The opening battle of the great 21st century American civil war [the manifesto is found in the comment far below by Francisco]
By
Asra Q. Nomani, vice president of
strategy and investigations at Parents Defending Education.
March
24, 2021 -- New York City’s gifted and talented students are in the crosshairs
of woke activists who seek to impose “racial justice” in the city’s school
system, not by improving education but by destroying opportunities for the
city’s most advanced learners. And we can’t let them win.
A
consortium of activists, including celebrity lawyer Ben Crump, has filed an 81-page
lawsuit against the State of New York, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo,
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, and other state and city education
officials, demanding the elimination of merit-based admissions to the
city’s Gifted
and Talented programs. The lawsuit argues the city’s gifted program
and its specialized schools, including Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx
High School of Science, perpetuate an illegal “racial hierarchy,” “racism,” and
“segregation” because black and Hispanic students qualify for them at a lower
rate than white and Asian students.
The
proposed remedy – eliminating gifted and talent programs and schools and
punishing smart kids – will not fix the systemic academic problems in New York
City elementary and middle schools that are the root cause for this “racial
hierarchy.” Instead, it will promote another discrimination: against advanced
learners. The legal activists demand discrimination against students whose
academic performance ranks in the top
1.5 percent of their peers, and they disparage these students as
having “in-the-know” parents. It is common sense that we will accomplish
nothing as a society and surely do much harm if we embrace a conception of
“fairness” that involves attacking and delegitimizing excellence as a form of “racism.”
That’s
why a new organization, Parents
Defending Education, filed a motion today to intervene
on behalf of New York City parents whose children attend gifted and
talented schools.
Attacks
on gifted education programs have been a front in the national culture war that
has heated up over the past year. “Social justice” advocates promote a
concept of “equity” that any deviation in racial outcomes – such as gifted
enrollments – can only be explained by racism. From New York to Seattle, these
activists are working to dilute the most advanced and rigorous coursework with
concepts from the ideology of critical race theory, including curriculum
infused with discussions on “white privilege,” “systemic racism,” “structural
inequity,” and “white supremacy.”
At
the heart of this war on merit is a thinly-veiled attack on Asian-American
students, many from immigrant families. The lawsuit filed last week in New York
included frequent references to “certain Asian students,” who social justice
activists nationwide say are “overrepresented” in
gifted and talented programs, despite all of the alleged “racism” of their
admissions process against minorities.
Sadly,
these anti-Asian undertones have become typical.
Last
month, the San Francisco Unified School District voted to replace
the merit admissions process to a gifted and talented school, Lowell
High School, with a lottery, attempting to dismantle the school’s mostly
Asian-American student population.
Earlier
this month, in northern Virginia, parents from a grassroots group called Coalition for TJ stood in front of
the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., after their lawyers filed
a lawsuit accusing local officials of anti-Asian bias for removing the
merit-based, race-blind admissions process to Thomas Jefferson High School for
Science and Technology. (As the parent of a student at the school, I was
honored to stand with them.) This public school is rated by U.S. News and World
Report as the No. 1 high school in America. One dad’s sign, written in English
and Chinese, read, “Targeting Asian families is Neither Equity Nor
Inclusiveness.”
And
in Boston, a local parents’ organization is
going to court next month in yet another lawsuit, filed
late last month, against local public school officials, alleging that they
made admission to the city’s gifted high schools biased, using “zip code
quotas” to reduce the number of white and Asian students.
Like the
early 20th century's racist social engineers who imposed
quotas limiting the enrollment of Jewish-American students at
America’s top universities, today’s “racial justice” activists target gifted
students. This time, many of the victims are Asian-American. This time, the
excuse for racism is embarrassment at how Asian-American academic advancement
undermines the woke narrative that America’s “systemic racism” precludes
minorities from success.
Winning
the legal battles in New York City and elsewhere is critical in defending an
American Dream where we provide opportunities to America’s brightest students.
These students deserve educational challenges that help them develop into
leaders and innovators – and our country desperately needs them for us to
advance as a nation. The solution is not to cry “racism” and destroy programs
for advanced learners but to improve schools for all students.
