It’s fascinating how topsy-turvy this case is–
January 14, 2008 — A year after the city’s racial quotas kept their daughter out of an elite public school, an Indian couple from Brooklyn is filing a class-action lawsuit to make sure it doesn’t happen again to her or any child.
Barred by the color of her skin… And saddled with lofty expectations…
Did racial preferences prevent a high scoring Indian kid from getting into a school that other, lower scoring, kids did? Well yes, but this time around, the lower-scoring “others” were white –
For decades, the school has enforced racial double standards on its tests to maintain a 6-4 white-to-minority ratio to comply with a 1974 federal court desegregation order.…Officials said Nikita, who is considered a member of a minority group, had to score at least 84.4 score to be accepted. But white students needed to score only 77.
And young Nikita? She only pulled down a 79 – much to the delight, I’m sure, of the uber-competitive desi moms down the street. Her dad channels MLK for us –
“Children should be judged on the content of their character, not on the color of their skin,” said Dr. Anjan Rau, the girl’s dad, about the quotas at Mark Twain School in Coney Island.
In a different report, I loved how dad keeps his eye on the prize –
“It could hurt her chances of going to Harvard, Yale or Princeton.”
UPDATE: Case closed.
January 16, 2008…The Department of Education announced Monday that it’s asking a federal judge to lift a 1974 court order imposing a rigid quota system on Coney Island’s selective Mark Twain School.The announcement came just hours after the Center for Individual Rights filed suit against the DOE on behalf of Nikita Rau, the 11-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants whose application the school rejected because it had already reached its pre-designated allotment of non-white students.
Now young Nikita needs to start SAT-cramming
Pravin, I’m a kid from a shit school district with a public school teacher for a mom, and while I understand the sympathy behind this argument, in practice it’s very difficult to ensure that private schools will offer a better education (hence my question, “why?”). While there are certainly excellent private schools in poor areas, my experience has been that relatively affluent/rich members of a community (say, the Oakland hills) will send their (mostly white) kids to these schools, while even parents with vouchers (read: low-income people of color) still cannot afford these elite schools. Instead, they spend their vouchers on sub-par private schools, bend over backwards to pay the difference in fees, and in the end their kids still don’t have much of an advantage. I guess my underlying question is why you believe that private schools inherently deliver a better education.
corporate serf, your definition is about 100 years outdated. What you’ve described is utilitarianism, which was used extensively by Teddy Roosevelt and his old school Bull Moose (a.k.a. Progressive) Party. Incidentally, while he used eminent domain in the name of the so-called “greater good,” it was also often used to benefit wealthy elites. A notable example is the Los Angeles National Forest, which has no trees (for details, see: Cadillac Desert).
Rahul, have I told you lately how glad I am you are back? I am.
nala, are you arguing that she should be considered white and thus accepted into the school? Why should diversity (both racial, SES, etc.) only be “relevant” for higher education? These are both claims you’ve made, and I’m curious.
26 · nala said
Interviews and essays already ARE a part of many a middle and high school entrance process in NYC.
Ugh, the quoting thing does not work. Only the last sentence is mine.
I never argued that she should be considered white and thus accepted into the school. I’m saying that if the only criterion for admission is a test, there shouldn’t be a cutoff score for children from different races, only the top X % should get in regardless of race. As for diversity not being as relevant to secondary education- I simply don’t think public school administrators have the time or energy required to perform the same type of admissions review that colleges do, nor should they be obligated to, especially in places like NYC where the top schools get thousands of applicants. Specialized science high schools (Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, etc.) have a very ‘typical nerd’ sort of academic, college-prep focus, and I don’t think they should be obligated to accept students who don’t satisfy their requirements for admission (scoring high enough on the admission test) simply for the sake of diversity. It would be like asking LaGuardia (a performing arts high school) to accept more tone-deaf students who bombed their auditions for the sake of diversity. Colleges, on the other hand, are looking for different types of students and a more ‘well-rounded’ student body and have more/different admissions criteria.
When I said she did not score a 79, that was a major typo. I was on some other train of thought when i put the not in there. It’s too bad we do not have an edit function. My point was we do not for sure she would have made it because opening up the admissions means she would have to rely on a brand new cutoff which would not be as low as the 77.
But like I said before, I’m all for programs (I was part of one…) for students from financially disadvantaged/racially underrepresented backgrounds that prep them extra-hard for these admissions tests. I just don’t think the school itself should be obligated to fulfill quotas.
Camille, I think the problem with the studies on current charter schools and private school vouchers is there has been so much resistance, I do not think many good people who want to get into the business do not bother because of all the politics. Also I would not mind increasing size of vouchers payments for families whose kids demonstrate effort through attendance and/or recommendations. I am just throwing out ideas. I am not saying this is the way things should be. But i would like to see more serious brainstorming by public school advocates on alternatives. And there could be restrictions where schools that take vouchers provide complementary scholarships to students whose financial background is not good enough but who qualify otherwise. Whatever we have now is simply not working. That we know.
I hate Affirmative Action / Reservation /Quotas.
104 · nala said
These schools are also intense. Students who are unprepared for the work may flunk out. I think an underrepresented minority is better of being a B student at a local school rather then being a D student at Stuyvesant.
lol! lol! lol!
101 · Camille said
Camille, In a globalized world American usages of common terms don’t have primacy.
