Interesting

"Court strikes down school integration plans"

I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy happy happy!!!!

Roberts: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Yup, just the sort of straight, logical, common-sense talk you can't get from an Angry Leftist (or Liberal, or Progressive)

I think this is the first endorsement of Justice Harlan's color-blindness principle (Plessy dissent) in a majority opinion... though I'm not sure if it got Kennedy's vote or not

This is the beginning of the end. this Court will take us back 100 years. God help us all from this court packed by the mentally retarded Bush 43.

hooray, I sure as hell don't want my children around all those darkies! thanks john roberts!

This opinion doesn't go that far, because Kennedy doesn't agree with the majority re: whether race can be a compelling interest. But at least it went far enough. Thank goodness for O'Connor's retirement.

YAY SUPREME COURT!!!!!

I don't want my kids packaged and shipped to another school in order to satisfy some racial quota. Thanks Guys!

Also, I love the burns that Thomas directs toward Kozinski's (increasingly) flawed reasoning.

Did anyone see the protester at 14th and Peachtree this morning (in front of King & Spalding/Lord Bissel)? He was wearing a gas mask and holding a sign that read, "Golf = 25,000 tons of pollutants each year."

Hey 11:34 - I'd rather have my kids packaged and sent to another school then going to a school with your kids, who are sure to be assholes if they are anything like you.

Also, 11:34 - Thomas is a mentally retarded sex harasser and everyone knows it.

a huge month of 5-4 decisions on controversial topics -- abortion, campaign finance, free speech, racial segregation, standing on environmental standards, death penalty -- all decided in the conservative direction, 5-4, with the same lineup -- except the death penalty case where AMK swung "left."

a single man, AMK, is now the most powerful social-agenda setter in the country.

funny result for a democracy.

11:44
Stop picking on the justice's based on their race. Grow up.

11:45,
I think Kennedy is a married man, not a single man.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." This is what I term the ostrich theory (stick your head in the sand). C.J. Roberts and co. know that what they deem to be discrimination on the basis of race is but a corrective measure to counteract existing racial discrimination. It's like saying the way to stop murders is to stop murdering people who murder people. That's just insane.

Pure judicial activism in the Anti-trust case. Conservatives have been arguing for years that manufacturers should be able to dictate retail prices and refuse to deal with retailers who discount their products, but since 1911, a repeatedly reaffirmed Supreme Court interpretation fo the Sherman Act has held that this is a per se violation of Section 1. Now, by a 5-4 vote, the Court overrules its nearly century-old precedent, an interpretation of a statute that has been challenged before Congress, but which Congress has repeatedly refused to overturn through statutory amendment.

If this is not judicial activism, I don't know what is. As Breyer, who is an antitrust expert and as an academic was a scholar in the field, points out, nothing pertinent has changed since 1911, other than the economic philosophy of a majority of the court. But the Supreme Court is not supposed to have an "economic philosophy" - beliefs about economic theory are not relevant to confirmation or appointment because their job is to interpret federal statutes in line with Congressional intent and the fair meaning of the language Congress used.

This is disgraceful.

11:34 (FU 11:34)
Do you want to start having quotas for assholes as well as race? Should we start having quotas based on sexual orientation too? What about social economic factors? Also, who gets to set these quotas to make up these special mixes of schools.

The single most smarmy, disingenuous thing I remember reading from the Court in years: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

But that aside (though it's rapidly becoming a Roberts trademark; kind of remarkable for a guy everyone expected to be a scrupulous and honest analyst). Bottom line: I just don't get how anyone could think that the same Congress which passed race-conscious ameliorative statutes would have also passed a constitutional amendment requiring those statutes to be struck down. It's just not a serious historical reading. **EASILY** up there with the most outrageous flourishings of the Warren Court, and in my view far worse because it doesn't even have the excuse of coming from good intentions.

For what it's worth, I'm not at all sold on affirmative action as a policy matter. But pretending that the Constitution requires color blindness is . . . absurd. Bespeaks results-driven dishonesty of the worst kind.

Five dipshits select a mentally retarded soon-to-be warmonger over the will of the people. Those same dipshits ratify the retard's ability to hold people in detention without due process of law. Now, a slightly altered group of five dipshits decides they don't want rich white kids ever to have to see a minority as a peer.

Thank you John Roberts. Now all of America's white children can start calling black kids "boy" again.

Yessah! Sho is a good day today! Good God Almight!

Fucking assholes have no shame.

Why "activism"? Isn't this just common law judicial law-making under the Sherman Act, which is what the Court's supposed to do? I know very little about the Act, so I'm interested to know.

wait a minute.... WHAT ABOUT MY PENUMBRAS?!?!?!?! OH NOES!!!!!

Not that I read the 185 page opinion, but doesn't Kennedy's concurrence offer the last word. There are 5 justices who think its fine to use race as one factor.

the better question is who, outside of law nerds and people on the extreme left/right, actually care about this ruling?

That whole "elections have consequences" thing must suck for liberal Democrats losing the last branch they considered their turf by divine right. Of course, for reasons entirely unrelated to the Roberts/Kennedy court's recent opinions (which reach results not at odds with the popular will in most of these cases), Democrats will enjoy the next round of nominations for the next 2-3 SCOTUS vacancies. It will be back to a 6-3 liberal majority in ten years.

I just think it's funny that people are so outraged by Roberts/Alito's incrementalism. It's somewhat disingenuous if you think that their *true* aim is to push back 100 years and that Thomas/Scalia are honest about their aim, but incrementalism at least helps the judiciary become the least dangerous branch. It's as if the reason people are so angry with Roberts is because he's making it hard for people to vilify him like he's another Scalia.

Finally. Now the government can stop being so damn racist

11:56 - antitrust law has consistently been read in conjuction with economic theory, and under any modern economic theory the per se illegality of RPM doesn't hold water.

yup, gnashing, well said. the recon admendments (including the 14th amendment) were passed by "radical republicans" who were "radical" in that they wanted to get rid of the social vestiges of slavery and integrate blacks and whites. the civil rights cases were a backlash to that, then plessy; brown sought to renew that legacy, now we have this.

at the end of the day, it's clear that many americans, including educated, wealthy americans (such as many of the posters here) have little concern for the reality that "the badges of slavery" remain among us in concrete and discernable ways. there are how many black partners at law firms? in the senate? as ceos?

if it were the government that was perpetuating racism, then roberts' glib expression about "the way to stop discrimination" would have merit. but it's not the government. it's society, people who like to ignore problems than deal with them, who "don't want their kids bussed" because the only dark people they see are the dudes cutting their grass and taking their garbage. and the job of the court is to protect those members of society who are at the mercy of a tyrannical majority. that is the point of "equal protection" of the law.

11:59

Bravo.

1207, please tell me you are not so stupid as to not even know the ages of the justices. Who do you think will be retiring?

While assholes like you clearly do suffer in today's society because of their assholeyness, I'm not aware that they or their ancestors were ever enslaved, lynched, segregated, sprayed with fire hoses and attacked by dogs for peaceably demonstrating (just to name a few), nor are they disproportionately economically segregated into areas with "failing" schools and less opportunity, all of which serves to perpetuate any lingering issues we have with race in this country.

No, I don't think we don't need a quota for assholes like you. What we do need to do is banish them to low electoral vote states, but that is another story.

When are we going to start having racial quotas for Latinos? Both the whites and the blacks are assholes. The whites don't want quotas and the blacks only want them for themselves. If you want racial quotas throw in all the races.

12:21, the Seattle plan did that. Obviously you didn't read it.

can't we all just get along?

12:21, why not have fractional racial quotas for mixed race individuals? Barack Obama could be counted as 50% diverse. Tiger Woods would be a little more difficult to quantify.

12:10 -- well said.

I like mixing the fractional quota idea with FU 11:34's idea of segregating assholes. Hillary Clinton will be in the asshole camp with me.

11:59 is an idiot. Rich white kids go to private school and if they don't, they would if forced to attend fully integrated schools. The decision defends middle class and poor white kids who want to go school a) close to where they live and b) free from the social pathologies of a criminal black underclass. You can call these people "racist," but when it comes to the well-being of their children, they're going to do what's best for them without any thought of being tagged with the word worse than "murder" "rapist" and "child molester."

11:34 - It's a deal, you can take Hillary. What state are you moving to? I hear North Dakota is nice in the summer.

It's funny/disturbing/whatever that when white parents provide a nice school and a nice neighborhood for their kids they are labeled racist.

12:47 - The problem is for many "nice" white parents, a "nice" neighborhood means, among other things, few if any people of color.

It's true, ask any realtor.

12:49 - so what? Here's reality: people prefer to be around people who look like them. This is true throughout history and it's true today. If you want communism, then simply say it. Let's not beat around the bush.

