Los Angeles Magnet Schools May Assign Students Based on Race
Last Friday, the state appeals court in California ruled that Los Angeles may continue assigning students to magnet schools based on race, despite a 1996 law banning race preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions. (Source)
Unbelievable.
Los Angeles, like other cities across the country, were under court orders to racially balance government schools. In 1981, a California judge issued a desegregation order that directed the district to use race when placing students in magnet schools in L.A., based on a discrimination case dating back to 1963. Apparently, the 27-year-old order was exempt from the law banning race preferences.
Pacific Legal Foundation’s Sharon Browne criticized the ruling. The court “has told the students of Los Angeles that your race means more in defining who you are than your individual merit.” American Civil Liberties Union’s Catherine Lhamon said the ruling “sends an important message to school districts around the state that the districts can continue with their desegregation efforts.”
Since white enrollment in L.A. magnet schools is as high as 40 percent (although they represent just nine percent of the district’s population), the powers that be have decided that a little racial bean-counting is in order to “balance” out the skin colors. Unfortunately, remnants of racial discrimination will remain under desegregation orders.
Here’s the problem: segregation is a problem when decreed and enforced by the government. Segregation that is voluntary (in fact, segregation may the wrong word to describe it), i.e., based on preferences of individuals, is not a problem. See the distinction?
Racial imbalance is not a bad thing per se, and in any case not bad enough to justify racial classifications.
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Sylvia Wasson
Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
“Unbelievable” indeed! How dare these judges simply dismiss the legal mandate of the California Civil Rights Initiative and thus usurp the will of the people?
These days, “voluntary segregation” is rarely based on racial discrimination, but on parental choice. Parents of ALL racial and ethnic backgrounds want their children to attend the safest and academically best-performing schools. This freedom to choose the best education for one’s children is as fundamental an American right as the choice of where to reside.
One would hope that the courts would not impose residency requirements by skin color under the banner of “racially balancing” California’s neighborhoods. Yet this recent decision allowing Los Angeles to continue its pracice of assigning students to magnet schools by race has just made the “slippery slope” of eroding citizens’ rights a lot more “slippery” — and the effort to “color-decode” our citizenry more urgent.
Freedom loving Americans across this nation, beware!