This is very interesting, thank you for sharing this.
This guy's email cracks me up. I like confident bold writing styles like this.
“I speak with some authority as someone who has filed more Title VI and Title IX complaints than any individual in the history of US civil rights enforcement when I suggest that your race-based and sex-based discrimination is legally indefensible and I fully expect the Chicago OCR to rule in my favor, as they have more than 300 times before for violations similar or identical to ETHA’s (sic) sex-based and race-based discrimination”
“The mindset is often ‘We’ll just violate the civil rights of certain un-preferred student groups (whites, Asians, males) unlawfully in the pursuit of social/racial/gender justice for preferred groups (BIPOCs) and we can do some good until/if we get caught and are forced to follow the law.”
I get the impression that a lot of education folks these days are just throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks and what doesn't stick.
Agreed! ETHS is in quite a bind, it seems. They get a lot of kids entering in 9th grade that are not high school ready --not even close. And what’s coming their way may be even worse in that regard than they can even imagine (given all you’ve written about and more in d65). At the same time, ETHS is out there touting itself as a leader in AP Curriculum and is recognized as increasing BIPOC AP participation in significant ways. And at the same time per a recent Daily Northwestern article 77% of the white student body is taking an AP class and for Black students it’s 20-22% and for Latino it’s 38%. Not great. And, finally, at the same time we’re hearing more and more about grade inflation being at an all time high and rigor being at an all time low at ETHS. So, what’s a school to do if they see all of this; the proverbial writing on the wall? Time to throw spaghetti and see what sticks?
One more note: Title IV & Title IX of the Civil Rights Acts are the focus here and it’s important to state that while intentions may be good in terms of “why” this was/is being done (I believe that many at ETHS want to desperately help BIPOC students and feel great urgency bc nothing they seem to be doing seems to be working in any significant way), there is no “good intentions exception” to the Civil Rights Act. Period, end of story.
Tom --this may be a helpful read from what is an official legal journal: https://cookcountyrecord.com/stories/641967839-evanston-hs-rewrites-racially-restricted-ap-math-course-descriptions-after-hit-with-civil-rights-complaint
This is very interesting, thank you for sharing this.
This guy's email cracks me up. I like confident bold writing styles like this.
“I speak with some authority as someone who has filed more Title VI and Title IX complaints than any individual in the history of US civil rights enforcement when I suggest that your race-based and sex-based discrimination is legally indefensible and I fully expect the Chicago OCR to rule in my favor, as they have more than 300 times before for violations similar or identical to ETHA’s (sic) sex-based and race-based discrimination”
To be clear, I haven’t looked closely at the political slant of the pub...but I do think the write up is clear and sets out the facts fairly well....
I think he's basically right when he says this:
“The mindset is often ‘We’ll just violate the civil rights of certain un-preferred student groups (whites, Asians, males) unlawfully in the pursuit of social/racial/gender justice for preferred groups (BIPOCs) and we can do some good until/if we get caught and are forced to follow the law.”
I get the impression that a lot of education folks these days are just throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks and what doesn't stick.
Agreed! ETHS is in quite a bind, it seems. They get a lot of kids entering in 9th grade that are not high school ready --not even close. And what’s coming their way may be even worse in that regard than they can even imagine (given all you’ve written about and more in d65). At the same time, ETHS is out there touting itself as a leader in AP Curriculum and is recognized as increasing BIPOC AP participation in significant ways. And at the same time per a recent Daily Northwestern article 77% of the white student body is taking an AP class and for Black students it’s 20-22% and for Latino it’s 38%. Not great. And, finally, at the same time we’re hearing more and more about grade inflation being at an all time high and rigor being at an all time low at ETHS. So, what’s a school to do if they see all of this; the proverbial writing on the wall? Time to throw spaghetti and see what sticks?
One more note: Title IV & Title IX of the Civil Rights Acts are the focus here and it’s important to state that while intentions may be good in terms of “why” this was/is being done (I believe that many at ETHS want to desperately help BIPOC students and feel great urgency bc nothing they seem to be doing seems to be working in any significant way), there is no “good intentions exception” to the Civil Rights Act. Period, end of story.