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OPINIONS/ (E3^ qiarlotte
Thursday January 15, 2004
We can have diversity, achievement
By Ann McColl
SPECIAL TO THE POST
North Carolina is becom
ing increasingly racially and
ethnically diverse.
That’s a fact. Our pubhc
schools can capitalize on this
diversity or can go back to
the segregation patterns
that existed 50 years ago.
That’s a choice.
Population trends, school
segregation patterns, and a
United States Supreme
Court opinion have con
verged in a way that calls
upon us to consider the goals
of diversity in public schools.
• This issue is especially time
ly as we approach the 50th
anniversary of Brown v.
Board of Education, the
unanimous opinion by the
Supreme Court that ended
the separate but equal doc
trine and required integra
tion in schools.
North Carolina,s growing
population is becoming
increasingly diverse, includ
ing a roughly 400 percent
increase in the Hispanic pop
ulation in just 10 years. This
diversity is reflected in the
pubhc schools where four of
every 10 students are of
minority race or ethnicity.
While diversity has been
increasing, North Carolina’s
schools are becoming more
segregated. This is occurring
at the school level and in
some upper grade class
rooms. Resegregation is also
evident in the increased
number of minority students
attending racially isolated
schools. A recent study of
North Carolina schools by
Duke University professors
found a substantial increase
over just a five year period in
the percentage of “nonwhite”
students attending schools
with “nonwhite” populations
of 90-100 percent. There
were particularly large
increases in the coastal
region (3.0 percent to 11.8
percent) and in some of the
large school districts,
notably Winston-
Salem/Forsyth (from 0 to 20
percent) and Charlotte-
Mecklenburg (from 2.2 per
cent to 6.9 percent).
Although residential segre
gation is the main cause for
school segregation, it is not
the basis for the trend
towards resegregation of our
schools. In fact, residential
segregation has decreased in
North Carolina from 1990 to
2000.
With an increase in diver
sity and a decrease in resi
dential segregation, how
have our schools become
more segregated? Part of the
answer is in the convoluted
history of school desegrega
tion lawsuits. In the post-
Brown era, courts enforced
integration plans in order to
correct segregation that was
required or sanctioned by
law. Schools became fairly
integrated under these court
orders. But as residential
patterns continued to cause
school segregation, courts
became reluctant to require
schools to fix issues not relat
ed to the unlawful segrega
tion.
While not required, many
communities chose to pursue
diversity in schools on the
premise in Brown that sepa
rate schools were inherently
unequal. These voluntary
strategies faltered in the
1990s when courts, includ
ing those with jurisdiction
over North Carolina, struck
down such race-conscious
plans without even deter
mining whether diversity
was a compelling interest of
schools.
While the legal basis for
integration was unraveling,
student achievement
became the dominant fea
ture of education reform.
Expectations for parental
options, such as the ability to
choose a charter school or a
magnet school have also
increased. With state-man
dated accountability and
local pressure to respond to
these initiatives, integration
strategies were sometimes
neglected or even intention
ally derailed as no longer
important or as perceived
barriers to these other
reforms.
This past summer, the
Supreme Court declared
that the educational benefits
of diversity justified taking
race and other measures of
diversity into account in
admission decisions at the
University of Michigan Law
School. It is hardly a stretch
to apply the educational
benefits of diversity at the
law school to public schools.
For example, the Supreme
Court recognized the value
of a diverse student body for
breaking down racial stereo
types, making classroom dis
cussion livelier and more
enlightening, and for proidd-
ing students with exposure
to widely diverse people, cul
tures, and viewpoints so that
they can be better prepared
for the global economy, work
places, the military and soci
ety.
For public schools, the
Supreme Court opinion
reopens the door for consid
ering diversity. It is not a
legal requirement, but a
choice made by local boards
with their community. How
we frame this choice is criti
cal. It cannot be an “either
or” choice: either diversity or
student achievement; either
diversity or parental options.
Rather, it should be whether
to pursue the educational
benefits of diversity in order
to bring together these
important initiatives.
