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Wed 13 Dec, 2006 09:42 am
Supreme farce
By Thomas Sowell
December 13, 2006
It might be a hilarious comedy routine to have a group of highly educated judges solemnly expound on something everybody knows is utter nonsense. But it isn't nearly as funny when this solemn discourse about nonsense takes place on the United States Supreme Court -- and when most people are unaware of what nonsense the learned justices are talking.
The issue before the high court is whether local authorities have the legal right to make students' race a factor in deciding which school to assign them to attend. The parent of a white student complains because he is not allowed to go to the school near where he lives but is assigned instead to a different school far away, to create the kind of racial mix of students the local authorities seek, in the name of "diversity."
Those of us old enough to remember the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education will see a painful irony now, since that case began because a black girl was not allowed to go to a school near where she lived but was instead assigned to a different school far away, because of the prevailing racial dogmas of that day.
The racial dogmas have changed since 1954 but they are still dogmas. And flesh-and-blood children are still sacrificed on the altar to those dogmas.
Some of the learned justices ponder whether there is a "compelling" government interest in creating the educational and social benefits of racial "diversity." If so, supposedly it is OK to do to white kids today what the Supreme Court in 1954 said could not be done to black kids -- namely, assign them to schools according to race.
What are those "compelling" benefits of "diversity"? They are as invisible as the proverbial emperor's new clothes. Yet everyone must pretend to believe in those benefits, as they pretended to admire the naked emperor's wardrobe.
Not only is there no hard evidence that mixing and matching black and white kids in school produces either educational or social benefits, there have been a number of studies of all-black schools whose educational performances equal or exceed the national average, even though most black schools fall far below the average.
My own study of successful all-black schools was published 30 years ago in the Public Interest quarterly. There have since been other studies of similar schools across the country, published by the Heritage Foundation and by scholars Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, among others.
There have also been all-Chinese-American schools that exceeded national norms. How have such schools managed to succeed and excel without the "compelling" need for a racial mixing of students? Look at it another way: Have black kids bused into white schools had their test scores shoot up? No -- not even after decades of busing.
Some black students -- in fact, whole schools of them -- have performed dramatically better than other black students and exceeded the norms in white schools. Yet this phenomenon, which goes back as far as 1899 and included an all-black school within walking distance of the Supreme Court that declared such things impossible in 1954, is totally ignored.
Are such things exceptional? Yes. But the mystical benefits of "diversity" are nonexistent, however politically correct it is to proclaim such benefits. Hard evidence shows students of all races can succeed or fail in schools that are racially mixed or racially unmixed.
The latest variation on the theme of mixing and matching by race is that there must be a "critical mass" of black students in a given school or college, in order to perform up to standard.
Not only is there no hard evidence for this dogma, such hard evidence as there is points in the opposite direction. Bright black kids have benefited from being in classes with other bright kids, regardless of the other kids' color.
All this is ignored in the Supreme Court's supreme farce.
Thomas Sowell is a nationally syndicated columnist.
I'm surprised to find myself agreeing with this- because a lot of what he says is based on actual fact instead of on theory- however attractive or admirable the thought or emotion behind that theory might be.
Appreciation of diversity, especially when it has been enforced upon an individual or population of people, is not a concept that is often taught very successfully or an emotion that is able to be manufactured within people who are not interested in it or open to it.
And my experience has been that when diversity or appreciation of diversity is introduced as a mandate, the tension that creates is often distracting and disabling to any learning environment, to the point that it is a negative instead of a positive.
I wonder if our society is at a point where 'separate but equal' could be a reality? I don't think anyone believes it is. And I think that's why school districts are enforcing this method of trying to ensure or manufacture equality.
By Nat Hentoff
December 18, 2006
There is much angry anticipatory concern among civil-rights groups, many liberals -- and editorial writers on the Washington Post, the New York Times and USA Today -- on how the Supreme Court will decide two cases it heard December 4 on two school districts using racial classifications for student assignments to public schools in order to obtain racial diversity in classrooms.
