Posted on 03/16/2010 5:18:02 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last week that the Obama Administration will ramp up investigations of civil rights infractions in school districts, which might sound well and good. What it means in practice, however, is that his Office of Civil Rights (OCR) will revert to the Clinton Administration policy of equating statistical disparity with discrimination, which is troubling.
OCR oversees Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by race, color or national origin in public schools and colleges that receive federal funding. In a speech last week, Mr. Duncan said that "in the last decade"—that's short for the Bush years—"the Office for Civil Rights has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating racial and gender discrimination." He cited statistics showing that white students are more likely than their black peers to take Advanced Placement classes and less likely to be expelled from school.
Therefore, Mr. Duncan said, OCR "will collect and monitor data on equity." He added that the department will also conduct compliance reviews "to ensure that all students have equal access to educational opportunities" and to determine "whether districts and schools are disciplining students without regard to skin color."
The OCR under the Bush Administration rightly focused on reacting to actual complaints of discrimination and issued guidelines to help school districts comply with the law. By contrast, Mr. Duncan plans investigations based on the disparate impact of a school policy, even if no one has alleged any discrimination. Schools and districts that don't have enough blacks taking college prep courses, or don't suspend enough whites for fighting, could face litigation or have federal funding withheld.
Inevitably, pressure will be put on districts to get their numbers right and avoid federal scrutiny.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
It would undermine the left’s most cherished illusions, not to mention their hold on power through class and racial warfare, to just admit the plain ordinary truth-some people are smarter and/or harder-working than others.
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In other news, most of the basketball players are black, and most of the violinists in the school orchestra are Asian, and nobody knows what to do about it.
Whites are less likely to illiterate than Blacks.
White’s children are less likely to come from single parent households than Blacks.
White males are less likely to go to prison than Black males.
Whites are less likely (per capita) than Blacks to be on welfare
Might it just be possible that the fact that there are more Blacks suspended for fighting have more to do with Black culture than discrimination?
Might it be possible that the reason that there are few Blacks in Advanced Placement classes is that Black culture determines that those who study hard are trying to be White rather than trying to be successful?
The only thing that this new policy will do is make life more difficult for bright students and ensure the continued crippling of the Blacks in this country.
The dumbing down of the American public must continue at all cost.
Will schools have to have a “rap” chorus?”
Next thing you know they will forbid white students from taking books home to study.
Anyone is terribly naive who thinks that “statistical disparity” will not be part and parcel of ObamaCare.
The usual Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton racial politics, will be applied to ensure that “equality” prevails (they of course will do the defining)—and that people of color receive priority in medical procedures because of “past injustices to them” and “due compensation.”
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