Seattle's "Racial Tiebreaker" to SCOTUS Monday
By Matt Rosenberg Posted in Featured Stories | Law — Comments (20) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The "racial tiebreaker" used by Seattle Public Schools was upheld by the Nutty 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but will face review by the United States Supreme Court beginning Monday. Yesterday in the Seattle Times, Bruce Ramsey nailed the tiebreaker's flaws. Today, nationally syndicated columnist George Will has at it in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
SEATTLE -- This city's school district decided in 2000 that because the son of Jill Kurfirst and the daughter of Winnie Bachwitz are white, they should be assigned to an inferior and distant high school. If they had not left the Seattle school system, this would have required them to rise at 5 a.m. to leave home by 5:30 a.m., alone and in the dark, to take the first of three buses, returning home between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., with almost no time left for homework, family activities and adequate sleep.
Read on . . .
The parents argue that the racial school assignments -- actually, assignments by pigmentation -- that so injured their children violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws. The reliably unreliable 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- often reversed but never in doubt -- predictably ruled, with interesting indifference to pertinent Supreme Court precedents, against the parents. Soon -- oral arguments are Monday -- the Supreme Court can remind the 9th Circuit of the Constitution's limits on what schools can do in the name of "diversity."
Meanwhile, state and Seattle school officials at a public meeting yesterday on lower minority academic achievement (read: black, Hispanic and Native American academic achievement) predictably and wrongly postulated that more state spending is a big part of the fix. More constructively, Seattle Public Schools Chief Academic Officer Carla Santorno plans a two-week summer "boot camp" for principals because they can make such a big difference. Good. But even the best efforts of principals aren't enough in too many instances.
Neither they nor the legislature nor race-fixated Seattle school administrators and school board members can fill the crucial role of parents. It is parents - especially those of under-achieving and sometimes highly disruptive minority kids - who must nourish the spirit of their children to aspire, to learn and to behave. It is also parents who must actively manage their childrens' K-12 education. And most deleteriously in Washington state, parents must do that without the option of either public charter schools or tuition vouchers for use in non-denominational private schools.
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Here in the SF Bay Area, we have thousands of immigrant Asian kids who live in poor households with parents who speak little or no English.
These Asian kids, living in the inner cities, go to the same "bad" schools as black and Hispanic kids from the same part of town.
The Asian kids do well, and progress and the same or higher rates than white kids.
Black kids, however, continue to lag behind. It seems to be an absolute mystery to school administrators and others as to why this is so.
NO ONE mentions the home environment and the role of the parents. It is never spoken, as it is taken as criticism of black parents.
I'm not questioning you but it would really help if you had documentation of this, that the Asian kids score higher in the same poor schools. I'm writting a paper on Affirmative Action programs for my class and any additional information that you have would be welcomed.
International Affairs is just Political Science with an accent.
(as I understand it) is intact households. Kids with two parents at home do better, other things being equal. Asian immigrants typically maintain close family bonds.
Another factor is drive. Asian parents, I've been told by Asian immigrant children, consider themselves a failure if their children aren't doctors, engineers, or the like, and communicate this desire to their children from an early age.
Affirmative Action tells a person in a minority that they are inferior, and unable to make it without preferential treatment. It perpetuates doubt, both in those who receive preference and those who are deciding whether to hire them. It adds to racial tension, rather than alleviating it.
Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
This article reviews a book on the subject.
Another article talks about the dark side of the stereotype.
The American Federation of Teachers shows how early childhood development with structure seems to make a difference.
Hope these references help.
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
--Thomas Jefferson
though I don't know that it is uniquely Southern, but I only know about my experience in The South. I went to public schools in the rural South in the fifties and sixties. A goodly percentage of my classmates were children with whom your farm animals were not safe. We were all violent to a degree that would have us under professional care if not incarcerated today. We were all racists of the sort of racism that came in with the air you breathed; not a violent, active racism, just an easy acceptance that "White" and "Colored" was the way it was. For many of my classmates, if their parents were not illiterate, almost certainly their grandparents were. Mythology notwithstanding, there was little difference in the economic status of unlanded Whites and unlanded Blacks. Segregation guaranteed a certain higher social status for Whites over Blacks, but that social status did little or nothing to improve the poor White's standard of living. If anything, the landed and ruling class Whites were less favorably disposed to "poor White Trash" than to Blacks, or at least to Blacks who didn't "cause trouble."
