't the university work to ensure that all instructors are teaching diverse perspectives of their course materials while also developing a better diversity-focused class curriculum?

Some student leaders who were involved in last year's protests and now sit on a planning committee with administrators, Gye' Nyame, have another plan: a mandatory class on racism and sexism.

But this idea also falls short because it limits the definition of diversity.

Racism and sexism are important problems that need to be discussed, but diversity education should be about more than race problems or gender issues.

The Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent backlash against Muslims across the country show how important religious education is. Classes also need to include discussion about experiences of the LGBT community and the disabled.

The best solution to Penn State's diversity education problem might be somewhere in between the two plans. Diversity education shouldn't be a one-time deal.

Other perspectives need to be integrated into all courses, but ridding students of the opportunity to take a diversity-focused class -- and we say an opportunity because many students who need the class most would not take such a course as an elective -- is taking a step in the wrong direction.

Limiting the scope of diversity-focused classes is, too.

Penn State needs to improve the diversity education in all its classes, and the university should offer a class on racism and sexism that students can choose to fulfill their diversity-focused requirement.

But either of these plans alone short changes students of some of the most important lessons they can learn at Penn State.