The problem with diversity-justified racial preference — aside, of course, from whatever moral, legal, or constitutional infirmities from which it suffers — is that you may find it “inclusive” today but “exclusive” tomorrow. Just ask Stan Simpson, a columnist for the Hartford Courant.
In his column yesterday, Simpson decried a lottery instituted to select students for a magnet school as “an affirmative action program for white kids.” And he was right, because whites were given preferences, selected because of their race.
“The purpose of this program is to end up with more diverse schools,” says Ed Linehan, the city’s director of magnet school programs. “And, as such, by definition we had to select under-represented groups first. As a 95-percent minority school district, what that typically means is that we’re going to take from the suburban applicants the most under-represented students – white students.”
Norma Neumann-Johnson of the Academy Magnet School in north Hartford made the same point.
“Because the 70 percent of students from Hartford that are going to be selected in a lottery are going to be largely black and Latino. We are going to have to give preferential treatment to white students from the suburbs, put a segregated lottery there and make sure that we are diversifying racially.”
….
“We have a responsibility to end racial and economic segregation,” she said. “So, bringing in largely minority students from the suburbs is not going to accomplish the goal.”
So, diversiphiles now explicitly endorse some “segregated” measures … to end segregation, of course.
Columnist Simpson accepts all this — “I understand that having a proportional share of white, middle-income kids is the crux of Sheff and critical to the long-term success of these magnets” — but with difficulty.
I’m a proponent of inclusion, diversity and multiculturalism. But what’s happening since the year-old Sheff vs. O’Neill desegregation settlement is a little unsettling. After all, most white students haven’t been historically disenfranchised, discriminated against or relegated to inferior public institutions. Now, many get an edge in enrolling at some of the city’s promising schools.
Unsettling? Yes, it is.
We’ll never learn, will we?
There have been many, many court orders and decisions that mandated racial integration in schools, as though once X v. Y makes it into the law books a magic wand has been waved. The government CANNOT forcibly desegregate the schools. Not as long as parents can choose private schools, homeschool, move, or send their kids to live with relatives. If they’d outlawed de jure segregation in the 1970’s and left it there, the schools would have desegregated slowly and naturally the way the neighborhoods have (at least, the way they have around here.) Due to the ham-handed attempts to force integration 30 years ago, segregation in our urban schools is now probably permanent. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t normally agree with that platitude, but in this case it’s very appropriate.
What’s going to happen is this: They’re going to have empty seats in these magnet programs, because not enough white kid will come in to fill them; meanwhile there will be black kids who qualify for the program and want it, but can’t get in because the quota of black kids has been met.
“After all, most white students haven’t been historically disenfranchised, discriminated against or relegated to inferior public institutions.”
Historically? As in something that happened a long time ago and has absolutely no real impact on children’s lives nowadays?
What about the Irish?
And there are plenty of white kids being discriminated against. Discrimination can go both ways. I was picked on for being white all through 3rd grade (by blacks), and went to a school with many racist people in 7th and 8th grades. (They were asian and polynesian. And black.)
Relegated to inferior public institutions? I thought most poor people were too, regardless of race.
Or maybe I’m just confused.
What about the Irish, indeed.
The old sign seems to have come down. You know, the “Irish and N_ need not apply” sign my great-grandfather saw so often on the streets of New York.
To be replaced by: “Irish need not apply.”
More evidence for your observation that “diversity” means “more blacks”.
I love this gibberish, “most white students haven’t been historically disenfranchised, discriminated against or relegated to inferior public institutions.”
Most students haven’t been historically anything. They’re kids.
I completely agree. I find it rather disturbing that people can define themselves so completely by what happened to their great-grandparents, or farther back, as seems to be the case in the “my ancestors were oppressed so I need special treatment” scenario. I think that there are problems with diversity (actual diversity, not just race) and race, but this is so ludicrously beyond helpful… I prefer to define myself by who I am. Apparently not everyone is so enlightened.
This is so silly. I mean really, who, why, how, what? Is this the first time these issues have been raised?
I remember when I was a child growing up in Long Island, people would say things that never really added up – it made no sense at all. It’s the same today.
Why do so many people think these things? How did it start? Will it ever really make a difference? When you think about it, isn’t that what people like Gloria Stienman and Pete Seger have been saying for decades?
When are we all going to wake up and answer the real questions? Life is hard enough as it is, will someone please just remember the children. If you know what I mean, please stand up and be heard.