In that environment, I started high school with 130 people, 128 of whom heard "Pomp and Circumstance." The other two were girls who had to "go visit their aunt." There were desks in rows and kids in them, and many are the days that I went home with a welt or two accross my knuckles from one of those old gray-haired teachers' pointer. And a couple of times I had personal experience of the cut-down canoe paddle that the Principal used to bring conformity and tears to 230# farmboys.
Failure simply was not an option. It didn't matter if your parents were degenerates, and some decidely were, the school would not tolerate your being a degenerate. There simply were no excuses for not doing your homework or not being prepared; you would be publicly, sometimes viciously, humiliated, and if that didn't work, there was a pointer or a paddle to back it up. And almost no one dared challenge the school's authority to treat kids that way. The South does have a caste system, and some high-caste kids got a pass, but they didn't need an education, they had grand-daddy's money.
Those Black and Hispanic kids who are failing are advantaged compared to many, perhaps most, of the kids with whom I went to public school. The difference is that the schools have no discipline and no standards. Achievement has been sacrificed to self-esteem. Why on Earth should someone feel good about being a f****p? But, that is the status that is rewarded. I don't get it!
In Vino Veritas
De Opresso Liber
the only public school (1 - 8 grades [less 5th]) in Revloc, Pennsylvania, Cambria Township, Cambria County in western Pennsylvania in the late 1950s/early 1960s.
"Woe is me' was not an excuse - not even mitigation.
And, High School - HA! - not a peep in the classrooms, not a student or a peep in the hallways.
Peer group pressure?
Not when your 'old man' was a coal miner - same as everyone else's dad; and he had no sympathy for the thing.
GB
There are a couple of little differences, my schools were in central and northern California (small towns) and my dad was the principal or superintendent of every school I went to. Until I got to HS and he was the County Supt.
The other thing I have vivid memories of is the coaching staff beating the living, breathing hell out of four or five guys who had the misfortune to take a swing at a teacher. No parent ever complained.
About 75% of the miscreants in my graduating class went to college.
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
what would happen to a coach today if he talked to and treated students/athletes the way we were treated. On our good days we were worthless m*****f*****s; it went downhill from there. That said, if I ever got in trouble, I knew who to call. And if anybody attacked one of us, God help them. I hated them and hated every minute of it, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. God how I'd like to stand on that sideline and hear the Star-Spangled Banner one more time.
The percentages for mine were about the same, although I must admit the graduating percentages weren't that high. Socially, it was a long, long way from a small farming town to the UGA or GT, and while I never knew anyone to find the academics daunting, the sociology was a challenge to many - and it was the sixties.
In Vino Veritas
You're right about the coaches. My coaches did stuff that my son's Marine DI's couldn't do.
Our graduation %'s - from college - were probably less than 50% of the folks who started. And it's long way from the rice farm to any college or university in CA too. D&A took out most of them.
An interesting note, at least to me, is my memory of freshman orientation for the Engineering School I went to (Cal Poly, SLO). There were about 1,000 engineering freshman in the auditorium and the Dean said, "Look around you gentlemen," (there were NO women in the room, it was 1965) "of the five people within arms reach of you, that's you and the people on either side, front and back, only ONE will graduate. Half of you will be gone by this time next year. Half of those will be gone by the end of next year. And another third will be gone before graduation." College wasn't concerned about graduation rates of incoming freshmen, they were concerned about the quality of their graduates.
Oh well...