12:47/12:52 - you are scary stupid. I'm not going to talk to you any more.

11:56/12:09 -- As an antitrust lawyer I agree with 12:09. The Sherman Act has always been interpreted in light of economic theory.

But it is hard to look at the Leegin decision in isolation from the recent spate of antitrust decisions by the Court (most prominently Twombly), all of which are making civil antitrust cases MUCH harder to bring and win.

12:49 no shit it's true. I bought my house in a new neighborhood based on a quiet neighborhood and good schools. Race was not a factor. After everybody moved into their houses, what do you know, no minorities, which was not a huge suprise (well, except the well educated Asian family across the street and the Mormons). So what am I too do? That's the real question. What do I tell my kids? Do I say. "I love you kids, but you are not that important to me. Sorry, we are moving to a shitty neighborhood and I'm going to send you to bad schools so I can help ease the racial divide in this country."
I genuinely want to know what you think a parent is to do.

Let's tone down the rhetoric for a second.

I'm very much on the side of the school districts here, but, first, I think that we on the left should acknowledge that there are costs imposed by the integration policies at issue. I live in an elementary school zone that is 60% white and 40% minority; the school is in the 90th percentile statewide. Literally 6 blocks away, the zone is less then 5% white and more than 95% minority; it's in the 20th percentile. Of course, if I spent a lot of time and effort moving into the good school zone, and then my kids were assigned to the other school, I'd be pretty upset.

On the other hand, I think the factual context here should make everyone upset - why are these two schools so dramatically imbalanced, and why the massive achievement gap? Sure, if my kids were the only kids forced to switch schools, I'd be pissed off, and justifiably so, but if there were a well-designed integration plan where burdens were spread out to achieve - yes, I'll say it - "racial balancing" - then maybe the schools in my neighborhood wouldn't be so radically different from each other in make-up and achievement levels. Maybe the kids currently consigned to the terrible school six blocks away would have a chance at a decent education. What's wrong with trying to accomplish that?

The notion that the way to end racial discrimination is simply to "stop discriminating" runs counter to Grutter, and ignores the radical inequalities that exist independent of direct state action. If you think those inequalities are no big deal, fine, but then you have a pretty narrow conception of what it means to live in a just and equitable society.

12:54 - you act like my four year old.

FN14 in Thomas concurrence is best judicial activist smackdown of Breyer ever!

12:54 - if you can point out one "stupid" thing I said, you win.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." ... "It's like saying the way to stop murders is to stop murdering people who murder people."

No. It's like saying the way to stop murders is to stop murders. Logic 101.

So many great quotes in the decision.

From J. Thomas: "JUSTICE BREYER’s good intentions, which I do not doubt, have the shelf life of JUSTICE BREYER’s tenure. Unlike the dissenters, I am unwilling to delegate my constitutional responsibilities to local school boards and allow them to experiment with race-based decisionmakingon the assumption that their intentions will forever remain as good as JUSTICE BREYER’s. See The Federalist No. 51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961)(“If men were angels, no government would be necessary”)."

Nice.

Playing a violin for the poor oppressed blacks of the USA, who for fourty frickin years have been the beneficiaries of affirmative action and countless federal and state non-discrimination laws. You can whine about discrimination against "ancestors" forever, but the fact is that almost no parents of elementary school-age children have ever known a world anything like Jim Crow. Especially in Seattle, for Chrissakes.

Speaking of parents, they are the #1 factor in achievement. Two parent homes where education is stressed generally produce kids who succeed. Single moms who don't give a crap generally produce kids who don't give a crap. Putting a black kid from a dysfunctional home next a white kid with parents who care will do nothing to fix the real, underlying problems.

So this decision is much ado about absolutely nothing. It's just another chance for blacks to whine that not enough is being done for them, while they continue to (largely) do nothing for themselves. Meanwhile, Asians who come here with next to nothing, and ask for next to nothing from the government, will continue to be exlcuded from all forms of affirmative action simply because they pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

1:13

Well, actually it's like saying the way to stop murders is to stop murdering. Logic 102.

1:30 (2) - you are disgusting

1:13 and 1:31, you are both sort of right...

But let's say that we allowed state-sanctioned murder in this country.

Would it then be silly to say that the way to stop murder (of all types) would be to start by stopping the gov't from murdering people?

1:38 -- "Disgusting" means anything that doesn't fit your worldview, regardless of its truth.

1:30 #2: Amen.

Integration plans, like other affirmative action programs, merely treat the symptoms of, rather than the underlying cause for, racial inequities. The fact is that the black community needs to do more for its children, including ending the culture that glorifies drugs and violence while ostracizing individuals who seek to educate themselves as "Uncle Toms."

Let's face it - over half of the assholes who post on this blog are racists. They won't admit it - they'll say that the civil rights movement has put everything right and that we should move on and treat everyone equally. And it sounds nice. It really does.

But don't fucking kids yourselves - the minute a black family moves in next door with a car that is shittier than yours, you'll start locking the fucking windows down at night.

You make America proud.

1:43

No, I'm right. It just goes to show that C.J. Robert's attempt at "solving" the problem is utter bullshit. In the interests of full disclosure, I also think affirmative action is utter bullshit.

I agree that there's a problem (with race inequality), but I disagree with all (current) attempts to solve it. IMHO, I agree with 1:30 to an extent- in order to fix the "problem" (inequality), you gotta fix the real problem (lots of black kids get a shitty start on life). Identifying the real problem sheds light on its difficulty- how do you fix the family when we don't want government intruding on family?

Oh, and for all you nutjobs that try to use language to paint people who disagree with you as "intolerant" or racists- who's being intolerant now? Why can't I agree with you when we say there is a problem, but if I disagree with you as to how to fix it, I'm a racist all of a sudden? Narrow-minded pricks like you achieve nothing in this world but create so much background noise that any attempt at distinguishing a signal becomes hopeless.

1:30,
"Two parent homes where education is stressed generally produce kids who succeed." True, but two parent homes where education is stressed generally are formed by parents who grew up in the middle class and had educational opportunity themselves. Blacks in America have not had that educational opportunity and have therefore not come from the middle class.

Actually, it is Uncle Thomas. And you see how *that* turned out.

2:04 -- I fail to see why merely being responsible -- in the sense of not having babies out of wedlock and then raising them in a responsible way that stresses self-improvement -- requires a whole lot of education. As I mentioned, you have tons of Asian families who have come here, barely knowing the language, who are anything but middle class -- and their kids have done amazingly well.

Plus, we have bent over backwards to supply black americans with opportunities. Busing -- this supposedly indispensible policy -- has been around forever. Affirmative actions has been around for years as well; damn near every parent of an elementary school age kid has had an opportunity to benefit from it. Are we claiming that despite all of it, there's been no opportunity? Because if so, it just proves my point -- this decision merely signals the end of the policy that was useless in the first place.

Many studies have demonstrated that Asian-American students typically achieve significant academic success. For example, Asian-Americans tend to score higher than whites on tests of math ability, they often have higher GPAs, and they are more likely to go on to four-year colleges than whites.

Yet this broad picture simultaneously lacks detail and offers few explanations, argue Kimberly Goyette and Yu Xie. In seeking to better understand the reasons for Asian-Americans’ high educational achievement, Goyette and Xie make two important proposals:

Research must examine the role of educational expectations on achievement. Specifically, Goyette and Xie ask what role three factors play in producing higher educational expectations: socioeconomic and family background characteristics, demonstrated academic ability, and parents’ high expectations.
Asian-Americans are not a homogeneous bloc. Differences of educational attitudes and achievement exist among groups such as Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Southeast Asian, and South Asians. In their analysis, Goyette and Xie took these group differences into account.
Socioeconomic and Family Background Characteristics
Scholars have long known that parents with higher levels of socioeconomic status and educational attainment tend to produce children who also achieve at a high level. How does this dynamic play into expectations for whites and different groups of Asian-Americans? Goyette and Xie considered factors such as the father’s and mother’s educational level, the generation of immigrant (whether first, second, or third generation), and the family structure (intact or non-intact).

All Asian groups have higher educational expectations than did whites. For instance, 58.3% of white students expected to graduate from college, while all Asian groups reported higher percentages, ranging from 67.9% of Southeast Asians, to 84.8% for Japanese and Koreans, up to 95.7% of South Asian students who expected to graduate from college.
Asian parents tend to have higher educational achievement than whites, although not across the board. 28% of white fathers had graduated from college, compared with 26.9% of Southeast Asian fathers, 38.4% of Chinese, and 64% of South Asian fathers.
Socioeconomic status is not the only explanation for Asian-American students’ academic achievement. Goyette and Xie point out that some groups (such as Chinese and Southeast Asians) have on average lower income levels than whites yet still outperform white students academically. This translates to expectations as well: although Southeast Asians are poorer than whites, they still reported higher educational expectations than whites. Differences also exist within Asian groups: although the South Asian, Korean, and Japanese families enjoyed the highest socioeconomic and educational levels, it was the Chinese-American students who actually scored the highest on the standardized math test.
Academic Ability
Previous research has found that "children who score high on proficiency tests develop high levels of educational expectations based on positive reinforcements from others and their own perceptions of the feasibility of continuing in school" (Tested Academic Ability section, ¶ 3).

