The Bigsibling Blog

Back on the menu this week at SCOTUS is affirmative action.  This time in the form of Seattle, WA high schools.  In Seattle, students can elect to choose which high school they would like to attend.  But then the school district may or may not send the student to their desired school based on the student’s race.  So if a student wants to attend a particular high school that is close to home and where they would be with friends, the district may send that student across town to a different high school in order for that school to be more racially diverse.

Gone are the days of neighborhood schools where kids and parents all lived in close proximity and knew one another.  Now kids are bused from one side of town to another in order for the purveyors of political correctness to feel good about themselves.

The SCOTUS judges seemed appropriately skeptical of the practice in Seattle

The district seems to be telling its students that “everybody can get a meal,” but that only certain people can get “dessert,” [Justice Anthony] Kennedy said. Justice Antonin Scalia said it was as though the district was saying “you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”

The justices were referring to the fact that some students have been assigned based on their race to schools they didn’t ask to attend. The question, said Kennedy, is whether a student can get into the school the student really prefers.

Chief Justice John Roberts expressed concern about making school assignments “based on skin color” and not “any other factor.”

Of course, there are the usual folks out there picketing for one side or the other (although the article was particular to point out that there were many more ‘fer it’ than ‘agin it’ picketers).

“The plan has prevented the resegregation that inevitably would result from the community’s segregated housing patterns and that most likely would produce many schools that might be perceived as ‘failing,’” the Seattle school district said in its brief to the high court.

Oh, wait, what was that?  Some schools might be perceived as failing if people weren’t forced into different schools based on race?  Is it possible this whole thing is areally about the perception of failing (or not failing) schools?  If so, why does race play into it at all?  Does the Seattle school board assume that students can get good marks based on their race instead of their smarts?

source

Stumble it!

Write a comment