Last June, National Public Radio ran a four-part series on Wal-Mart, following its evolution from a small town company committed to being “good and fair” with its workers, to an international corporation committed to being cheap above all else. This year, Wal-Mart paid an undisclosed amount in order to become an NPR paid sponsor. This entitles them to be recognized by NPR as an underwriter of certain programs and as a corporation that provides “jobs and opportunities for millions of American of all ages and walks of life.” Wal-Mart will also award $500,000 in scholarships to ethnic-minority journalism students at colleges of journalism at several national universities.

Now, I’d like a nice fat journalism scholarship as much as the next unpaid student newspaper editor, but I wouldn’t use a $2,500 dollar check from Wal-Mart for anything beside a paper airplane. A check from Wal-Mart would be made up of blood-money: money that Wal-Mart accumulated by paying its workers four to 10 dollars less per hour than their unionized competitors at Safeway, exploiting illegal immigrants, buying 10 percent of all Chinese exports, and allegedly starting a price war in Germany in 2000 by illegally selling items below their wholesale costs.

Wal-Mart’s recent giving spree is not an act of philanthropy. It is a juggernaut’s attempt to buy redemption in the eyes of the public. Unlike Andrew Carnegie’s libraries, created out of an obligation felt by the steel giant to give away his fortune before he died, Wal-Mart’s donations are self-serving. Wal-Mart is both conducting damage control and investing in its own future.

A Wal-Mart spokesperson acknowledged that the purpose of the NPR sponsorship is “to reach community leaders and help them understand the value we bring to their communities.” Roughly translated, this means Wal-Mart would like it very much if community leaders around the nation would no longer prevent Wal-Mart from building stores in their communities, and they think that attaching “Wal-Mart” to the preferred radio programming of said leaders is the way to do this.

Likewise, I have the sneaking suspicion that Wal-Mart is effectively “buying stock” in minority journalists through its scholarships. Let’s wait a decade or so, and see if we don’t have prominent national reporters smiling at the camera and telling us how they’d never be where they are today if it weren’t for “Wal-Mart’s proven commitment to giving back.”

I’d rather see Wal-Mart give back to its employees, rather than aspiring journalists or NPR. Perhaps Wal-Mart could start paying competitive wages, stop discriminating against women, and allow its workers to unionize. Or maybe they could give back to the communities by no longer undercutting the prices of local competition and stealing their employees. In my hometown, Wal-Mart recruiters posed as customers to lure salespeople away from a local eyeglasses store by offering them a management position at Wal-Mart Optical.

At what point are we willing to overlook past evil in favor of a superficial new leaf? If, as a Time magazine cartoon once suggested, the Ku Klux Klan began promoting children’s literacy, who would applaud? Tuition increases be damned, I won’t spend money that ought to be in someone else’s paycheck.

Please think about this when you’re riding Guilford’s Shopping Shuttle this Saturday, and think about it even harder when the van pulls up in front of Wal-Mart. Last year, Guilford’s motto was “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Do you care enough about changing the world to spend a couple more dollars buying your thumbtacks, pens and batteries someplace -anyplace- else?

If not, then what are you doing at Guilford?