Goyette and Xie offer further support for that general finding. Students who scored high on reading, math, and science proficiency tests all had high educational expectations.
However, here, too, findings vary according to the ethnic group. For example, tested academic ability helps explain the high expectations of Chinese, Koreans, and Southeast Asians, but not of Filipino and Japanese students.
Goyette and Xie’s results also suggest that first-generation Asian-American students tend to maintain higher educational expectations than do third-generation students.
Parents’ Expectations
Scholars have theorized that cultural emphasis on education plays a major role in explaining Asian-American students’ achievement. Asian parents often view education as the main vehicle for upward social mobility, such that academic success can even overcome some of the structural obstacles of being a marginalized minority in American society. John Ogbu has also proposed that as "voluntary immigrants" who actively wanted to come to the United States, Asians tend to have positive attitudes toward their chances for economic and academic success.

Goyette and Xie’s research confirms that parental expectations play a major role in explaining Asian-American students’ success. For instance, the parents of all the Asian groups they measured have higher educational expectations for their children than do white parents. At the highest end of the spectrum, South Asian parents on average expect their children to attain a professional or master’s degree, with Chinese parents not far behind on that measure. The data show that white parents, in contrast, expect their children to attend some college but not necessarily to finish with a four-year degree.
In particular, parental expectations play the largest role for Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian, and South Asian students. Goyette and Xie’s findings also suggest that parental expectations are highest among first-generation immigrants.
Conclusions
The key conclusions of this research are that expectations indeed play a positive role in encouraging academic achievement for Asian-Americans. Additionally, it is clear that notable variations do exist among different Asian groups on the explanatory factors.

On the broadest level, the research also suggests how Asian-Americans view education as an important means of achieving socioeconomic success. It is in this sense of “social mobility through the educational channel,” Goyette and Xie write, “that Asian-Americans of diverse groups are similar and can be treated as such” (Conclusion section, ¶ 2).

Research Design: The authors analyzed data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988–1990 using methods of descriptive statistics and linear and logistic multivariate regression models. The research was funded by a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation and a Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation for Yu Xie and an NICHD traineeship for Kimberly Goyette.

http://www.learningpt.org/gaplibrary/text/whyare.php

http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/9AB4AC88-7301-43FF-81A3-EB94807B917F/0/AfAmer_Achivement.pdf

Closing the Achievement Gap: Two Views from Current Research. ERIC Digest.

Historically, we have tried to raise the achievement level of low-achieving minority and immigrant students living in urban low-income areas, but we now recognize that there is an even greater gap in student achievement in schools in suburban middle-income communities than in the inner cities, particularly at the higher achievement levels. (College Board, 1999). More minority students attend suburban schools than popularly believed; in 2000, 33 percent of African-American children, 45 percent of Hispanic children, 54 percent of Asian children, and 55 percent of white children lived in suburban areas, and they attended both poor, segregated schools and excellent racially integrated schools with many resources (Ferguson, 2002, p. 2).

We now have two major studies that can help us understand the achievement gap in suburban schools. Ronald Ferguson of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University analyzed the data collected by the Minority Student Achievement Network, formed by fifteen middle- and upper-middle-income districts throughout the nation. To better understand the experiences of different racial and economic group students that affect their academic achievement and academic engagement, the Network surveyed middle- and high-school students in ninety-five schools in fifteen districts using the"Ed-Excel Assessment of Secondary School Student Culture," developed by John Bishop of Cornell University. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine how the schools can be educationally productive in closing the achievement gap in their heterogeneous student bodies.

The late John Ogbu, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, conducted an ethnographic study of students at all grade levels in schools in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The ethnographers conducting the study observed 110 classrooms from the start to the finish of the lesson, in classes of (1) different racial makeup, (2) the same subject taught at different levels, (3) different subjects, (4) the same teachers teaching the same courses at different levels, (5) the same teachers teaching different courses, and (6) teachers of different races and genders. In the elementary school, the researchers also acted as participant-observers by assisting the teachers with small tasks when they asked for help (Ogbu, 2003). The purpose of this study was to determine how the identity of African-American students as an oppressed group outside the opportunity structure affects their academic achievement specifically and their school experience more generally. This digest distills and compares the findings and recommendations of these two important studies.

THE FERGUSON STUDY OF THE MINORITY STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT NETWORK (FERGUSON, 2003)

Self-Reported Achievement and Skill Disparities: Black, Hispanic, and mixed-race students reported lower grade-point averages than white and Asian students. Black and Hispanic students also reported less understanding of the lessons being taught and less comprehension of the reading material assigned.

Socioeconomic Status and Home Learning Resources: White and Asian students came to school with more of the educational resources identified with higher academic status (e.g., books and computers) than their African-American and Hispanic peers. However, these resources boost achievement less among African-American and Hispanic students than among students of other ethnicities.

Effort: African-American and Hispanic students identified teacher encouragement as a motive for their effort and substantially indicated that this encouragement was more motivating than teacher demands, unlike white students, who cited demands more than their minority peers. But white students also indicated that teacher encouragement was an incentive for them to make an effort to achieve.

Academic Behavior and Homework Completion Rates: By these measures whites and Asians appear more academically engaged and leave a greater impression of working harder and being more interested in their studies than their African-American and Hispanic peers. However, the students in all the population groups differed very little in time spent studying and doing homework, except Asians, and no group of students - including Asians - expressed a great deal of interest in schoolwork.

Ferguson (2003) draws a number of conclusions from his research for changes in the behavior of teachers in the classroom and in schools generally that can help close the achievement gap:

* Although teachers observe differences in academic performance and behavior between African-American, Hispanic, and mixed-race students on the one hand and white and Asian-American students on the other, in practice they should assume that there are no systematic group-level (as distinct from individual) differences in effort or motivation to succeed among the two groups (p. 18).

* Because there are observable racial and ethnic group gaps in standardized
achievement test scores and self-reported differences in comprehension of the content and lessons, schools should identify and respond to specific skill and knowledge deficit problems of particular groups.

* Because students value and respond to encouragement, teachers need to provide it routinely.

* Schools need to provide more educational resources and learning experiences because of student differences in advantages due to their family background.

THE OGBU ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY (OGBU, 2003)

Opportunity Structure and Education: Many African American students did not perceive schooling to be a preparation for future success in the job market. They did not understand how their academic performance at one level of schooling affects the courses they will be able to take at a higher level of schooling, which could lead to greater opportunity. Further, they did not know enough about the educational requirements for future jobs. Their role models were entertainers and athletes because they are wealthier and more visible to them than lawyers, engineers, and university professors whose success depended on their educational credentials.

Race Relations and Schooling: African-Americans felt disparaged and misrepresented in the community, despite the appearance of racial harmony, and fearful and socially distant from whites. As an example, whites in the community felt that the achievement gap was due to social class differences while African-Americans maintained that it was the result of racism. African-American students also strongly believed that their teachers did not "care" for them because they were not supportive, nurturing, and encouraging. They also held teachers accountable for their academic performance.

Identity and Culture: African-American students were unengaged in the attitudes and behaviors that lead to school success because to them accepting the school curriculum, language, and pedagogy would mean rejecting their collective identity. However, they were not opposed to earning good grades although it meant being accused of acting"white" by their peers. Many of these same students also questioned their intelligence, having internalized the beliefs of others', and often acted as if they were less intelligent than their white peers.

Educational Strategies: African-American students recognized the need for effort to meet high academic standards, but chose not to apply it for reasons noted above. They reported that they realized that they did not work hard enough to get good grades. They also felt that the lack of discipline and other disruptive behavior in the classes where they were in the majority were not conducive to learning, unlike the climate in advanced placement classes, where most of the students were white and performed academically at a higher level. Parents of African-American students believed that their children should work hard to make good grades; however, they did not involve themselves in their children's schooling by supervising the completion of homework and the use of time or by protecting their children from negative peer pressure. Culturally, African Americans believed that it was the role of the school and teachers to make their children learn and perform successfully. Finally, African-American students often were not educated in honors or advanced placement classes because counselors in the upper elementary grades assigned them to less academically rigorous tracks with less academic and career rewards; further, parents did not fully understand the consequences of the placements, did not adequately prepare their children for academic work, and did not intervene to try countermand the placements.