Comments
Hominid
We
can't have competition because it creates winners and losers - we don't want
any hurt feelings. We can't have inequality because we have to pretend all
people are equal (and, we don't want any hurt feelings). The lowest common
denominator must be the norm so no has hurt feelings.
coelacanth10
Here's
some truth. Merit is the ONLY thing that matters in education and most of life.
To do well, one must work very hard and sacrifice for future rewards. The USA
is one of the least racist countries on the face of the earth, and is renown as
the mixing pot of cultures, each of which has things to offer American
citizens. Critical race theory is a bizarre and hateful personal philosophy,
based upon neomarxism with inherent destructive tendencies that ultimately are
anarchistic, and is doomed to fail in this country and any other. It has
nothing to offer us as Americans. We should reject it completely as well as any
organizations such as Blantifa which embrace it.
Hominid
The
concept of the "melting pot" is emotionally appealing and seems
plausible (the folks just have to have the "right" attitude). But,
like so many other fanciful, emotionally appealing notions, it doesn't work out
in reality. Sapiens is a biological creature, a product of genetic evolution,
and, as such, will behave in accordance with the biological principles of
competition for survival and propagation of his particular genes. Genetically
dissimilar peoples (tribes, if you will) inevitably will compete with another
for evolutionary success. The specific justifications - from personality trait
differences to ideological-cultural differences - are but the immediate
rationalizations for this underlying biological confrontation.
daniel155
Rather
than trying to improve education for everyone, the filers of these lawsuits
want to bring all students down to the lowest level.
Hominid
That's
because "improving education for everyone" is a fools errand. People
differ greatly over a broad range in their educability due to their genomes.
Genetically unintelligent and unmotivated children are not very educable and
benefit little if at all from education.
mrbadhabits
The
easiest way to determine if mastery of a subject is less important than social
concerns is to ask yourself if you're happy having a doctor who barely
graduated from med school perform your brain surgery.
pearson231
There
are no Asians on college basketball teams. Obviously, this is a racist sport so
basketball needs to either be eliminated, or a lottery system used to choose
players for the teams.
Larkenson
Our
schools teach White students that they are immoral and contemptible if they
don’t support the White Genocide that’s being carried out by massive
third-world immigration and FORCED assimilation i.e diversity in EVERY White
country and ONLY White countries. Their teachers never tell them, “White
self-hatred is SICK!!!“ Those teachers claim to be anti-racist. What they
are is anti-White. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.
daniel155
False
flag.
Flight Ops
All
students and Dropouts shall be given Participation Trophies and enrolled in
means-tested Guaranteed Income Programs for life. /sarc
Hominid
Consider
the alternative. Is a society based on humanist ideology with all its
emotion-based, nonrealistic notions going to allow people suffer and die?
We're reluctant to even execute vicious murderers and we keep trying to
"rehab" chronic drug abusers as though they accidentally came into
contact with a curable disease. We continue to chant the false notions that all
men are equal, equally deserving of a dignified life, and are responsible for
one another's well-being.
futbolfan
1
day ago
The
leftist insanity about race is going to touch off a race war.
Francisco d'Anconio
I am afraid Asra doesn't understand the point when she
says" It is common sense that we will accomplish nothing as a society
and surely do much harm if we embrace a conception of “fairness” that involves
attacking and delegitimizing excellence as a form of “racism.” The excellence
of which she speaks is actually white excellence of white subjects that were
created for white students. That is why so many Asians, Indians, and whites do
so well in school. They are doing well because they simply focus on mastering
their knowledge of the subject and maintaining the discipline to complete the
coursework in a timely manner. Obviously this is racist. There is no way you
could possibly expect any black person to perform at the same level if you just
focus on "learning". We
need to instead ignore learning the subject matter and
focus on the real lesson, and that is oppression. Sure, it is easy to reward
students for competence in their areas of study, but I say let's hear the
students stories of oppression. I guess we need to decide whether this country
wants people in jobs that are competent, or do we want people who have lived
their truths?
futbolfan
Ha
Ha. Leftists are sick and you know it. They won't like your post.
sestamibi
Yes,
one needs to recognize sarcasm.
Hominid
YOU
evidently don't. The post was NOT sarcasm - it was an accurate statement of
reality.
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