Justice O’Connor thinks (or is it hopes? does it matter?) that racial preferences may not be needed in 25 years. I wonder if the plaintiffs who sued the Baton Rouge schools 47 years ago thought their case would still be in court in 2003. Whatever they thought, their case, the longest running desegregation case, has finally been concluded.
Ending segregation was surely a worthwhile goal, but there is little to celebrate about this case, as even the plaintiffs recognize.
“Today our schools are as segregated as they were 47 years ago,” said Jackie Mims, East Baton Rouge Parish School Board president.
Mims added that “we have a system that is 70 percent black, and that makes it virtually impossible to desegregate. After 47 years, we’re virtually back where we were.”
The settlement includes formulas to parcel out the few remaining white students in the school system, and to hopefully attract more.
Meanwhile, in Kansas City what must be the most expensive desegregation case (over $2 billion) has also finally been concluded, after a mere 26 years, with the federal district judge ruling that the school district had made sufficient progress in closing the black-white achievment gap (the only remaining issue).
The plaintiffs are appealing, claiming that the judge erred in not requiring the district to close the gap in every subject in every grade.
If closing the achievement gap is the legal imperative, why not just resort to race norming the grades and test scores, as colleges and universities do when they award diversity points to minorities? If it is feared that would fail the Gratz test (which bars colleges from doing openly what they may do covertly), perhaps whites and non-preferred minorities could simply be given harder tests.
You acknowledge a point here which I have been making locally for some time. In my unrenowned city, the “achievement gap” is carped (and harped) on interminably. Fascinatingly, this is typically used as a bludgeon against “racist” white parents who are not inclined to fund (through even more confiscatory taxation) yet another edu-blob boondoggle.
The “logic” (if one must resort to calling it that) is that whites (the whole parent/teacher/administration conspiracy) are somehow racist for performing at a higher collective level than blacks. I might make the unnecessary point that athletic achievement gaps are cause of little consternation. The response, naturally, takes the form of groveling paeans to “diversity” and pledges to attack the “gap” and all who perpetuate it–namely white students.
However, as John alluded here, there are simple methods to eradicate the gap if this is truly the design. I have suggested locally that white students not be issued textbooks, nor assigned homework. Also, idyllic days of watching rap videos on MTV could logically be substituted for heretofore rigorous classroom instruction (this has the secondary–though primary–benefit of bringing in the diversity angle).
Whichever method chosen, it should be quite a simple task to stunt white acheivement to a level sufficient to ameliorate the gap. If this is truly the goal, let’s hear a left-wing judge say so plainly, and get about the work of it.
Mims added that “we have a system that is 70 percent black, and that makes it virtually impossible to desegregate. After 47 years, we’re virtually back where we were.”
The settlement includes formulas to parcel out the few remaining white students in the school system, and to hopefully attract more.
Let me state the obvious. At the time when city school systems were majority white, one could assume that the best teachers and most of the resources were being given to the white schools. Since, whites controlled the school system, they could disproportionately give resources to the white schools. Thus, the concept of desegregation was formulated to address this problem. If all schools had the same distribution of blacks and whites then it would be impossible for whites to discriminate against blacks.
However, now that the vast majority of the schools in the Baton Rouge Parish are black, what is the benefit of trying to continue this practice? It is now blacks that control the government and the board of education. If there were still a few majority white schools in the school district, would a black controlled school board provide the best resources to the white schools? Again, at the risk of stating the obvious, of course not. (If anything, you would think that it should be the whites who are demanding that the school system be desegregated to prevent then from being discriminated against.)
Well, if that is not the case then why would the blacks in charge of the Baton Rouge school system want the remaining white students to be “parceled out” to the black schools? The only logical conclusion is that they believe that whites are more intelligent/better students than blacks. I know that white Liberals believe that blacks are inferior to whites. The only think I can conclude is that the blacks in charge of the Baton Rouge school system also feel the same way. How sad. The belief that your own group is inherently inferior is the worst form of racism that exists.
CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES #48
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?…
CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES #48
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?…