Based on his research, Ogbu (2003) also makes several recommendations for
communities and schools like those in Shaker Heights, Ohio, for closing the
achievement gap:

* To increase African-American students' academic orientation and performance, communities need to provide supplementary education programs using the resources of for-profit and non-profit community-based organizations to create a parallel educational system.

* The community needs to provide academically successful role models, publicly recognize achievement, and encourage schools to infuse multicultural perspectives into the academic curriculum to counter students' idea that to achieve is to act white and to help students develop a sound self-concept and identity. The schools, in turn, need to develop strategies to help parents take a greater role in the academic life of their children, and to help them learn to be academically self-motivated and persistent.

* Students need help to learn how to distinguish between short-term and long-term educational goals in course-taking, and between courses in academic subjects and courses that develop a cultural identity. They should also help students to develop study habits and study skills and to resist anti-academic peer pressure.

* Teachers need to recognize that their expectations have an effect on their students' concept of themselves as learners and achievers and the internalization of negative or positive beliefs about their intelligence.

* Schools need to provide parents information on tracking practices, and about differences between honors and Advanced Placement classes, regular classroom placement, and remedial classes. Parents also need to be helped in working with teachers to monitor and effectively enhance their children's academic progress.

A FINAL NOTE ON CLOSING THE GAP

In their conclusions about their research findings, Ferguson and Ogbu do not differ in their views on how schools can help minority students to be more academically engaged and better achievers, only in emphasis. For Ferguson, the role of the teacher and the school is to encourage the individual student to meet the demands of academic work by changing classroom practices. For Ogbu, students will perform better and be more engaged in school if they are helped to modify parts of their collective identity that reject school success, through caring individual and institutional practices. This difference of perspective is noteworthy, however. Ogbu maintains that minority students do not participate in the opportunity structure of the United States because they have identified with their oppressed and marginal position in American society. For him, schools must actively alter these students' identity as outsiders, through caring. Ferguson, on the other hand, argues that schools need to develop interventions that improve minority students' capacity to master the learning tasks of the classroom through academic encouragement, implying that their success will change their self-concept and identity.

REFERENCES

College Board (1999). Reaching the top: A report of the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement. New York: Author. (ED 435 765)

Ferguson, R. F. (2002). What doesn't meet the eye: Understanding and addressing racial disparities in high-achieving suburban schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. (ED 474 390)

Ogbu, J. U. (2003). Black American students in an affluent suburb: A study of academic disengagement. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. (ED 476 118)

http://www.ericdigests.org/2004-3/gap.html

Great decision. The constitution clearly forbids racial discrimination by the government. Too bad it has taken so long to be enforced. A strong step towards eradication the government classifying and treating its citizens differently based on race.

I live in a small city that also has a "racial-balancing" plan for the schools. Although we sing a nice song about wanting the schools to be integrated the sad truth is that the school board's goal is to to spread the weakest students across the entire district.

That way, every school's test scores will be the same and none of the teachers or administrators will risk unemployment due to Bush/Kennedy's NCLB act.

Thank you George and Ted.

1:13 and 1:31

I guess you missed my point. My point in saying "the way to stop murders is to stop murdering people who murder people" is to say that Roberts' argument could be used to ban capital punishment. Murdering people who murder people is what the death penalty is all about. His argument about race discrimination supports the assertion that if we abolish capital punishment, we'll decrease murders. Advanced Logic 435.

Closing the Achievement Gap: Two Views from Current Research. ERIC Digest.

Historically, we have tried to raise the achievement level of low-achieving minority and immigrant students living in urban low-income areas, but we now recognize that there is an even greater gap in student achievement in schools in suburban middle-income communities than in the inner cities, particularly at the higher achievement levels. (College Board, 1999). More minority students attend suburban schools than popularly believed; in 2000, 33 percent of African-American children, 45 percent of Hispanic children, 54 percent of Asian children, and 55 percent of white children lived in suburban areas, and they attended both poor, segregated schools and excellent racially integrated schools with many resources (Ferguson, 2002, p. 2).

We now have two major studies that can help us understand the achievement gap in suburban schools. Ronald Ferguson of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University analyzed the data collected by the Minority Student Achievement Network, formed by fifteen middle- and upper-middle-income districts throughout the nation. To better understand the experiences of different racial and economic group students that affect their academic achievement and academic engagement, the Network surveyed middle- and high-school students in ninety-five schools in fifteen districts using the"Ed-Excel Assessment of Secondary School Student Culture," developed by John Bishop of Cornell University. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine how the schools can be educationally productive in closing the achievement gap in their heterogeneous student bodies.

The late John Ogbu, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, conducted an ethnographic study of students at all grade levels in schools in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The ethnographers conducting the study observed 110 classrooms from the start to the finish of the lesson, in classes of (1) different racial makeup, (2) the same subject taught at different levels, (3) different subjects, (4) the same teachers teaching the same courses at different levels, (5) the same teachers teaching different courses, and (6) teachers of different races and genders. In the elementary school, the researchers also acted as participant-observers by assisting the teachers with small tasks when they asked for help (Ogbu, 2003). The purpose of this study was to determine how the identity of African-American students as an oppressed group outside the opportunity structure affects their academic achievement specifically and their school experience more generally. This digest distills and compares the findings and recommendations of these two important studies.

THE FERGUSON STUDY OF THE MINORITY STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT NETWORK (FERGUSON, 2003)

Self-Reported Achievement and Skill Disparities: Black, Hispanic, and mixed-race students reported lower grade-point averages than white and Asian students. Black and Hispanic students also reported less understanding of the lessons being taught and less comprehension of the reading material assigned.

Socioeconomic Status and Home Learning Resources: White and Asian students came to school with more of the educational resources identified with higher academic status (e.g., books and computers) than their African-American and Hispanic peers. However, these resources boost achievement less among African-American and Hispanic students than among students of other ethnicities.

Effort: African-American and Hispanic students identified teacher encouragement as a motive for their effort and substantially indicated that this encouragement was more motivating than teacher demands, unlike white students, who cited demands more than their minority peers. But white students also indicated that teacher encouragement was an incentive for them to make an effort to achieve.

Academic Behavior and Homework Completion Rates: By these measures whites and Asians appear more academically engaged and leave a greater impression of working harder and being more interested in their studies than their African-American and Hispanic peers. However, the students in all the population groups differed very little in time spent studying and doing homework, except Asians, and no group of students - including Asians - expressed a great deal of interest in schoolwork.

Ferguson (2003) draws a number of conclusions from his research for changes in the behavior of teachers in the classroom and in schools generally that can help close the achievement gap:

* Although teachers observe differences in academic performance and behavior between African-American, Hispanic, and mixed-race students on the one hand and white and Asian-American students on the other, in practice they should assume that there are no systematic group-level (as distinct from individual) differences in effort or motivation to succeed among the two groups (p. 18).

* Because there are observable racial and ethnic group gaps in standardized
achievement test scores and self-reported differences in comprehension of the content and lessons, schools should identify and respond to specific skill and knowledge deficit problems of particular groups.

* Because students value and respond to encouragement, teachers need to provide it routinely.

* Schools need to provide more educational resources and learning experiences because of student differences in advantages due to their family background.

THE OGBU ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY (OGBU, 2003)

Opportunity Structure and Education: Many African American students did not perceive schooling to be a preparation for future success in the job market. They did not understand how their academic performance at one level of schooling affects the courses they will be able to take at a higher level of schooling, which could lead to greater opportunity. Further, they did not know enough about the educational requirements for future jobs. Their role models were entertainers and athletes because they are wealthier and more visible to them than lawyers, engineers, and university professors whose success depended on their educational credentials.

Race Relations and Schooling: African-Americans felt disparaged and misrepresented in the community, despite the appearance of racial harmony, and fearful and socially distant from whites. As an example, whites in the community felt that the achievement gap was due to social class differences while African-Americans maintained that it was the result of racism. African-American students also strongly believed that their teachers did not "care" for them because they were not supportive, nurturing, and encouraging. They also held teachers accountable for their academic performance.

Identity and Culture: African-American students were unengaged in the attitudes and behaviors that lead to school success because to them accepting the school curriculum, language, and pedagogy would mean rejecting their collective identity. However, they were not opposed to earning good grades although it meant being accused of acting"white" by their peers. Many of these same students also questioned their intelligence, having internalized the beliefs of others', and often acted as if they were less intelligent than their white peers.

