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.
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