Archive for May, 2010
A group of black firefighter applicants in Chicago filed suit against the city and claimed it used an unlawful cut-off passing score for the pencil-and-paper civil service employment exam.
Applicants who scored below 64 were disqualified. Because so many applicants scored 89 or above, however the city set a second cut-off point. Applicants who scored below 89 but above 64 (passing scores) were told they probably wouldn’t be hired. As per the pattern, the majority of higher scorers were white. Blacks accounted for 11 percent.
The parties had a 300-day window to file complaints, but the plaintiffs waited 430 days. A federal judge ruled in favor of the applicants, but the appeals court overturned the ruling and held that the applicants waited too long to challenge the test results. The issue before the U.S. Supreme Court was whether the plaintiffs filed the claim in time to seek relief.
The city claimed the time to file suit began to accrue on Jan. 26, 1996. The plaintiffs claimed a new discriminatory act occurred each time scores were used between May 1996 and October 2001.
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiffs. (Source) The case goes back to the appeals court.
In a unanimous opinion, Chief Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “It is not our task to assess the consequences of each approach and adopt the one that produces the least mischief. Our charge is to give effect to the law Congress enacted … Congress allowed claims to be brought against an employer who uses a practice that causes disparate impact, whatever the employer’s motive and whether or not he has employed the same practice in the past. If that effect was unintended, it is a problem for Congress, not one that federal courts can fix.”
It’s important to note that unlike Ricci v. DeStefano, the court ruled on a procedural issue, not a substantive one. The court ruled that the plaintiffs may go forward with their case, not that plaintiffs prevailed on the case’s merits.
Filed under: Judiciary | |Comments off
“Although I am a resident of California, I spend a considerable amount of time in Arizona. In fact, over the past several months, I have commuted to Arizona on an almost weekly basis.
“I have grown to love the state and its people. I find them to be friendly, fair and extraordinarily interested in America’s future.
“As a state that shares a border with Mexico, it is not surprising Arizona has a substantial Hispanic population, and a very significant problem involving illegal immigrants (close to 500,000 by some estimates).
“For decades, Arizona and other border states have urged the federal government to resolve the issue of illegal immigration. When the people of California passed a ballot initiative (Proposition 187) in 1994, to deny public benefits to illegal immigrants, the response was to label the California governor, Pete Wilson, and the electorate as “racists.” When opponents of 187 succeeded in overturning it in the courts, no effort was undertaken by the federal government to address the problems that continued to exist in California as a result of out-of-control growth in illegal immigration. Sixteen years later, California is essentially bankrupt and illegal immigration is a major contributor to that reality. Yet, the federal government continues to demonstrate its ineptness or indifference about solving the issue.
“In recent years, Arizonans have become frustrated, even frightened, as they have watched rapidly escalating growth in the population of illegal immigrants. But, instead of individuals flocking across the border merely in search of jobs to support their families in Mexico, Mexican kidnappers, smugglers, drug cartels and gangs have also invaded Arizona and taken up permanent residency there. The murder of a prominent Arizona rancher on his own property several weeks ago, allegedly by an illegal immigrant, became the trigger for action by the Legislature and the people of that state. In short, many of the people of Arizona do not feel safe in their own homes; and far from “living in the shadows,” as is often said of illegal aliens, the criminal element within that population has become too threatening for the state to simply ignore.”
Read the full article at SonoranNews.com.
Filed under: Ward Connerly | |Comments off
National Association of Scholars’ Ashley Thorne posted race-based graduation celebration announcements from Chico State University’s web site, for Asians, Latinos, and blacks. These ceremonies are not separate from the school, but endorsed by the school.
Par for the course. What would impress me is a “White-European Graduation Celebration.” That would stir things up.
Filed under: General | |2 Comments
Contingent on city council approval, Phoenix will change its 17-year-old Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Program, to remove race and sex from the city contract equation. Kudos to Phoenix.
Instead, the city will set aside up to 10 percent of government contracts for small businesses, regardless of owners’ race or sex. (Source)
What prompted the change? “City officials say the change is necessary because the program is no longer needed and it’s vulnerable to legal challenges.”
Ah, legal challenges are troublesome, aren’t they? Local and state governments are slowly seeing the light. Whatever the rationale for such programs decades ago, they were discriminatory then, and they are discriminatory now. I wonder if Ricci v. DeStefano had any influence over the council’s decision.
One can imagine that it’s tougher for any smaller business to compete for city contracts. The race- and sex-neutral standard will help all small businesses. The story cites the successes of minority- and female-owned businesses in Phoenix. If most of those competed with the larger pool, without preferential treatment, the successes are even better.