Educational Strategies: African-American students recognized the need for effort to meet high academic standards, but chose not to apply it for reasons noted above. They reported that they realized that they did not work hard enough to get good grades. They also felt that the lack of discipline and other disruptive behavior in the classes where they were in the majority were not conducive to learning, unlike the climate in advanced placement classes, where most of the students were white and performed academically at a higher level. Parents of African-American students believed that their children should work hard to make good grades; however, they did not involve themselves in their children's schooling by supervising the completion of homework and the use of time or by protecting their children from negative peer pressure. Culturally, African Americans believed that it was the role of the school and teachers to make their children learn and perform successfully. Finally, African-American students often were not educated in honors or advanced placement classes because counselors in the upper elementary grades assigned them to less academically rigorous tracks with less academic and career rewards; further, parents did not fully understand the consequences of the placements, did not adequately prepare their children for academic work, and did not intervene to try countermand the placements.

Based on his research, Ogbu (2003) also makes several recommendations for
communities and schools like those in Shaker Heights, Ohio, for closing the
achievement gap:

* To increase African-American students' academic orientation and performance, communities need to provide supplementary education programs using the resources of for-profit and non-profit community-based organizations to create a parallel educational system.

* The community needs to provide academically successful role models, publicly recognize achievement, and encourage schools to infuse multicultural perspectives into the academic curriculum to counter students' idea that to achieve is to act white and to help students develop a sound self-concept and identity. The schools, in turn, need to develop strategies to help parents take a greater role in the academic life of their children, and to help them learn to be academically self-motivated and persistent.

* Students need help to learn how to distinguish between short-term and long-term educational goals in course-taking, and between courses in academic subjects and courses that develop a cultural identity. They should also help students to develop study habits and study skills and to resist anti-academic peer pressure.

* Teachers need to recognize that their expectations have an effect on their students' concept of themselves as learners and achievers and the internalization of negative or positive beliefs about their intelligence.

* Schools need to provide parents information on tracking practices, and about differences between honors and Advanced Placement classes, regular classroom placement, and remedial classes. Parents also need to be helped in working with teachers to monitor and effectively enhance their children's academic progress.

A FINAL NOTE ON CLOSING THE GAP

In their conclusions about their research findings, Ferguson and Ogbu do not differ in their views on how schools can help minority students to be more academically engaged and better achievers, only in emphasis. For Ferguson, the role of the teacher and the school is to encourage the individual student to meet the demands of academic work by changing classroom practices. For Ogbu, students will perform better and be more engaged in school if they are helped to modify parts of their collective identity that reject school success, through caring individual and institutional practices. This difference of perspective is noteworthy, however. Ogbu maintains that minority students do not participate in the opportunity structure of the United States because they have identified with their oppressed and marginal position in American society. For him, schools must actively alter these students' identity as outsiders, through caring. Ferguson, on the other hand, argues that schools need to develop interventions that improve minority students' capacity to master the learning tasks of the classroom through academic encouragement, implying that their success will change their self-concept and identity.

REFERENCES

College Board (1999). Reaching the top: A report of the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement. New York: Author. (ED 435 765)

Ferguson, R. F. (2002). What doesn't meet the eye: Understanding and addressing racial disparities in high-achieving suburban schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. (ED 474 390)

Ogbu, J. U. (2003). Black American students in an affluent suburb: A study of academic disengagement. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. (ED 476 118)

http://www.ericdigests.org/2004-3/gap.html

2:32, I say otherwise, and I know a thing or two about advanced logic.

This is a great decision, even if Roberts' logic is beyond bizarre, and probably wrong. I understand some people are still going to label me a racist and not listen to logic but whatever those people are blind ideologs.

Ask any realtor (or think to your situation) and they will tell you one of the main (if not THE main) consideration people look for when buying a home is how good the schools are. This is b/c people have the choice to buy 1) a home in, a likely, more expensive neighborhood with a good public school where they can send their children, or 2) they can buy a home in a cheaper neighborhood with a lesser school, but b/c they saved money they can now send their children to a private school thus negating the fact the school isnt to their standards.

Now, say this family goes with option 1 (good school in more expensive neighborhood), but when the children register for school, they tell them the kids are going to be going to the school in choice 2 (ok/bad school in cheaper neighborhood). Is anyone honestly going to tell me thats a fair situation. We all want the best for "the poor" but what about the vast majority of people who are middle class and worked their way to be able to give their kids the best education possible?

2:26,

Of course. Because the plaintiffs in these cases are just like the black kids in Brown, and affirmative action is just like Jim Crow.

I love how fans of this decision describe its critics as "whiners," while whining about affirmative action and school integration.

You raise a good point, but the example makes sense only if the parents have a reasonable expectation that their kids will attend the local school. If instead it is well-known that a school integration policy is in place and that the neighborfood you live in will not guarantee a spot in the closest school, then you won't have an expectation (or entitlement) of that school - and this should be reflected in the residential price. Furthermore, if, in your example, there were a well-balanced integration plan in effect, maybe the disparities between the schools wouldn't be so dramatic.

I don't blame middle class parents for wanting the best for their children - but what lower income kids? We just leave them behind? If the schools are mixed racially and socio-economically, then there will be political will to make all schools better; if they're segregated, you can guess which schools are going to be underfunded.

why are you all upset anyway? had you actually been planning to send your kids to public school?

WGWAG

3:04,

Yes.

HOME SCHOOL!

2:43 -- Or, more likely, you choose the lower end home and send them to private school or you end up moving to a neighboring town/suburb who does not have such a plan in place. Parents will ALWAYS try to find a way to get their kids the best education policy, no matter how hard the govt tries to make it for them.

As to what about the poor. The first issue is this is one school district (rather than all districts across a metro area), there should not be a wide disparity in funding. if there is that needs to be fixed. The best way, and I know this is absolutely detested on the left, is through vouchers which allow parents to leave the crappy schools (and have them close or fix) which punishes the bad and rewards the good schools.

"Underfunded" -- the excuse of every underperforming government-run enterprise. It's particularly disingenuous as applied to education, with study after study showing virtually no correlation between achievement and expenditures. It also ignores the massive achievement gap between blacks and whites across the entirety of the income spectrum.

If we could spend our way to better schools, we'd have done it by now. We have tried. It failed. The solutions lie elsewhere.

2:47: I'm not sure why you directed your comment at 2:26, but I too am tired of the doublethink involved in a lot of the backlash to affirmative action.

The same people argue on one hand that minorities don't really suffer oppression any more and should just keep quiet and compete on the level playing field they now enjoy. On the other hand, the way they complain about what they have to put up with because of affirmative action is so onerous that they cannot help, reasonable people that they are, but be pushed to anger and outrage.

So, apparently, minor inconvenience relieved by court edict = HOORAY FREEDOM AT LAST, while

(not-so-) hidden vestiges of centuries of brutal treatment = GET OVER IT, CRYBABIES

This great line from Justice Thomas is worth noting (nuking Breyer’s opinion):

“Indeed, if our history has taught us anything, it has taught us to beware of elites bearing racial theories.” (comparing Breyer’s positions with those of the segregationists in Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown, and citing Dred Scott to boot). Ouch.

It's hilarious that so many ignorant posters are using this ruling to highlight the anonymous blacks' "whining." Hello idiots--Clarence Thomas is black and he voted in favor of this. I'm black, and I have no problem with this ruling either. What I DO have a problem with is racist morons who against all evidence, seem to think that all blacks think and act alike. Too bad they didn't hand out common sense with your law degrees. And by the way, why is it that blacks are always being accused of whining on this board, when all I hear is you guys whining about affirmative action and anything else that doesn't oppress the poor enough? Sack up, babies!

Justice Thomas is not black; ask anyone.

Damn the Gang of 14 and every pissant wanna-be who threw his/her support behind Alito/Roberts. This includes your dumb friend Althouse... this is disgusting.

3:58 - AMEN

THE FINAL REPORT: HARVARD'S AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ALLEGORY

Derrick Bell

THE TRAGEDY

Everyone in the Cambridge community knew it was a disaster the very moment it happened. In later years, residents would recount the event with the preciseness appropriate to great tragedy: three o'clock on a sunny, late fall, Saturday afternoon. None who heard or saw it ever forgot the earth-shaking explosion and the huge, nuclear-like fireball. When the smoke cleared the following day, the former President's residence, 17 Quincy Street, had disappeared. A deep, smoldering crater marked the site in Harvard Yard where the building had stood.

The explosion and the all-consuming inferno claimed the lives of the President of Harvard and 198 black professors and administrators ‹the university's total complement of black, full-time professionals. As part of a year-long campaign to increase the number of minorities on campus, the university's Black Faculty and Administrators (the Association) had called for an all-day meeting with Harvard's President. He accepted the group's invitation, and the meeting had begun as scheduled. A much published group photograph taken during the lunch break, and intended to record those who attended, served to confirm those who died.

