Archive for General
Another federal case! Oh my.
Remember December’s spate of stories about mostly black students at South Philadelphia High School (designated “persistently dangerous”) beating up students of Asian descent because they’re of Asian descent? Students and groups complained, and too little was done about it.
Last week, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed suit against the school district, alleging “deliberate and discriminatory indifference.” (Source)
The group, citing Fourteenth Amendment violations, claims the district not only failed protect them, but covered up and downplayed the attacks. Specifically, the group says security guards ignored attacks, and a staffer tried to talk a parent out of calling 911 when her child suffered a broken nose.
Disgusting, if true.
The school district suspended about 10 students, but obviously that wasn’t enough. There were problems before the attack, says the AALDEF, and whatever help officials offered wasn’t effective. Cecilia Chen, an attorney with the AALDEF, said students of Asian descent are still being harassed.
Students of one race attacking students of another based on race is a clear case of a “bias” crime. I think the concept of “hate crime” is dumb, but if we’re going to have such laws on the books, let’s apply them consistently. The local authorities should have bent over backward to resolve the matter and tried everything reasonable possible to avoid a federal lawsuit. For unfathomable reasons, they did not.
Why didn’t the school make a diligent effort to stop the attacks? It’s a loaded question, of course. “Are you still beating your wife?” No doubt the School District of Philadelphia believes it made a diligent effort to stop the attacks. Whether the Department of Justice takes up the case remains to be seen.
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If you’ve had the misfortune of sitting through workplace “diversity training” sessions, you know how eye-rollingly pointless they can be.
The diversity training idea stems from a former teacher named Jane Elliott, who required her all-white class to participate in role-playing exercises. Groups were separated by eye color. The first day, the blues were treated well, and the browns were treated badly. The next day, the treatment was reversed. The point was for whites to be on the receiving end of ill-treatment and empathize with blacks.
Elliott went on to lead diversity sessions at corporations, conducting similar role-playing exercises, commanding a fee of $6,000.
Diversity so-called training in the corporate sphere is one thing. Adults are better equipped to know whether they’re being subjected to misguided guilt and indoctrination. Children, with their easily malleable minds, are less equipped.
I recently read about teachers in government schools conducting segregation experiments on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Apparently, these teachers (or more likely, higher-ups) believe requiring students to treat one another badly based on eye color is an appropriate way to teach them about America’s history of government-mandated racial segregation.
Putting children through emotional pain is a valid teaching method? Do schools typically teach through role-playing? Not only do white children in 2010 bear no responsibility whatsoever for government-mandated racial segregation, black children in 2010 are not recipients of it. What do bureaucrats hope to accomplish by separating students based on differences? Invoking children to anger and frustration generates resentment, not understanding.
The more important lesson about America’s history of racial segregation is that men like King appealed to the better part of people’s nature to carry out the promise of America’s founding and bestow the same rights to blacks that everyone else possessed. Americans of different races sacrificed and risked life and limb so that blacks could gain the privilege of being treated as free and responsible individuals equal before the law. If schools instill this idea into those malleable minds, instead of subjecting them to inane role-playing exercises designed to “teach” them how nasty people can be to each other, children might learn an enduringly valuable and more profound lesson.
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The last time I filled out an application for a library card, I refused to state my race. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a box for race on such an application, but I was. No doubt the government believes it has a legitimate reason (for “statistical purposes only” to receive government grants?) to know the race of individuals applying for the privilege to borrow books. Whatever the reason may be, the whole idea is pre-civil-rights-era-retro.
I read with pleasure a story in the Sacramento Bee about high school students who want to be identified by their nationality and not their race or ethnicity. One student said she believes eliminating racial categories would make “racial hatred go away.” It probably won’t, but that’s not the point. The goal is to stop the government from categorizing its citizens by race, not necessarily to change an individual’s views on race.
Another student said, “If we were all one race, then there wouldn’t be any racism.”
While these young people may be naïve about differences and human nature, they have a purity of mind that resonates in my jaded brain. Racial differences are morally neutral, from my perspective. Differences are not good or bad per se; they just are. If you believe in God, as I do, you can appreciate how he decreed to diversify the world. How people treat others based on those differences is moral or immoral. Individuals can think whatever they want about race, but they may not interfere with another’s rights based on race, and our government may not treat people differently based on race (awarding race-based set-asides, etc.). It’s quite simple.