Some communities may
not be ready to revisit this
issue. The wounds of past
battles and racial divisions
may be too raw. The student
assignment plan may be too
new. For communities that
are ready to reverse trends
towards resegregation, they
will need to define diversity,
identify its educational bene
fits, and develop particular
strategies that meet
Supreme Court criteria and
best incorporate their other
educational goals. While this
may take some time,
wouldn,t it be fitting to be
able to answer whether we
are committed to the impor
tance of diversity in time for
the celebration of Brown in
2004?
ANN McCOLL is an attorney
and on associate pwfessor at
UNC-Charlotte, College of
Education.
GOP would be smart to woo blacks, non-voters
Clarence
Page
WASHINGTON
Sometimes I receive letters
or e-mails that begin some
thing like this: “I can’t
understand why blacks—or
Afncan Americans or what
ever it is you want to call
yourselves these days — stay
so loyal to the Democratic
Party. After all. President
Bush appointed Colin Powell
as his secretary of state and
Condoleezza Rice as his for
eign policy adviser.”
And he showed good taste
by doing so, didn’t he?
However, as groundbreak
ing as their appointments
were, most black people I
know still are waiting for the
Bush administration to cre
ate more jobs for blacks than
just the two mentioned
above.
Nevertheless, I appreciate
sincere questions, as
opposed to rants from people
who just want to preach at
me. Writers like the one
mentioned above simply do
not understand how the
world looks from an Afiican
American point of view. If
they did, they would not
have to ask why nine out of
10 black votes tend to go 'to
the Democrats.
Now Republican Party'
leaders say they are trying to
close that gap. Yes, we’ve
heard that before. But this
time Ed Gillespie, chairman
of the Republican National
Committee, calls increasing
his party’s share of the black
vote “a top, top priority.”
If so, the opportunities are
there. Quite a few black vot
ers, particularly the young,
also soimd dissatisfied with
giving nine out of 10 of their
votes to one party.
Item: The number of black
respondents who called
themselves Democrats
slipped from 74 percent to 63
percent between 2000 and
2002 in polls by the Joint
Center for Political and
Economic Studies, a black-
oriented think tank based in
Washington. That could be a
problem for Democrats and
an opportunity for
Republicans.
Also, 21 percent of the
black respondents approved
of President Bush’s overall
performance in a poll taken
last summer by the indepen
dent Black America’s
Political Action Committee.
That’s more than twice the 9
percent of the black vote that
went to the Bush-Cheney
presidential ticket in 2000—
which in itself was almost a
25 percent drop from the 13
percent of the black vote that
the Republican Bob Dole-
Jack Kemp ticket received in
1996.
Item: Republican Michael
Bloomberg won 22 percent of
the black vote in the 2001
New York City mayoral elec
tion. California (Jov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, a
Republican, won T7 percent
of the black vote in the
California gubernatorial
recall election last
November.
With developments like
those, the GOP has
announced new outreach
efforts such as ads in black-
oriented newspapers and
television, radio programs to
promote poll-tested
Repubhcan issues like tax
cuts, “traditional family val
ues” and school vouchers
that are more popular with
rank-and-file black voters
than with liberal black lead
ers.
However—and this is a
very significant “however”—
party leaders have remained
quiet about how much
money they plan to spend on
this effort. .
“My guess is that it won’t
even come close to the level
of what used to be called
walking-around money,”
quipped David Bositis,
senior political analyst at the
Joint Center.
Alvin Williams, president
of the independent BAM-
PAC, doesn’t expect a dra
matic turnout in black votes
this year, either, although
his long-range view was
more upbeat. “The good
news is that younger black
voters are disillusioned with
the Democratic Party and
more want to be seen as
'independent, quote,
unquote’.”
Nevertheless, the GOP
does not have to persuade
black Democrats to switch
parties if it can persuade
black voters not to vote.
That’s not hard to do when
Democratic candidates fail
to reach out to blacks veiy
well, either. In Maryland’s
2002 gubernatorial race, for
example. Democratic Lt.