There were no clues as to what or who caused the explosion, a fact that encouraged endless speculation. Every possibility was explored: accident, terrorism, even supernatural forces. The official investigation, after months of searching, found little more than everyone knew in the first hour after the explosion. A building and all within it had disappeared in a flash of fire that reduced even stone and steel to a fine, volcanic ash.

In the absence of answers, surmise served as substitute for fact. Many whites assumed that the Association was responsible: that, frustrated with their inability to increase their numbers, the blacks ‹or some of them) had conspired to blow up the meeting place in a bizarre, murder-suicide pact. Acting on this theory, racist hate groups launched random attacks on blacks. For their part, blacks were convinced that the tragedy was the work of ultra-conservatives, possibly acting with government support. Rumors ignited riots in inner-city areas.

In time, the victims became martyrs to the cause of racial equality. The tragedy and the ensuing racial violence with its threat of social disorder prompted renewed commitment to affirmative action enforcement by long-dormant government agencies. Civil rights groups organized protest marches. The most spectacular of these marshaled more than a million college students who walked from their campuses to Harvard for the massive memorial service held at the Harvard stadium and the surrounding grounds. The investigation did uncover ir formation about what came to be known as "the final meeting."

THE FINAL MEETING

The final meeting at the Quincy Street house was closed, but files from both the President's office and the offices of the co-chairs of the Association contained the meeting agenda and a proposed affirmative action plan officers planned to discuss with the President. The proposed plan was dedicated to Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois who, following his graduation from Fisk University, entered Harvard in the Fall of 1888.' Two years later, he graduated, cum laude, with a major in philosophy. He was one of five graduating students chosen to speak at the commencement exercises.

At Harvard, Du Bois' intellectual gifts earned him the attention of faculty members, including William James, George Santayana, and Albert Bushnell Hart. They became his mentors. Academic ability though did not insulate Du Bois from the racial discrimination he encountered at every turn on Harvard's campus. His years here were filled with loneliness and alienation. And despite clearly superior in tellectual gifts, it was inconceivable that Harvard might offer Du Bois a faculty position at his alma mater.

In its prologue, the Association noted that Dr. Du Bois would now find a substantial number of black students at Harvard. Most are spared the overt hostility that barred Du Bois from every social activity except the Philosophy Club. Even so, contemporary black students encounter colorbased discrimination in many subtle and debilitating forms, and they suffer the no less hurtful slights and disparaging assumptions about their abilities that Du Bois endured.

The Association acknowledged that in the last two decades, Harvard has established a Department of Afro-American Studies and an Institute named to honor W.E.B. Du Bois. At the administrative level, the university adopted an affirmative action plan in 1970, now administered by an Associate Vice President for Affirmative Action. The Association noted that while their numbers remain minuscule, black teachers, staff, and students have made substantial contributions to the Harvard community.

In his presentation prepared for the meeting, Harvard's President was slated to review the numerous statements affirming the university's concern for affirmative action and commitment to equal opportunity. In responsive remarks, a co-chair of the Association planned to observe that unless they exert special efforts, contemporary students at Harvard will have access to or contact with no more black faculty and administrators than were available to Dr. Du Bois. Thus, while the university's commitment was important, implementation was seriously deficient. "We must ask why the improved citizenship status of blacks in the last three decades has not wrought concomitant reform in the once all-white status of Harvard's faculty and administrators? What hidden barriers limit the success of so many seemingly well-intentioned affirmative action pledges and programs?"

The Association statement concluded by citing a report prepared the previous year by a coalition of minority students at Harvard:

In an increasingly multiethnic society, Harvard can ill afford to remain backward in its educational approach. All members‹both majority and minority‹need to see standing in front of the classroom living evidence that there are minority scholars meeting Harvard's highest standards. Minority faculty provide ears attuned to minority students['] needs, minds capable to teach ethnic studies courses, and voices diverse enough to represent minority views.

BACKGROUND TO THE FINAL REPORT

There are no records of the discussions that followed the opening statements. Investigators, piecing together information gained from files and interviews with victims' relatives and friends, were able to provide a clear picture of Association efforts prior to the final meeting. The Association's goal was to improve what they deemed Harvard's abysmal record of hiring African-American professors and professional staff. In the 1988-89 school year, only 17 of the 957 tenured faculty (1.8%) were black. And there were only 26 blacks (1.1%) among the 2,265 tenure-line or ladder faculty positions.

Embarrassed and deeply concerned about their minuscule representation on the nation's most prestigious campus, Association officers met with Harvard's President in an effort to identify and discuss the reasons for Harvard's poor performance in hiring and retaining black faculty and administrators. Following that session, the co-chairs and the Association's executive committee decided to meet individually with the academic deans. The letters of invitation noted the lack of affirmative action progress, requesting the deans to "share with us in more detail your analysis of the barriers preventing increased employment of blacks in faculty and exempt administrative positions in your School [and] indicate what strategies you and members of your staff are using or plan to use to eliminate the indicated barriers."

It appears the sessions (generally conducted over breakfast or lunch) were amiable rather than adversarial, and the meetings took place in an atmosphere of courtesy and cooperation rather than conflict. According to the meeting summaries (copies of which were found in Association files) the deans readily acknowledged both the inadequacy of black representation on faculty and staff at their schools, and the many values their schools would realize with a greater than token black presence. They uniformly expressed their willingness to support actions that might improve the numbers of blacks in teaching and staff ranks. Several deans reviewed actions they had taken or planned to increase the number of black students, faculty, and administrators.

The deans gave varying reasons for the embarrassingly small numbers of blacks on their faculties: the decrease in the number of black American doctorates;' the lack or inadequacy of pools from which black applicants might be drawn;' l the lack of openings; the lack of funds for hiring new faculty; and the difficulty in obtaining tenure; these were all recurring themes during the discussions. The most often heard explanation was that faculty openings required qualifications which few if any blacks hold. The deans were less clear in explaining the paucity of black administrators, despite the admittedly larger pool of clearly qualified candidates for these positions.

A generous assessment of these meetings is that the President and the academic deans were concerned about minority hiring but comfortable with existing hiring criteria. The Association saw its task as bringing the deans and their faculties to at least recognize that their frequently expressed resistance to hiring African-Americans with success and experience in other than traditional academic fields contra dieted both logic and past hiring patterns for both whites and blacks. The deans found little significance in the facts that:

1. African-Americans have been hired and promoted at Harvard despite (for some) a lack of traditional qualifications. Many of these individuals now perform at a high level of effectiveness, a fact that does not alter the too readily expressed fear that minority candidates without traditional qualifications may not succeed.

2. Not all whites hired and tenured in accord with traditional, academic criteria perform at consistently high levels as teachers and scholars.

Notes from a planning session held by Association leaders prior to the fateful Saturday meeting with the President indicate that they planned to emphasize the following barriers to increasing the percentage of black faculty and administrators at Harvard:

White Superiority: During Du Bois' years here (and likely for three-quarters of a century thereafter) the strictures of law and widely held prejudices about the superiority of whites and the inferiority of blacks barred all blacks‹including those with Du Bois' academic qualifications‹from any position of importance at Harvard. The inertia generated and sustained during this long, exclusionary period was not eliminated by the enactment of anti-discrimination laws. Whether intended or not, questions of qualifications now serve subtly the role once performed overtly by racially exclusionary policies.

Faculty Conservatism: Tenured faculty exercise the major role in hiring and promotion decisions. Almost by definition, they are conservative when it comes to admitting new members to their ranks. They take seriously their roles of guardians of Harvard's scholarly reputation. This guardianship is appropriate, but in practice it simply replicates the status quo by selecting candidates from similar backgrounds, with interests and ideology like those of current faculty members. The sense that the faculty candidate will "fit in" receives great ‹if unacknowledged‹weight in many faculty hiring and promotion decisions. This "insider bias" is potentially damaging to many white candidates. It is positively devastating to most candidates who are black.

Scholarly Compatibility: Even outstanding scholarship, if not performed in a traditional format, can disqualify a candidate seeking a position or promotion. Narrow measures of excellence harm many candidates, but tend to exclude disproportionately large numbers of blacks whose approach, voice, or conclusions may depart radically from traditional forms. As a result, the selection process favors blacks who reject or minimize their blackness, exhibit little empathy for or interest in black students, and express views on racial issues that are far removed from positions held by most blacks including‹often enough ‹ the groups who pressured for an increased minority presence.

Tokenism: While the lack of an adequate pool of blacks with traditional qualifications serves as the major excuse for little or no progress, it is apparent (from the drop in interest in minority recruitment after one or two blacks are hired) that there is an unconscious but no less real ceiling on the number of blacks that will be hired in a given department‹regardless of their qualifications.