An excerpt:
“From 2006 to 2009, the number of Elk Grove Unified School District students whose parents listed their race as ‘multiple/no response’ went from 500 to 6,200 – a twelve-fold jump in just three years, the California Department of Education says. About one of every 10 of the district’s students now list race as ‘multiple/no response.’ …There’s also been a dramatic rise statewide. Data show the number of K-12 students listing their race as “multiple/no response” has jumped 70 percent, from 124,000 in 2006 to 210,000 last year.
“But the U.S. Department of Education, which is trying to close the achievement gap between races, is asking school officials to ‘eyeball’ students who decline to state and check a box for them.
“‘We know and the feds know you can’t force someone to fill out a form. So what the feds have actually said is to more strongly encourage them to self-identify,’ said Keric Ashley, the state Education Department’s director of data management. ‘If all those efforts fail and the parents refuse, the feds say school officials should observe and report a race.’”
So, if students and parents decline to check the box, bureaucrats will make the decision for them? That may generate more controversy than racial preferences. Can you imagine? Your outward appearance might be “African American,” but both your parents are mixed race. You’re actually more “white” than “black,” but your government has assigned you to the “African American” racial category. (Unless you were born in Africa and became an American citizen, you’re not “African American” in any case.)
The article continues on about why it’s so important for the government to categorize citizens by race. The refusal to check the race box won’t make a significant dent in the government’s racial bean counting until a critical mass of Americans refuses to check the box.
Refusing to check the box on a library card application merely is one small step for a woman, and one giant leap for humankind. Eat your heart out, Neil Armstrong.
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In “Assessing the Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action in Higher Education,” Jessica S. Howell of California State University, Sacramento, acknowledges that declines in minority representation at colleges and universities in California and Texas, states that bar the government from discriminating against or preferring individuals or groups based on race in hiring, contracting, and admissions, have been characterized in mainstream media as “sharp.”
Her study set out to answer the question, how would minority representation be affected by a national ban on racial preferences?
The effect Howell found was modest. A nationwide ban would result in a 10 percent drop in black and Hispanic enrollment in selective colleges and universities, and a 2 percent drop overall in four-year institutions.
Commenting on the study on Minding the Campus, Roger Clegg says race neutrality’s effect on minority representation may be modest, but the effect of racial discrimination on others is not.
‘[H]ere are some of the costs of this discrimination: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients; it fosters a victim mindset, removes the incentive for academic excellence, and encourages separatism; it compromises the academic mission of the university and lowers the overall academic quality of the student body; it creates pressure to discriminate in grading and graduation; it breeds hypocrisy within the school; it encourages a scofflaw attitude among college officials; it mismatches students and institutions, guaranteeing failure for many of the former; it papers over the real social problem of why so many African Americans and Latinos are academically uncompetitive; and it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not, and how much blood is needed to establish group membership.”
Download the 65-page study. (PDF)
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I recently blogged about Thomas Espenshade, author of a Princeton University study that showed students of Asian descent are discriminated against at elite colleges and universities.
He came up with what he probably thinks is a bold plan to close the racial academic achievement gap. Calling it a project “with the same scale, urgency, and sense of importance as the original Manhattan Project,” Espenshade proposes to monitor the lives of up to 50,000 children from birth to age eighteen to try to determine what causes the racial gap and how parents, schools, neighborhoods, and the government can work together to close it.
Instead of spending massive resources on such a project, he should spend some time with students and teachers at KIPP and related schools.
Espenshade’s research shows the extent of lowered standards for blacks in higher education. For instance, black students admitted to elite colleges and universities receive the equivalent of a 310 SAT-point boost. Hispanics receive a 130-point boost. Standards for black applicants whose ancestors were American slaves are lower than those for blacks of multiracial background or who are first- or second-generation immigrants.
Espenshade is back in the news, as it were. A columnist for the New Jersey Star-Ledger blogged about Espenshade’s Manhattan Project-like proposal for improving the performance of minorities. Apparently his research shows that Princeton contributes to racial “inequality” because the school favors “affluent, advantaged students.” Yet, his research also shows how selective schools lower standards for minorities.
Racial preferences aren’t enough, says Espenshade, because the practice takes too long, and states are banning preferences in government admissions. But he’ll take them.