Gov. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend lost mostly
because of a lackluster cam
paign and failure to pick a
a black running mate,
Michael S. Steele, won 13
percent of Maryland’s black
vote overall, and 22 percent
of Prince George’s County, a
black voter stronghold in
suburban Washington. That
high percentage of black
votes, coupled with unusual
ly low black turnout, enabled
EhrUch to edge Tbwnsend
out.
In other words, black
Democrats can be “swing”
voters, after all, simply by
not voting for certain candi
dates.
As Chuck Todd, editor-in-
chief of The Hotline, an
Internet political newsletter,
recently wrote, white voters
don’t swing that much,
pendent,” most of those self-
declared independents also
tend to vote for one party or
the other, just like partisans
do. Fewer than 10 percent
actually pick and choose can
didates from both parties.
The most accurate defini
tion of a swing voter, Todd
wrote, “is a person who
swings between voting and
not voting.” That also
describes a lot of black vot
ers.
With that in mind, each
party would like to have
your vote. If they can’t have
your vote, they would like for
you to stay home. Either way
works for them.
CLARENCE PAGE is a
Chicago Tribune columnist.
Our voices
Convenient
change in
rules
By Bill Fletcher Jr.
SPECIAL TO THE POST
Any regular reader of my
columns knows that, despite
my opposition to the inva
sion of Iraq, I have never
been fond of Saddam
Hussein. The descriptions of
his diabolical approach to
ruling Iraq are without dis
pute.
I am, however, very per
plexed by the stand taken by
the Bush administration on
Hussein’s status as a prison
er. The administration has
announced that Hussein will
not be granted prisoner of
war status. The justification
seems to be that Hussein is
so evil that he does not
deserve it.
1 hate to break it to the
administration, but there
are no indices of evil when it
comes to prisoner of war sta
tus. If there is a war and
someone fighting for one side
or the other is captured, that
individual is a prisoner of
war. It does not matter
whether that person is a foot
soldier or the president of
the Republic of Iraq. It does
not matter whether that per
son took power in a coup or
was an elected leader.
Saddam Hussein was the
internationally-recognized
president of Iraq. His coun
try was illegally invaded,
thus precipitating a war. He
was ultimately captured.
Therefore, according to the
Geneva Convention, he is a
prisoner of war.
The administration, how
ever, seems to view things a
bit differently. For them,
basic rules do not seem to
apply. It is okay, for instance,
for the U.S.A. to break inter
national law and invade a
country if the administration
believes it to be okay. It is
okay for the Bush adminis
tration to concoct a category
that the no one in the world
recognizes called “enemy
combatant” as a way of keep
ing prisoners captive with
out recourse to either prison
er of war status or the status
of civilian prisoners (the sit
uation facing all those in
Guantanamo Bay). Thus,
the status issue with
Saddam Hussein is simply
the logical course of the
opportunistic use of lan
guage by an administration
that will not let either facts,
or laws get in the way of its
objectives.
There is a tremendous
danger when one allows a
government to play fast and
loose with international law
and precedent. There is no
way to stop it, nor any way of
knowing the limits to which
that it will go. Yes, it is
absolutely the case that
there are few people on this
planet that will shed a tear
for Saddam Hussein, but if
the administration can uni
laterally decide that the
rules of war do not apply to
Hussein, to whom do the
rules of war apply? Is there a
particular enemy, or set of
enemies that tne Bush
administration will decide
should receive the treatment
afforded by the Geneva
Convention? Or, does it
depend on which side of the
bed the president arises
from each morning and who
he decides happens to be
evil?
From the standpoint of
everyday citizens of the
U.S.A., there is another
important concern. If the
U.S.A. does not recognize
international law except
when it benefits the current
administration, why should
any other country?
BILL FLETCHER Jr. is presi
dent of TransAfrica Forum,
which raises awareness about
i.ssiies facing Africa, the
Caribbean and Latin America.