THE SECRET TAPE

A cassette tape, uncovered by police investigators during their zealous search for clues, contained recorded portions of an Association planning session. The recorder may have been hidden because much of the sound is muffled and faint. The ungarbled footage reveals a quite heated argument over whether the Association should sponsor a series of direct action protests.

Ramona Berrywell, a personnel officer in the graduate school, strongly supported demonstrations. According to friends, she had not been much involved in racial issues until she was passed over for promotion three times in a ten-year period. She filed and ultimately prevailed in a long and bitter employment discrimination proceeding. Berrywell's voice came through clearly on the poor recording.

Ms. Berrywell: "I understand why you tenured faculty types are opposed to protests. You are afraid they would be undignified, and not in keeping with your image."

[Muffled response]

"Listen. Neither your titles nor your tenure can change the fact that Harvard is no less a plantation for you faculty folks than it is for black administrators who can‹and are‹eased out if we do anything that is threatening to our white supervisors, including doing our jobs more competently than those we watch 'move on up' while we are expected to wave them on and satisfy ourselves with the thought: 'at least I work for Harvard.'"

[Incoherent discussion to which Ms. Berrywell responds]

"Quality of life for blacks on this campus? We work hard and smile pretty while doing it. In return, we are tolerated, but we are not part of the family."

[Several comments of disagreement with an unidentified professor's voice coming through:] "Ramona, you're wrong. We are treated like everyone else. I don't want to be pampered."

Ms. Berrywell: "Professor, I know you have been here a long time, and you have earned far more respect than you receive. But you signed that South Africa divestment petition with the rest of us, and what response did it get us besides gross rationalizations? Can you imagine what Harvard's reaction to apartheid would be if a black minority subjugated a large, indigenous, white majority in South Africa ‹or anyplace else for that matter?

"We are the surviving by-products of the 1960s riots. Unless we act, Harvard will return to its comfortable, all-white status. We will get nothing we do not insist on. I promise you one major demonstra tion: a 24-hour vigil around Massachusetts Hall, a 9-to-5 sit-down strike in the Yard, even a 2-hour gospel sing while blocking the passage under Holyoke Center. Any of these protests will get the message across that we want promotions as well as jobs, respect as well as pay, consideration and not condescension masked behind a thin veil of civility."

Professor: "We need to stop the hypocrisy. We know and they know that there are very few blacks out there qualified for professional teaching or staff positions at Harvard. Neither pretense nor threats will change that. Face it. If racism has been as devastating as we claim and has prevented all but a few black folks from gaining Harvard-level credentials, we need to stop demanding that they hire nonexistent people. And if despite racism, there are qualified blacks out there, we need to tell the schools where they can be found and stop complaining about discrimination."

Ms. Berrywell: "But for what you call 'hypocrisy' by activists in the 1960s, Professor, neither of us would have our jobs. There is no pool of blacks because there are so few jobs. And there will be no jobs unless we demand that Harvard find those who can and train those who have the potential.

"I know some of you fear that protests will worsen our situations, perhaps justify our dismissals, and certainly ensure that any of us who participate will never be promoted."

Professor: "Ramona, protests are not appropriate for persons in an academic setting. We will turn off the university policymakers, and it will give them an excuse not to take. us seriously. Why not continue writing the President for more aggressive enforcement of existing affirmative action regulations, and then request a meeting with him to discuss our concerns?"

Ms. Berrywell: "The President is not God. His office gives him influence, but he has little more power over tenured faculty than we have. We must give him a reason for insisting on a vigorous affirmative action effort. If we don't act, who will? Remember what Preston Wilcox, the Harlem activist, preaches: 'No one can free us but ourselves.'

"Friends, we won't live forever. If they ask in the Hereafter what did you do to help the cause of your people, don't you want to be able to say more than that you worked at Harvard University?"

[The balance of the tape was blank.]

DISCOVERY OF THE PRESIDENT'S PLAN

One month after the explosion and just prior to the massive memorial service to honor all those who lost their lives in the Quincy Street house explosion, a proposal was found among the late President's papers. There were some indications that he had planned to present the paper to the Association at some point during the final meeting. It read: "I have heard and considered carefully all that has been said here. I agree that it is time to honor our words with deeds and linking a new affirmative action program with Dr. Du Bois' name is an excellent idea. Therefore, I plan to issue a proclamation commemorating the Centennial of Dr. Du Bois' Harvard presence with a Du Bois Talented Tenth black recruitment and hiring program.

"The goal of this program is that by the Fall of 1990‹the 100th anniversary of Dr. Du Bois' graduation from this institution‹ten percent of Harvard's faculty and administrators should be black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. If the Graduate School of Education can attain an eleven percent minority faculty, the other schools should strive to do as well.

"Close to a record number of black students entered Harvard this Fall. These admissions reflect Harvard's appreciation of Du Bois' statement:

All [persons] cannot go to college but some [persons] must; every isolated group or nation must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where [people] are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold.

"Our black students need teachers. Teachers are models as well as trainers, and while, as Du Bois and dozens of educational studies would agree, not all teachers of black students need be black for a healthy and effective learning environment‹for whites as well as blacks‹some representative number of faculty should be persons of color. Adopting Du Bois' Talented Tenth standard as the immediate goal for all Harvard faculty and administrative positions is both a reasonable and appropriate means of moving Harvard's affirmative action commitment beyond tokenism.

"I plan to organize the Talented Tenth program along the following lines: During the 1988-89 school year, the President's office will sponsor a search and recruitment program including necessary timetables that will enable every faculty to begin a vigorous campaign intended to locate and attract black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American faculty and staff.

"During the 1989-90 school year, the recruitment efforts should enable available vacancies (and where necessary, those vacancies created by the central administration), to be filled by persons of color until the school or unit contains no less than ten percent black and other representatives of groups disadvantaged because of their race and color. Where despite good-faith efforts vacancies cannot be filled with persons of color by the end of the 1989-90 school year, then an amount equal to the salary of the majority person hired should be used to promote a visit, fund a scholarship or fellowship, or in some other way further the Talented Tenth Centennial goal. This funding should continue each year until a minority candidate is recruited and hired. I would expect that the desired progress will be achieved without further sanctions by my administration.

"Here, I hope you will agree, is a program both worthy of Harvard and capable of exciting enthusiasm and emulation by colleges across the land. I expect that this proposal will be opposed by those who warn us that Harvard's reputation for scholarly excellence will be jeopardized unless each opening is filled by the best candidate without regard to race, color, or creed. But we must face the fact that race has served for three centuries as an absolute bar for faculty status at Harvard. It remains the cause of suspicion rather than an opportunity to include and broaden the scope of scholarly inquiry. We must address these unspoken but no less serious barriers.

"My proposal responds to the need for reform that will improve rather than degrade Harvard's standards of scholarly excellence. First, by vigorous effort, vacancies can be filled by blacks who have either traditional qualifications or their equivalents. Second, where such persons cannot be found or recruited, funding equal to the salaries of those positions will be devoted to fellowships and other support that will enable promising students of color to gain the necessary credentials and experience to fill teaching and staff positions in the future, either here or at another school."

THE TRIUMPH

The President's plan was read at the memorial service and its effect was as one would imagine. With a seldom-seen unanimity, the Harvard community made implementation of the President's "Talented Tenth" plan a matter of the highest priority. By the Fall 1990 deadline, the percentage of black faculty and staff reached levels double those at the time of the fatal explosion. In addition, scores of black graduate students were benefiting from the fellowship funds provided in unfilled minority positions. The program had captured national attention and was being emulated at colleges and universities across the country.

Finally, exactly two years after the never-explained explosion, an elegant building, the new home of the Du Bois Institute, was opened on the site of the disaster. It was a fitting memorial to the past and a stately manifestation of a university that had merged its stated commitment to affirmative action with impressive accomplishments.

MAKING FICTION REAL

Happily, the tragedy described here never occurred. But who can doubt that so great a disaster‹and the concomitant threat of widespread racial disorders‹would motivate concerted action to memorialize its victims with the realization of the plans they were discussing when the end came. Such a memorial would be neither illegal nor wrong. Indeed, it would add to the luster of a great university, and might well spark a national movement toward closing the gap between the commitment to diversity in academe and the solid action needed to give life to that commitment.

This is the leadership role appropriate to Harvard. Acceptance of that role without the motivation of grief and the need to memorialize lost colleagues would not render that role less worthy. Most of us thought that the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, would close the book on racial discrimination and open a new era of opportunity that knew no color line. We were wrong. The challenge of overcoming the attachment to the beliefs and benefits of white supremacy remains. Harvard cannot respond effectively to this challenge with a faculty whose blacks hardly constitute one percent of the total. To paraphrase Jesse Jackson, we are a better university than that.

RESPONSES TO THE REPORT

...

