FAIR News

Boston Parent Coalition v. City of Boston

And Other News

August 4th, 2021

 

Boston Students Redlined Out of Exam Schools

Many Boston students dream of going to one of the city’s top-rated public “exam” schools. Before 2021, admission was based on entrance exam scores and GPA. For many underprivileged hardworking students — many of them children of immigrants — the exam schools and their race-blind admissions standards were their best chance at receiving an excellent education.

This year, the Boston school district changed the admissions policy. It abolished the entrance exam and implemented a new plan that admitted students based on zip codes that were closely tied to race. Despite that, the district claimed the plan was “racially neutral” and was not motivated by racial animus. They did not expect the truth to emerge.

After the plan was implemented, an insider leaked to the Boston Globe that two voting board members had exchanged texts during the hearing on the plan, saying they are “sick of Westie whites” and “hate West Roxbury” (a historically Irish neighborhood), and referring to some of the objecting parents as “white racists.” The district had not disclosed those texts and in fact, had excised those portions when it responded to the parents’ public records requests. Another voting board member was caught on hot mic mocking the names of Asian parents who opposed the plan.

 

A group of parents is now moving forward with their lawsuit to revert to a race-neutral admissions policy. Please support them and their children as they seek fairness and justice.

 

The Glasgow Group

As a growing number of parents stand up to neo-racism in our schools, influential consultants who advise private schools are strategizing how to respond to the pushback for the coming school year. Recently, Independent Schools Management (ISM) hosted a seminar with the Glasgow Group, a powerful consortium of consultants advising schools in creating diverse, inclusive and equitable environments that promote transformational learning at every level of the organization. Glasgow Group President Rodney Glasgow was recently in the news for comparing parents concerned about neo-racism with the January 6th Capitol rioters. FAIR obtained leaked clips from this seminar, where Glasgow Group members talked about the need to control the Boards of Trustees of their client schools, manage upset parents instead of compromising with them, and keep non-compliant parents out of school communities altogether. 

 

Learn more here.

 

Other News

For The Washington Post, George F. Will compared Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan's legacy and vision for America to that of race-based “equity.” Harlan was the one dissenting vote in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson which upheld "separate but equal" and opened the door for Jim Crow segregation.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Harlan stated, “Our Constitution is color-blind. ... The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.”

 

Read the full article here.

 

For The Atlantic, Danzy Senna wrote an article serving both as a review and a firsthand account of encountering Robin DiAngelo’s Nice Racism and Courtney E. Martin’s Learning in Public at her son's private school.

“Interracial worlds, friendships, marriages—Black and white lives inextricably linked, for good and for bad, with racism and with hope—are all but erased by Martin and DiAngelo, and with them the mixed children of these marriages, who are the fastest-growing demographic in the country.”

 

Read the full article here.

 

For Persuasion, director of high school outreach at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) Bonnie Snyder weighed in on the ongoing dilemma of neo-racism in education, and advocated for solutions through open discourse rather than legislative action.

“Rather than banning disfavored ideas like CRT through coercive legislation, we should leave it to local school boards, with the input of concerned parents and citizens, to shape their curricula.” 

 

Read the full article here. 

 

For the LA Times, Sara Cardine covered Orange County residents speaking out against California’s new ethnic studies curriculum. Many are concerned it enforces race essentialism and division in the classroom. Orange County’s Board of Education hosted a discussion panel on Tuesday, giving community members a chance to speak either for or against the new curriculum.

“Linda Padilla-Smyth, mother of two biracial daughters, worried the curriculum would divide students by teaching them to cast white people as oppressors and people of color as victims. ‘I do not want my children to hate either side of their heritage,’ she said.”

 

Read the full article here.

 

For the New York Post, university student and up-and-coming journalist Rikki Schlott reflected on her experience standing up for free speech and open inquiry at NYU.

“Today’s students recoil at the first hint of contention and demand insulation from controversial ideas. But, in the process of bubble-wrapping themselves, they undermine the very purpose of their education: the exploration of self that is paramount to intellectual maturity.”

 

Read the full article here.

 

FAIR Advisor Erec Smith's project, the Journal of Free Black Thoughtlaunched with a profound inaugural essay from fellow Advisor Glenn Loury.

“Resist the temptation to essentialize. Strive for a colorblind world, even if we don’t happen to live in one right now. Eschew violence, but fight the battle of ideas.”

 

Read the full article here.

 

For Newsweek, FAIR Advisor Zaid Jilani reflected on politicians' attempts to exploit tribalism and the weight of such actions.

Perhaps that's why I find myself so repulsed by racialist politics, whether it crops up on the right or left. As Americans, we're fortunate to live in a country with a relatively low level of tribalism. But not only was I raised by immigrants, but I had the opportunity to travel overseas and learn from friends and family about what the world is like when you live in a society where narrow tribal categories define your place.

 

Read the full article here.

 

For her podcast, Honestly, FAIR Advisor Bari Weiss was joined by fellow Advisor Kmele Foster. The two revisit “the Central Park Karen” story, which broke on the same day as the murder of George Floyd. In a wide-ranging interview, the two discuss new evidence that has come to light that calls into question what really happened that day, and they examine the cost of mob justice.

“Amy Cooper, the dog walker, she became the ultimate symbol of the ‘Karen’: The female busybody oblivious to her ‘white privilege.’ Using it to endanger the life of the man holding the camera.”

 

Listen to the podcast here.

 

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