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Last week I blogged about an ill-advised blacks-only field trip that was part of an Ann Arbor elementary school’s blacks-only “Lunch Bunch” program, since disbanded. After a group of black students visited a black “rocket scientist,” parents complained. Principal Mike Madison said he didn’t intend to segregate or exclude others; he wanted to “address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education in here in our community.”
Leon Drolet, chair of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), wrote an op-ed for the Detroit Free Press. As you may know, MCRI launched a campaign to amend the state constitution to bar the government from granting preferences to and discriminating against individuals or groups in contracting, hiring, and admissions based on race. The measure passed in 2006 with 58 percent of the vote.
“The school’s fifth-graders proved more adept than school administrators at recognizing the blatantly immoral and unjust nature of the segregated field trip,” Drolet writes. “After the trip was over, those who went returned to their fifth-grade class and were greeted by boos by those who didn’t go on the trip, according to the school district spokeswoman, Liz Margolis. Margolis said Madison heard the boos, and went to talk to the class.
“What happened next is disputed: Margolis claims that Madison had a ‘discussion’ about race issues with the class, but several parents and students claim that Madison yelled at the students and belittled a Muslim girl who said she also had experienced racism and discrimination.”
Madison played to racial stereotype that blacks are inferior and require special treatment, says Drolet. As is common with human nature, we don’t view special treatment as suspect if the treatment is “good.” We raise a ruckus only when it’s bad. The point is that the government should not be authorized to treat people differently based on race. Back to Drolet.
“The Ann Arbor Public Schools have a well documented history of race-based blundering at the expense of students. In 1978, the district lost a court case after one school had casually mislabeled two-thirds of the black students coming from a housing project as ‘disabled.’ The court ordered training for teachers on culturally relevant teaching and assessment strategies.
“The district was in trouble again as recently as 2008, when the state Department of Education found it was inaccurately classifying a disproportionate number of black students as ‘cognitively impaired’ and ordered corrections…When it comes to matters of race, Ann Arbor Schools can’t seem to get it right.”
Treating each child as an individual rather than as a member of a racial group (radical!) is the goal, and not a lofty one. But the government, pressured by the civil rights industry, continues, even after the people vote to restrain it.
Filed under: MCRI | |Comments off
Have you heard about the firefighters case in Buffalo? Last week, a federal judge issued orders to dismiss a case filed by the Men of Color Helping All Society, a group of black firefighters who claimed 1998 and 2002 promotion exams disparately impacted them. In other words, they scored too low to qualify for promotions. (Source)
The exams tested the necessary skills needed to serve as a lieutenant in the department, the judge said, and evidence offered to prove Buffalo intentionally discriminated against the lower scorers was insufficient.
In typical disparate impact cases, intent isn’t necessary. That’s what’s so unwieldy about the allegations. The mere fact that preferred racial minorities are negatively impacted in disproportionate numbers is enough to trigger allegations, regardless of the employer’s intent.
One has to wonder what a non-discriminatory test would look like. Is the substance of the exams the problem, or the exams’ form? Is the scoring discriminatory, or do the lower scores of black test-takers simply reflect their knowledge? Blacks have scored high enough on standardized exams to qualify for and receive promotions. What distinguishes them from those who don’t?
Perhaps groups like Men of Color Helping All Society and FDNY’s Vulcan Society would be better served consulting these firefighters on how to prepare for and pass the exams instead of filing lawsuits and announcing to the world that blacks can’t compete with others on pencil-and-paper civil service tests.
Filed under: Judiciary | |Comments off
Last week I blogged about the Arizona legislature passing a bill that would ban “a school district or charter school from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne said, “Traditionally, the American public school system has brought together students from different backgrounds and taught them to be Americans and to treat each other as individuals, and not on the basis of their ethnic backgrounds. This is consistent with the fundamental American value that we are all individuals, not exemplars of whatever ethnic groups we were born into. Ethnic studies programs teach the opposite, and are designed to promote ethnic chauvinism.”
Yesterday, Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law.
Last month, the government signed into a law a measure that requires police to check the citizenship or residency status of anyone they reasonably suspect might be an illegal alien. Under the new law, it’s also a crime to transport illegal aliens or hire day laborers.
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An article in Education Week addressed school districts replacing race-based school assignment plans with income-based plans, in light of Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Parents sued the district for assigning students based on race, a policy they said violated their rights to equal protection of the laws. Although the district claimed it used race only as a tie-breaker, the court declared the practice unconstitutional.
More school districts are opting to “integrate” schools based on income. An excerpt:
“Many experts believe the composition of a school’s student body affects achievement. If black and Hispanic students, who are more likely to be poor, go to the same schools as their better-off white peers, the thinking goes, they’ll all do better and aspire to higher education. But since the Supreme Court essentially blocked a race-conscious path to racial diversity, some integration advocates are looking to socioeconomic status to reach the same goal.
“Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a Washington-based research and public-policy organization, is a champion of socioeconomic integration of schools. He argues that educating students of different social and economic levels in the same classrooms is a powerful tool for increasing achievement.
“‘In most cases, low-income students in school districts with socioeconomic programs are doing better than low-income students in segregated school districts,’ he said in an interview.
“Socioeconomic integration is a better approach, Mr. Kahlenberg argues, than two of the four turnaround strategies—replacing principals and staff members and moving to charter school governance—that the U.S. Department of Education requires districts that receive federal economic-stimulus funds to choose from for low-performing schools.”
Kahlenberg echoes the idea that middle-class values rub off, that low-income parents will watch and learn from higher-income parents. He also believes children from low-income homes will learn better if surrounded by higher-income children. Is it true? Yes, according to “Does Segregation Still Matter? The Impact of Student Composition on Academic Achievement in High School.” (74 pages in PDF)
The researchers found that for all students in their study, regardless of race, social class, or academic background, they learn more on average attending schools with high social class students than low social class students.
While this may be the case, it must be balanced with liberty. For now, Americans are free to take up residence in any state and any neighborhood. Most want to send their children to the closest school. As the government coerces them to send children to schools outside the neighborhood, they either deal with it, move, send kids to private or parochial schools, or homeschool them.
There’s a limit to what the government can do about academic gaps among children and academic performance levels across schools. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared unconstitutional laws that established separate schools based on race. That a school is majority black in 2010 does not mean someone’s rights are being violated. Brown restricted the government from setting up separate schools based on race; it didn’t require the government to eliminate segregated schools. This is a major misunderstanding of the Brown case. Self-segregation is a different animal than government-mandated segregation.
Courts subsequently interpreted Brown to require the government to proactively eliminate segregated schools. When schools assign students based on race, they’re violating the spirit of Brown. Unfortunately, too many people fail to grasp the concept, including those with authority and power.
(Top image source: Andy Manis for Education Week)
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Socioeconomic AA | |2 Comments
I’m a little behind the curve on this one. Last week, a principal at an elementary school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, organized a black students-only field trip to see a black “rocket scientist.” In this racial climate, Mike Madison made an obvious mistake. He has plenty of excuses, though. From AnnArbor.com:
“In hindsight, this field trip could have been approached and arranged in a better way. But as I reflect upon the look of excitement, enthusiasm and energy that I saw in these children’s eyes as they stood in the presence of a renowned African American rocket scientist in a very successful position, it gave the kids an opportunity to see this type of achievement is possible for even them.
“It was not a wasted venture for I know one day they might want to aspire to be the first astronaut or scientist standing on the Planet Mars.
…
“The intent of our field trip was not to segregate or exclude students as has been reported, but rather to address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education here in our community.”
Let’s give Madison the benefit of the doubt. The trip was part of the school’s Lunch Bunch program, for black students only. That explains why he thought nothing of organizing a black students-only trip. The question is, how did the school get away with the Lunch Bunch program for so long? Regardless, the program is no more.
If Mike Madison and school administrators wish to expose black children to high-achieving black professionals, they could accomplish the goal by encouraging black parents to take their children to see them, rather than conducting such trips under the auspices of the government. Or they can include all students, so that all students may benefit.
For the record, Michigan voters barred their government from granting preferences to and discriminating against individuals or groups based on skin color in 2006.
(Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com)
Filed under: General | |1 Comment
I’ve blogged about one of Princeton University professor Thomas Epenshade’s studies several times. His research showed that his university discriminates against students of Asian descent. For instance, a black student with 1150s and a white student with 1460s had the same chance of admission as an Asian student with 1600s, top scores. (Do I really need to explain why this is discriminatory?)
What you probably don’t know is the U.S. Department of Education may end up investigating the claim. Someone filed a complaint with the office. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that among the open cases in the agency’s Office for Civil Rights are bias allegations against Princeton, allegations that the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia give too much weight to applicants’ race, and challenges to minority programs at Pepperdine University, the University of Missouri, the University of Wisconsin system, and others.
We know how the Obama administration views race-based decision-making. Two white students filed suit against the University of Texas at Austin (Fisher v. University of Texas), alleging racial discrimination in admissions. After losing in district court, the plaintiffs appealed to the 5th Circuit. Regardless of the outcome, either party may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court may refuse to hear the case or grant certiorari. The Obama administration submitted a brief in support of the side that wants to admit students based on skin color.
The irony is, UT’s actions are the kind the president’s Office for Civil Rights would investigate. The site reads:
“OCR enforces several Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in programs or activities that receive Federal funds from the Department of Education. These laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, sex, disability, and on the basis of age.”
How can the administration support UT’s racial discrimination and uphold its duty to enforce federal civil rights laws?
Filed under: General | |Comments off
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