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
at UGA in the Fall of '67. They told us pointedly that half of us wouldn't be there by spring quarter;they were right and I wasn't. Transferred to Ga Southern which wasn't nearly so Greek and status obsessed. At that time if grandaddy hadn't gone to UGA and been a member of the right frat house, you were dooomed to the outer darkness.
In Vino Veritas
the NAACP paid several hundred thousand to keep the case from going to SCOTUS. They knew how it would turn out and they didn't want the negative precedent.
I kind of wished that the Southern Legal Foundation had kicked in some money to persuade the plaintiff not to settle.
But they didn't.
This time, I really hope the case makes it to the Supreme Court. The 14th Amendment is really quite clear on equal protection.
There's no way these "racial tiebreakers" could possibly pass muster under the equal protection clause.
This is a winning issue for Republicans to rally behind. The media has made Conservatives so scared to be called a racist, they actually endorse this type of sanctioned discrimination. The Bush administration's position in front of SCOTUS the last time a case like this was brought up was to keep the practive in order to promote diversity. Bush was pandering to the Jackson/Sharpton crowd, and it got him nowhere.
Republicans really have nothing to lose by actively going after race-based preferences. The policy is unquestionably wrong, and the public at large is overwhelmingly against the practice. Those people who are worried it may turn off black voters, 90% of African-Americans vote against Republicans anyway.
It's a win-win for Republicans if you ask me.
Republicans should push a federal bill outlawing all racial quotas in public and private institutions.
We shouldn't have to wait for the Federal Court's to decide this issue.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. "
William F. Buckley, Jr.
In no way should the Republicans push for a federal bill outlawing racial quotas in private institutions. If a private school wishes to practice the mythology of "diversity teaches harmony," that is their business, and the Fed should have no say in the admissions requirements of a private school.
Conversely, there should be no need for a law outlawing racial preferences, since accurate application of the Equal Protection clause should be enough to stop the practice. However since this has yet to happen, a law that prevents such racial preference systems at public institutions of learning might well be appropriate.
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
--Thomas Jefferson
No, I cannot document at this moment. I wrote that because I've lived here for 30 years and I have seen everybody in the world come here, from Vietnamese boat people, to the first immigrants from "Red China" in the early 70s, to the Salvadorans in the 1980s, and so on.
All their kids went to school here in the same city. The Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants were almost always poor and they lived in the worst areas of the city.
But their kids did well. Asian parents here are well known for their insistence on academic excellence. My Chinese coworkers tell me that in their households, no one was free to leave the table until all the homework was done. The older ones helped the little ones (usually because the parents spoke no English).
These are just my observations. You may, however, seek out "America in Black and White". I believe there is a chapter in there about this.
although not specific to your city.
I may give it a search in a bit, but if I recall it focused on educational performance and race.
That said, I think one huge difference is how much parents value education. I live in NH (not too many minorities up here), but we definitely have a large population of non working poor, working poor and middle class (if you get too much above that, it is far more likely you move to another town).
I notice in our school-that the kids who tend to do the best, absent some disability, are those whose parents value education, are involved with the schools, and make sure their kids are doing their work.
The SC has given racism a pass already recently in the Michigan Law School Admissions case.
O'Connor's comments were basicly this- hopefully in 20 years we won't have to have affirmative action(discrimination). The SC does believe in 2 offsetting wrongs will make a right. If they didn't they would never rule like this.
If you most often find yourself arguing the exceptions rather than the rule you just might be on your own slippery slope to irrelevance. -CommonCents
O'Connor is no longer there and has been replaced with someone who has a better grounding in words meaning what they mean instead of meaning what she wanted them to mean.
Thank-you W, this is one thing you did get right (even if it took a bit of prodding).
One of the judges concurring in the "nutty" 9th Circuit opinion was libertarian trailblazer Alex Kozinski -- start at p53 here.
Not to belittle the racism issue but shouldn't there be something said about how long these kids were out of home - 5:30 am to 8:00 pm.
on the school board on the grounds that racism is good if it helps the right race.
Let's hope that the SCOTUS has the good sense to overturn the 9th circus.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.