“If preferences for minority students were eliminated, acceptance especially for black applicants would be dramatically reduced,” reads the study. “The acceptance rates for blacks could be expected to fall from 31 percent under current policy to 13 percent, reducing the number of black students admitted by more than half.”
The study also notes that race-neutral admissions polices would reduce white acceptance rates, too. On average, students who descend from certain Asian countries outperform whites.
Sounds like a plan. Adopt race-neutral admissions, and let under- and over-representation fall where they may. That way, bureaucrats, teachers, and parents can adopt old-school teaching methods that worked well for minorities in the past, and understand why current methods and policies aren’t working. I recommend you read Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals.
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The Washington Times editorializes about racially discriminatory provisions in the health care reform bill (see our previous coverage here):
“Not only are these provisions morally suspect, but they also fly in the face of recent (and wise) Supreme Court precedent. Even in the one recent case where the high court did allow limited racial preferences, Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, the court went to great lengths to note that ‘racial classifications, however compelling their goals, are potentially so dangerous that they may be employed no more broadly than the interest demands. Enshrining a permanent justification for racial preferences would offend this fundamental equal protection principle.’
…
“Other cases, such as Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) and Ricci v. DeStefano (2009), make clear that racial preferences by government are presumptively illegal. The Ricci case was the one in which the court ruled in favor of white firefighters who previously had been denied promotions that all agreed they had earned. Although not a direct constitutional challenge, it succinctly stated the guiding principle: ‘No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race.’”
The strangest part of all of this is people inherently understand that the provisions are discriminatory, even if the intent is to rectify the past or “fix” under-representation. Americans cannot invoke our country’s history of discrimination to justify such practices today. Government-mandated discrimination was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.
These aren’t mere platitudes intended to downplay this country’s previous treatment of blacks. We will never come to terms with the past if we continue allowing our government to rationalize racial discrimination for whatever reason.
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Hans A. von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation writes about racially discriminatory provisions in the most recent version of the health care reform bill. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sent letters to Senate and House leadership and the president advising them to remove the language.
The provisions would grant funding priority to institutions that prefer and discriminate based on race. From National Review:
“The Senate bill even creates a federally funded and administered medical school called the United States Public Health Services Track to ‘grant appropriate advanced degrees,’” von Spakovsky writes. ‘Priority in admissions is to be given to ’students from rural communities and underrepresented minorities.’ (‘Underrepresented minorities’ is liberal code for ‘Asians need not apply.’)
“Naturally, other sections of the bill require lots of data collection regarding race, ethnicity, sex, and so on. Those data will be used to implement quotas of all kinds and put providers at risk of being sued. For example, the data will help trial lawyers pursue “disparate impact” cases against physicians and hospitals — even if the differing health outcomes of patients have nothing to do with actual discriminatory treatment by providers. One provision even requires the secretary of health and human services to consult with “representatives of racial and ethnic minorities” about the content of promotional labels or print ads for drugs. Racial politics is poised to trump scientific accuracy in drug labeling.”
The commission cited research that showed improving quality of care at hospitals in minority areas would improve minority care more than eliminating racial disparities. Poor quality care and qualifications, and not the provider’s race or ethnicity, play greater roles in disparities.
“In, sum, the kind of care you get — and your individual health outcome — is determined by your doctor’s skill, not by his race or “cultural sensitivity,” writes von Spakovsky. “Unfortunately, the Democrats’ health-care legislation will force medical institutions to hire based on race and sex, not qualifications, and to lower their admission standards, which will lead to even more ‘low-quality’ doctors. Medical students admitted based on lower qualifications generally perform more poorly on licensing exams.”
Von Spakovsky invokes the late Patrick Chavis as an example of race over qualifications. Admitted to the University of California at Davis with lower qualifications than the rejected Allan Bakke, plaintiff in University of California v. Bakke, Chavis was sued for malpractice and lost his license.
If the provisions are unchallenged (legally speaking), they will pass along with the rest of the bill.
And race will retain its place in American law.
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Back in August, I blogged about racial preferences provisions (and wrote about them in a Townhall column) in the House of Representatives’s version of the health care reform bill. Found on page 881 of a bill of over 1,000 pages, for example:
“In awarding grants or contracts under this section, the Secretary shall give preference to entities that have a demonstrated record of…Training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.”
