Free Republic

A high school in Evanston, Illinois, home of Northwestern University, has embarked on a new plan to try to get grades up for minority students: segregation. The classes, segregated by race for black and Hispanic students, are called "affinity classes," and while they are not enforced, they were offered for black and Hispanic students only. The classes have non-white teachers and no white students are permitted in the courses. Students can decide to opt in to these courses, and many do. The Wall Street Journal reports that almost 200 students signed up for math and writing courses in 2023. The...

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has announced the appointment of David J. Johns as executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans. Mr. Johns’ duties will focus on improving the academic performance of black students, promoting understanding and tolerance among all Americans, as well as reducing “racial isolation and resegregation of elementary and secondary schools.” According to the president’s executive order last summer, this new position is part of an initiative to help “strengthen the Nation by improving educational outcomes for African Americans of all ages, and to help ensure that all African Americans

There was black, there was white, and then there was black and white: jazz and rock and electric blues and stuff so new you couldn’t categorize it. All along, there was wondrous pandemonium, fevered mingling, one tribe swapping their pretty beads and shiny mirrors for the pelts and dried fish of another. For that we should be grateful, or at least resigned, because American culture has one great theme—race—and one great art form—pop music—and the two will always be inseparable. Race and pop music will always be the twin helices of America’s cultural DNA, or so I would like to...

<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. — History haunts the halls of Marie G. Davis Middle School.</p> <p>Plaques line the cinder-block walls boasting "School of Distinction," "School of Excellence" and "Exemplary Academic Growth."</p> <p>But this is not the same school that won those awards. It may be the same group of buildings, but it's not the same school.</p>