Sorry.
Posted on 10/22/2005 2:13:15 AM PDT by indianrightwinger
Racial tiebreaker will stand
By Sanjay Bhatt
Seattle Times staff reporter
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld Seattle Public Schools' use of race as a tiebreaker in assigning students to popular high schools, and the plaintiffs vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling comes on the heels of decisions by federal appellate judges in the 1st and 6th Circuits upholding local school authorities' use of race as a factor in student-assignment plans in Massachusetts and Kentucky. Plaintiffs in all three cases sued on the basis that the school districts' plans violated their individual rights to equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Seattle suspended its use of the racial tiebreaker after the 2001-02 year because of the litigation.
Here's how the racial tiebreaker worked: When a high school received more applicants than it had seats for, a series of tiebreakers gave assignment preference to students.
Those with a sibling in the school got first preference. After that, if the racial balance of the school's student body varied by 15 percent or more from the white-nonwhite districtwide ratio — 40 percent white to 60 percent minority — students were given preference if they brought the student body closer to that ratio.
The next tiebreaker was the school's distance from the student's home, which due to housing patterns tends to lead to less diversity in schools.
With the tiebreaker, for instance, the percentage of minority students at Ballard High School was 54 percent; without the tiebreaker, their representation would have dropped to 33 percent.
[SNIP]
Six of the 9th Circuit's 11 judges hearing the Seattle case ruled that the district's plan met that standard.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Yeah, yeah, I know -- they lump the minorities in one basket, then compare their "collective" numbers against the Endandgered Species list of us white Heathens . . . but one still gets the sense that this "diversity-engineering" runs amuck when the rules are slanted to unfairly increase the numbers of "minorities" when they're, in fact, the majority block of students.
And just for my Redneck ignorance of such things . . . this is supposed to help society in general . . . How exactly?
Will we now demand that homosexuals be "equally" represented? How about Satanists? Or NAMBLA members? Or Muslims? Or . . . you get my drift.
This forced "social-engineering" does nothing but create tension and confusion in the lives of our youngsters when they're already facing a difficult world. The acceptance of others different than our ourselves begins and ends at home. If a child has loving, caring, and thoughtful parents . . . they will assimilate into our diverse society without major problems. If the father wears KKK robes and the mother is a femi-Nazi . . . there is nothing school officials can do to "save" their children.
Like most things Liberal . . . they think Big Brother can solve ALL THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD when, in fact, Big Brother Government does nothing but piss in the very sandbox he claims to be trying to clean up.
Liberals have never heard of Personal Responsibility. Everything is someone else's fault and a little "social-tweaking" is all that's needed to clean up the mess.
Amen. Agree with you 100%.
Interestingly, Asians (full disclosure - I am one) are not considered a minority for the *preferences* purpose.
So, the defintion of a *minority* is really messed up.
It should all be SIMPLY based on merit/qualifications. If some economically struggling group (no matter what their racial profile) needs a helping hand, I am not opposed to Government giving a helping hand UP.
At some point, this madness needs to stop.
Appealing to the supreme court only makes it worse.
It solidifies bad precedent.
Why would you ask this court when you know what the answer is going to be?
geedee, that's an awful lot of common sense this early in the morning! easy... ;D!
I don't know about that. The 9th is the most over ruled circuit.
The racial tie-breaker does not give equal protection under the law.
Sorry.
Before World War I, the minority problem was especially acute in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), and Russia. During the war, each side promised autonomy or independence to minorities in enemy states, and revolts (e.g., of Arabs and Czechs) were encouraged. One of President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points was the freeing of minorities. Hitler made adroit use of the minority issue to annex the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia and to attack Poland, thus launching World War II. After the war, Czechoslovakia and Poland took the extreme step of deporting all Germans.
Communist nations have traditionally asserted that they have no such difficulties because all ethnic groups are allowed full expression; this was belied by the crucial role that was played by minority national groups in the breakup of the Soviet Union. Nowhere has the post-Communist assertion of minority rights had more dire results for minorities than in Yugoslavia, which fissured into several warring national and subnational entities.
Many politically unstable African nations include disparate ethnic factions, frequently embattled because of national boundaries that were artificially drawn by European colonialists. In recent years, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan have been the site of severe ethnic, religious, or clan-based feuding. Pakistan was formed in 1947 for the Muslim minority of Hindu India, but the nation combined different peoples who shared only a religion. In 1971 the Bengalis of East Pakistan seceded to form the nation of Bangladesh. Since the 1960s, Northern Ireland—largely Protestant with a sizable Catholic minority—has witnessed much sectarian strife, although the late 1990s brought the hope of peace.
In the United States the toleration of legal discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities came to an end after World War II. To ensure recently gained equality, the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) gave a special protected status to the victims of historic injustices. Affirmative action decrees of the 1960s and 1970s mandated that race, gender, and national origin be taken into account in employment situations. African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans are ethnic minorities that are protected under affirmative action regulations.
Since 1945, the United Nations has been active with respect to minority problems, especially through the Commission on Human Rights. In 1948, the United Nations approved two important documents concerning minorities: the Genocide Convention (see genocide) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.answers.com/minority&r=67
Your comment just made me laugh and I was hoping my graphics would give you a little chuckle. I'm sincerely sorry that it didn't. That was my only intention.
How very 10970.
This is the 21st Century.
It is past time for our society to become color blind.
Being that I live in the Seattle area and know folks with children at Ballard High, let me tell you that of the 54% that are "minorities" 65-70% are Asian (whether Chinese, Filipino, or Vietnamese). Remember that Seattle is only about 9.5% black and 6% Hispanic.
I did take umbrage with your private mail but I would never "ream" another FReeper. I simply asked the Admin Moderator to hold you accountable. I'm disabled and oftentimes my teenaged daughters have to read threads to me and type my replies. I adopted my nieces and nephews a few years ago so I'm new at this parent-game . . . but I'm trying to show them we're all accountable for our actions.
Your apology is accepted and I'm asking the Admin Moderator to ignore my Private mail to him or her. Mistakes are easily made . . . but it takes a strong person to own up to a mistake, then apologize for it. I appreciate you doing both.
Anyway, just my two-cents even though no one asked for it. :)
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