SARAH PFANDER
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Thursday, Dec. 7, 2006
Opinions

IN LOUISVILLE and Seattle, where parents have numerous options regarding the public school their child attends, a race-conscious enrollment system seems to be functioning well.

Rather than having parents scramble to get their child into the “best” school in the area, each home is assigned a block of possible schools. From that block, families pick their top choices. The school board then divides students up based on those top choices, but the board also keeps in mind the need for racial integration and socioeconomic diversity. Based on this system, 90 percent of families get their first choice, and most people are happy with the results.

However, Crystal Meredith, a white Louisville woman whose son didn't get into his mother's first-choice school, decided that the system is unfair. Rejection from a year-round school that she applied to five weeks late resulted in Meredith's son being assigned to another school in their block.

But Meredith wanted her son to go to a school closer to home and requested a transfer. This request was denied; the school board cited “adverse effects on desegregation compliance.” According to Meredith, school districts should divide children into schools without taking race into account, a color-blind system if you will.

The Louisville case, along with a similar one from Seattle, has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices will examine the constitutionality of racial balancing and decide what steps school boards can use to maintain diversity.

So, is this an actual issue, or one woman's bitter revenge on a school system that failed to give her and her child superior status? This woman is unable to distinguish between achieving racial diversity and discriminating based on race.

There happens to be a large difference. To say that a child cannot attend a school because admissions is already full and he or she would tip the quotas is fair. An integrated atmosphere provides a good learning environment for everybody. A very integrated atmosphere does an even better job. Minorities should not be such a minority that the students feel left out, excluded, or unsupported.

The Louisville school system even has an entire multicultural statement regarding the advantages of a diverse educational environment. According to the statement:

Education that is multicultural fosters:

(1) intergroup understanding, awareness, and appreciation by students and staff of diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups …;
(2) positive attitudes toward cultural diversity, especially in early grades by dispelling misconceptions, stereotypes, and negative beliefs about themselves and others;
(3) dialogue about the impact of racism and other barriers to acceptance of our common humanity;
(4) development of positive, productive interaction among people and experiences of diverse cultural groups;
(5) understanding of historical, political, and economic bases of current inequities.

Thus, a diverse, multicultural atmosphere is clearly a positive asset and a worthwhile goal.

On the other hand, excluding students based on their race is a completely different phenomenon. Saying to a person, you cannot attend this school because you are white is not the same as saying you cannot attend this school because we don't have any more room for white students.

Admittedly it is a fine line. But while there may be valid complaints regarding the race-conscious enrollment system, it is hard to believe that a few unhappy white families have legitimate grievances.

First of all, these children who don't get into their first-choice school will, regardless, have a shot at success. Being white automatically affords them certain advantages, and while they may not necessarily become billionaires on account of their race, they will at least have an easier time at it than an oppressed minority.

Second of all, why should any Caucasian resent a minority student at a better school? If the whites hadn't oppressed so many minorities, shoved them into slummy neighborhoods and reservations, decreased their chances of getting a good education, and all together put them at a disadvantage, then the modern world wouldn't need race-conscious enrollment systems to repair these damages. If the dominant majority had not created racism, there would be no need to fight segregation now.

A report on the widening gap between blacks and whites says, “Whatever the causes of black-white gaps in educational achievement, the perpetuation of a large portion of these gaps throughout elementary and secondary school leaves blacks at a relative disadvantage as they prepare for college and/or the labor market.”

Knowing that these gaps exist, how can we say that an African American, or any minority at a school, doesn't deserve to be there? Shouldn't we be trying to give all minorities a better education with the hopes of lessening this achievement gap and thus leveling the playing field later in life?

Racial issues are very sensitive, and I don't want to come off as taking them lightly. There are more subtleties to the issue; one can't dismiss all the grievances of white people. But saying that we need to address the constitutionality of racial balancing is like saying we need to question the constitutionality of eating ice cream. Some people may get sick when they eat ice cream, and others may just not like it, but it improves the quality of life for so many that it is hard to complain about it.

Who has the right to complain about racial balancing? The 10 percent who don't get their first-choice school? Why should that small number affect an entire school district that has been working well?

However, even scarier for me is the idea that Supreme Court justices are actually taking this case seriously. Not only taking it seriously, but actually considering enforcing a school enrollment system that is color blind.

“I thought that was one of the absolute restrictions, that you cannot judge and classify people on the basis of race,” said Justice Antonin Scalia.

So what does Scalia suggest? We return to a school system in which diversity is not a priority, and thus segregation happens all over again? Our society is not so perfect that we would maintain complete integration if school boards and admissions committees weren't allowed to work at it. A school board could not possibly know whether it was maintaining diversity if the members didn't know the race of the students. No one would know whether one school was actually filled with whites and another school with minorities.

It is unfortunate that racism has been so institutionalized. It is unfortunate that white flight, the exodus of Caucasians from a neighborhood as soon as blacks move in, is still a problem. But these are issues that need to be addressed. Only an ignorant person would suggest our society has been so well healed from years of discrimination that race-conscious enrollment problems are not still necessary.

RELATED

— New York Times coverage: Court Reviews Race as Factor in School Plans

— Supreme Court case docket: Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education

— Supreme Court case docket: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District