Those editorial writers and other troubled watchers miss the constitutional violations now before the Court in this racial balancing of school districts in Seattle and Louisville. Those districts have insisted on certain percentages of blacks and whites in certain schools to prevent "racial isolation" of blacks.
By contrast with the cases that led up to Brown v. Board of Education, there is no official discrimination against blacks in the two school districts before the Court. These are well-intentioned plans to ensure that more black and white children can learn together in a time of increased residential segregation and subsequent racial imbalance in many schools.
However, the 1954 Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under the Constitution, admission to the nation's public schools must be "on a nonracial basis." And the present case is the first in which the Supreme Court will decide on the use of race in K-12 public schools not to end official segregation, but rather to bring about diversity in classrooms.
The bedrock issue in these cases is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees to every citizen of the United States "the equal protection of the laws." That means every individual, not groups. And the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas -- who persistently and vigorously opposed discrimination in all its forms -- emphasized:
"The Equal Protections of the Laws clause in the Constitution commands the elimination of racial barriers -- not their creation in order to satisfy our theory on how society ought to be organized."
During the Dec. 4 oral arguments, a lawyer defending the use of race to obtain diversity pointed out that "students as a whole do not suffer any harm" because every student in the Seattle school system got a seat -- though not necessarily the one he or she (or their parents) preferred. There is no intent to stigmatize by race, said the lawyer. It's not "a selective or merit-based system."
But it is a collective race-based system. As Chief Justice John Roberts said in response: "Saying that this doesn't involve individualized determination simply highlights the fact that the decision to distribute (students), as you put it, was based on skin color and not on any other factor." And it is required by the school systems.
In a revealing account of this diversity process in action, syndicated columnist George Will reported: "When registering children for high school (in Seattle), parents were asked to specify each child's race. If parents did not specify, the district did so based on visual inspection of the parents' or the child's pigmentation.
"The school board president has said, 'skin tone matters.' "
Was this "skin tone" form of racial classification -- with its echoes of America before Brown v. Board of Education -- what the justices intended in 1954?
Very significantly, during the oral arguments, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that after a school district proved to the courts that it no longer engaged in official racial segregation as barred by Brown v. Board of Education, then "we turn around and use individual skin color as a basis for (student) assignment. That sets us on a perilous path."
With regard to the actual effect of the celebrated 1954 Supreme Court decision intended to end racial isolation, there are now more largely racially segregated schools around the nation than there were in 1954. Private residential segregation is the primary cause, but underlying that dynamic is a far from inconsiderable degree of racism in the nation.
Furthermore, the national "racial gap" in learning scores is undeniable; but that gap has substantially decreased among "disadvantaged" students in public schools where the emphasis is on structured learning and concentrated attention on individual students -- not imposed diversity in the classroom.
As Justice Douglas counseled, education decisions should be made "on the basis of individual attributes, rather than according to a preference solely on the basis of race."
"Skin tone" is still a discriminating factor in many situations in this society, but state-required diversity in classrooms is not a substitute for effective individuated teaching in public schools where there is no permissible excuse for any child to be left behind.
Quote:Furthermore, the national "racial gap" in learning scores is undeniable; but that gap has substantially decreased among "disadvantaged" students in public schools where the emphasis is on structured learning and concentrated attention on individual students -- not imposed diversity in the classroom.
As Justice Douglas counseled, education decisions should be made "on the basis of individual attributes, rather than according to a preference solely on the basis of race."
"Skin tone" is still a discriminating factor in many situations in this society, but state-required diversity in classrooms is not a substitute for effective individuated teaching in public schools where there is no permissible excuse for any child to be left behind.
How can there be any argument with this?
In the long run, true appreciation and acceptance of diversity would be much more attainable and successful if all of those being "diversified" were equally and adequately educated, by whatever means that could be achieved.
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