November 15, 1988
An Open Letter to the Academic Deans

Dear Deans,

On October 25th, we released The Final Report, the Association of Black Faculty and Administrators' affirmative action paper. The report featured a fictional tragedy that led Harvard to adopt a dynamic minority hiring and fellowship program.

With a few exceptions, your response to our initiative has been private distress and public silence. In a meeting with President Bok last week, we learned that most of you were "turned off" by the report. Somehow, you viewed it as proof that we were not serious about improving minority hiring, and predicted that it will harm rather than help minority hiring efforts on this campus. We were told that many of you were angered that the report questioned your commitment to affirmative action.

We find this response disheartening. We thought you shared our deep concern that figures of less than 2% black faculty and professional staff place in question the commitment of all of us at Harvard, black as well as white. Our report was intended to find contemporary relevance in the historic fact that major racial progress has always come in periods of great crisis: slavery was ended in the midst of the Civil War; segregation was outlawed in the course of the post-World War II Cold War; and affirmative action was a product of the massive civil disturbances of the late 1960s, particularly those that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Given the crisis-oriented character of civil rights progress, our report posed a challenge: if a campus calamity like that portrayed in our report occurred, it almost certainly would spur adoption of a more aggressive affirmative action program. Such a program, we suggest, would be no less appropriate in the absence of a tragedy-caused crisis.

We recognize that the debilitating effects of racial discrimination limit the number of eligible minorities in many fields. As well, we are aware that some minority scholars have declined invitations to come here. But we also know that other applicants, highly regarded in their fields, have not received offers because they are not deemed "traditional" or "theoretical" scholars.

We believe, and our report suggests, that many of the minorities rejected for faculty and staff openings in recent years would have been offered positions during a crisis. Our report was intended to aid you in overcoming faculty resistance to minority applicants with other than traditional credentials. We hoped it would strengthen arguments that many of us are performing well despite credentials that depart from the traditional. Some blacks have done less well, but our record of successes and disappointments is no different from the records compiled by those whites with all the traditional qualifications.

We respect your right to disagree, but we are puzzled that you chose to withdraw rather than join issue with a position that invited debate and threatened-neither disruption nor legal action.

We are pleased that dozens of faculty and staff members, and student groups have called for, read, and responded positively to our report. We extend our thanks to the deans, including those at the Law School, the Kennedy School of Government, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health, and the Graduate School of Design, who have made copies of our report available to their faculties and professional staffs. We hope all will do so. We all need to consider why steps taken in periods of crisis cannot be emulated in periods of calm.

Sincerely,

/s/ Derrick Bell /s/ Lawrence Watson
Derrick Bell, Law Lawrence Watson, Design
Co-Chair Co-Chair

cc: President Bok
Ronald Quincy, Associate Vice President for Affirmative Action Programs

...

October 30, 1988
Professor Derrick Bell
Harvard Law School
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Professor Bell,

I just finished reading the article which appeared in today's New York Times concerning the plea of Harvard blacks that more blacks be hired by Harvard. I, a 1965 graduate of Harvard, am getting sick and tired of hearing you blacks constantly bitching and moaning about [the] lack of blacks on Harvard's faculty. Face it Derrick, you blacks have a hard time making it on your own and if it wasn't for the anti-white, black ass-kissing, affirmative action programs instituted by liberal politicians, there would be even less blacks at Harvard and rightfully so! What the hell have you ever really done for Harvard? I have returned to Harvard time and time again and each time become more and more disgusted with the patronizing the University condones to keep you blacks quiet. You have bullshitted the liberals into believing that we white people owe you something and the best way to rectify the alleged past discrimination is to "give" you jobs, positions, housing, etc., etc. Why the hell can't you ever earn something on your own without constantly crying that you are owed. I don't owe you a goddamn thing. Thanks to you Negroes, we, as a nation, have the highest drug usage rates, the highest murder rates, the highest infant mortality rates, the highest welfare rates, the highest rates of households led by single females, the highest rates of abandoned children, the highest illiteracy rates, and the lowest educational rates. I am sure you believe this all to be caused by white folks. I have sat in classes taught by blacks, have sat next to black students, who if it was not for the color of their skin would never enter Harvard, and just have shaken my head in total disbelief at the level of stupidity displayed by you blacks. The first thing this phony professor did was spend fifteen minutes castigating whites. The black students stood and cheered. The majority of us whites had the good manners to ignore the tirade and jungle manners of the students who cheered. Many of us got up and walked out, right over to the registrar's officer and got out of the class.

Answer me this, Derrick, have you ever heard of merit? That means achieving something by yourself without having it handed to you for doing nothing. Harvard should recruit the brightest and most promising students in the nation based on past record, not granting positions based on race. What a sham affirmative action is. If only you blacks displayed real courage and publicly denounced affirmative action for what it really is. I have chosen to send my three children to schools that recognize merit and past achievement and not a school that panders to racial groups primarily because they, the schools, lack the courage to stand up to blatant blackmail. Your battle cry is if we's don' get our demands we will occupy another building. Of course you show your true colors when you take over a building, you deny others the right to their education, a very expensive right.

In closing I have cut off all donations to the old alma mater until they cut this constant pandering and patronizing. Until you blacks show that you have risen to the same level as whites in education you should be happy with what you get and deserve. Where are the black Nobel prize winners? Instead of appointing blacks, Harvard should appoint only those who by merit deserve to be appointed. When will you ever learn?

Yours truly,

/s/ Donald T. Wells '65

cc: Lawrence Watson
Dean - School of Design

November 6, 1988

Dear Mr. Wells,

As I assume was your purpose, I found your October 30th letter quite shocking. Regrettably, many people share your seriously mistaken views regarding the working of affirmative action programs, but I was appalled that a graduate of this Law School would level so virulent a tirade against both affirmative action and black people in general.

Your letter served to remind me that lurking behind the courteous resistance to providing meaningful opportunity to people of color in this country, there are many like yourself who really believe that blacks are inferior and that centuries of slavery, segregation, and con tinuing racial discrimination--far from justification for policies of racial reform--are appropriate treatment for an unworthy people.

Your letter was candid and you deserve candor in return. I have spent the 30 years of my professional career attempting through law to make the dream of racial equality real. It has been a career filled with frustration, misgivings and, in recent years, a great deal of failure. Even so, I will take your letter as a reason for renewed commitment. It will also demonstrate to officials here that failure to vigorously implement their affirmative action pledges serves to give an unintended legitimacy to views like those expressed in your letter.

Sincerely,

/s/ Derrick Bell
Derrick Bell

...

2:43 - I live in a place where exactly what you describe was going to happen in response to a state law. Now I think they will think twice about doing it and that state law will be challenged or (more likely) just unenforced.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Q8Wve6-lJ4gC&pg=PR1&lpg=PR1&dq=faces+at+the+bottom+of+the+well&source=web&ots=NOvGN85q2d&sig=y9LAw4bGQNA-53StlheFifzLh3s#PPP1,M1

Those of you posting long-ass copy and paste jobs need to familiarize yourselves with a little abbreviation: TL;DR.

3:24,

Just what are these "solutions" of which you speak that don't involve a greater investment in education? "Study after study" does not show that more spending on schools is pointless - what studies show is that it typically takes MORE resources to provide a meaningful education to students of low-income or ESL backgrounds than it does to provide a decent education to kids of middle or upper class backgrounds. If you think about it, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

But we're getting far afield. The point I was trying to make is this: when schools are segregated, it's not a surprise which ones tend to get neglected: the majority-minority schools. One of the ideas behind integration efforts is that if schools are reasonably balanced, it's less likely that any particular schools will be neglected.

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

The insight and rationale of Brown was that separate cannot be equal, where the separation is on the basis of caste. Schools today are just as segregated as they were in the late 60s, and separate clearly is still not equal. As for Robert's silly quip, reductionism is cool and dramatic, but one can only agree only if you think the purpose of segregation was merely to keep races separate, rather than to confine one of them to a subordinate condition. Separation remains (Brown and Brown II cases never really made a dent in it ) and still has this effect. For this reason, for Thomas to accuse Breyer of betraying Brown and Dred Scott because he asserts that race matters to creating equality shows he slept through conlaw at least a couple times. The idea that the Brown court actually meant to install perfect neutrality as the remedy for caste oppression, rather than a radical and proactive reversal of social patterns created by slavery, is laughable.

Got to say, I'm particularly won over by Thomas's concurrence. Brilliant to compare the dissent's arguments with the segregationists. Hope you sleep well, Justice Breyer.

-- ET!

ET,

You're absolutely right. The plaintiffs in these cases are just like the black kids in Brown, affirmative action is just like Jim Crow, and Justice Breyer is just like George Wallace. And Justice Thomas is "brilliant."

Hope you sleep well, moron.