The Washington Times reported that the U.S. Civil Rights Commission intended to send a letter to the president and Congress, asking them to rewrite the provisions and to inform members the programs mentioned in the bill were “unlikely to reduce health care disparities among racial and ethic groups.”
The wheels of bureaucracy turn very slowly. The commission sent the letter to House leadership in October and a similar letter to Senate leadership on December 11. (Hat tip: Heritage)
An excerpt of the seven-page letter (emphasis added):
“No matter how well-intentioned, utilizing racial preferences with the hope of alleviating health care disparities is inadvisable both as a matter of policy and a matter of law. This is not to suggest that more cannot or should not be done to attract highly qualified physicians and other health care professional of any race to practice in underserved areas, where they are in short supply and badly needed. But any recruitment, training, or assessment of such health care professionals’ qualifications, and any federal funding thereof, must be accomplished without regard to race.
…
“As we noted in our October 9, 2009 letter, it is generally illegal for the government to show favoritism or even use classifications based on race, ethnicity, or sex. Indeed, such classifications and favoritism are ‘presumptively invalid.’…To withstand…[strict scrutiny], a racial classification must be necessary to serve a compelling state interest and must be narrowly drawn to serve that end…It is unlikely that the Senate Health Care bill’s racial classifications…would survive legal scrutiny.”
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The One Florida Initiative, a reaction to Ward Connerly’s campaign to end government racial preferences in the state, was an executive order issued by former Governor Jeb Bush barring race-based preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions.
“Although generally sympathetic to Connerly’s campaign, Bush worried that Connerly’s constitutional proposal would sharply divide Floridians, create substantial problems for his leadership, and disrupt his efforts to woo black and Hispanic voters into the Republican Party – votes he hoped would secure his brother the presidency in 2000.” (Source)
In an effort to avoid minority backlash, Bush created the “Talented 20″ program as part of One Florida, which guarantees admissions to Florida students graduating in the top 20 percent of their high schools.
The NAACP balked, claiming the plan would reduce the numbers of blacks admitted to state schools. The numbers did decline in the beginning, but steadily increased over the years. However, one huge unintended consequence of the Talented 20 should have been obvious from the beginning: graduation rates for blacks and Hispanics are “dismal” compared to other students.
Minorities in Florida’s state schools are represented well enough, but they’re having trouble graduating. According to the mismatch theory, such a result is expected. To avoid admitting students based on race, state colleges and universities skim off students graduating at the top of their classes, regardless of whether those classes are academically challenging enough. Once admitted to the college or university, the student and the school are not well matched.
How can schools solve the problem? Extra instruction? Less rigorous classes for everyone? How about admitting and rejecting students based on grades and scores?
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Some students at Columbia University are in a tizzy over ethnic cleansing of a sort. Schools are subject to a new federal survey that lumps people of North African and Middle Eastern descent into the “White” category. (Source)
Students must choose among five race/ethnicity categories: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and white. Which box does the quarter black/quarter American Indian/quarter Pakistani/quarter Chinese student check?
Arab student Yasmina Raiani wrote that the regulation “clumps individuals of North African and Middle Eastern descent into ‘white,’ which is not only superficially inaccurate—in that the actual skin tone range of North African and Middle Eastern peoples is more akin to that of Hispanics/Latinos than it is to Caucasians—but also historically insensitive…To identify Arabs as ‘white’ is to disregard our history as members of the colonized world and to dismiss all acts of racial discrimination against our community.’”
The U.S. Census includes such categories as Asian Indian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Samoan. Plain old “American” won’t do. The simplest solution to the which-box-do-I-check problem is to eliminate the race box altogether. Why does it still exist?
Discussing the U.S. Census on the “Uncommon Knowledge” show in 2002, the American Civil Rights Institute’s Ward Connerly said, “I think that we need to reach the point where the census doesn’t even ask you about race.” (Source)
Connerly added that race “is a political phenomenon essentially that’s been used to divide people, to segregate people and to engage in all other kinds of societal mischief. And I think that the more people are aware of the fact that this purity of races is kind of like the Nuremberg laws and is something that America should get away from.”
If only we could! But the government won’t allow it. I’d vote for the removal of race/ethnicity boxes from all government applications.
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