101 · Camille said
Thank you for making this distinction Camille! There is a spectrum of private schools, a fact that is glossed over in the voucher debate, and unfortunately results in lumping all private schools into one box, accompanied by obligatory ribbon and halo, of course. People fawn over the sub-par private schools because of the brand value of being a private school.
I’m intimately familiar with one private high school which was not any more academically rigorous or focused than the nearby public high schools. It’s comparative advantage was that it could invest heavily in sports programs and it was pretty intense on college advisory services and counseling (complete with mandatory personality surveys, career surveys, workshops, mandatory attendance when recruiters visit, etc. It called itself a “College Prep”*** school so the services were its bread and butter, as well as the 4-year school attendance rate). Anyhow, this school (let’s call it College Prep HS) became a classic case of a Giffen good and exposed some gaping holes in the information market. It’s tuition rose only incrementally from $4,000 to $6,000 per year in a span of 8 years without experiencing any deviation in # of applicants, applicants accepted, or wait-listed applicants. The elite private schools in the area charged $20,000+ and their rejected applicants chose to attend the public schools as opposed to College Prep HS. The board at CPHS wanted to pry some of the elite rejects away from the public schools and the board, like boards at universities, found there was substantial value in being able to market to the public a low accepted applicant rate. They found the best way to achieve a low rate was to raise tuition, which could do two things- 1) send a signal to the public that the school being pricier was suddenly better and 2) fatten its coffers. Lo and behold, the # of applicants doubled, the acceptance rate plummeted, tuition revenue went up, and the sub-par curriculum remained sub-par. Great success!
Do vouchers programs address this issue? No. Do vouchers reasonably bridge the tuition gap at elite schools to improve access? No. Do vouchers acknowledge the intricacies of the education market and the factors inform/misinform parents when making decisions in this market? Not sufficiently. I’ve got a better idea, well it’s not my idea- cut the chord that ties property taxes to school funding!
*** note, I’m not referring to the College Prep in Piedmont
I forgot to mention that the board at CPHS raised the tuition to $12,000 per year and when the decision was finalized the tuition was $7,000 and some change.
Amd to preempt some lurking econo-nazi, the situation as described above resembles a Veblen good more than a Giffen good, though both postulates have something to say about the CPHS tuition increase and preferences.
Well i agree with the last statement. That will take care of parents being held hostage to their kids education when it comes to buying a house.
But I disagree on vouchers. Just because some of us support vouchers doesn’t mean we support current voucher proposals. There are many workarounds. I am not endorsing all of these ideas, but just bringing up a few possibilities – tie in vouchers with a tuition cap at participating institutions, tie in vouchers with scholarships for the needy at participating schools with no caps, increase voucher payments for needy but deserving students(come up with whatever criteria the community is comfortable with). The thing is you may need to use a combination or even modify some of these suggestions. But to say some variant of vouchers hasnt worked makes it a bad idea is like someone saying Public School education has not worked in quite a few communities, so let’s scrap it. With vouchers, at least you give a parent the choice. Now if they choose to put their kids in an overhyped private school that does not really deliver, at least that is their choice.
While I agree with you on the need for workarounds and modifications, the more tinkering that is done, the less it resembles a voucher and begins to a resemble a scholarship for the gifted. The Gates Foundation and other philanthropic organizations do that already. Can the state mandate that a participating private school initiate tuition caps? Doesn’t that relinquish some of the autonomy that pro-voucher groups cite as a specific advantage that privately funded schools have over public?
i thought, for all practical purposes, most vouchers go to catholic schools, which are relatively inexpensive, and that this was one of arguments against them…ie they are a ruse meant to benefit one religion and therefore in violation of the establishment clause.
i’m curiuous about one thing, if there are any lawyers out there. my understanding is that govt sponsored racial discrimination is more or less unconstitutional, with the narrow exception carved out in bakke: for the sake of diversity in an educational setting. now bakke is not relevant here b/c we are talking about a strict quota, which bakke outlaws, so i suppose the issue here was righting past discrimination.
so my question is what is the constitutional status of that justification for discrimination. i know forced busing was allowed but can schools still make the argument that they are can racially discriminate in order to remedy past discrimination?
I was hesitant to put out the details for this very reason. These are just initial ideas one comes up with. I am sure with some finetuning it could be part of a better system. If one nitpicked all the public school negatives in the past, we would not have a public school system to begin with because of all the possible downsides. But since you bring it up, according to my initial proposal, no one is forcing a school to take vouchers if they don’t want to institute a cap or provide scholarships. Once again, I am not even wedded to this. I just brought up that idea for those who suggest most people do not like to see their public money go to subsidizing some rich guy sending his son to an expensive school.
corporate serf, in a U.S.-oriented blog, it helps if your definitions have (regional) context. I just provided a definition which aligned the most with the description you provided. If you would like to provide a definition that better serves your intent, I am sure it would be edifying for everyone.
NVM, St. Mary’s or Head Royce? (I’m kidding!) Pravin, the reason I asked my clarifying question was not to be antagonistic, but because oftentimes in the voucher debate people assume that private == better, or higher quality. I went to a private, non-religious, middle school, which was — to date — my best educational experience ever. That said, it required a LOT of sacrifice on my parents’ part, and families who were in a less secure economic position instead sent their kids to craptastic religious private schools (this is not to say all religious schools suck, but quite a few of the ones in my ‘hood were certainly under-performing relative to local public schools, which is SHAMEFUL).
Manju, some argue over the “backdoor financing” of religious schools. To be honest, that doesn’t bother me as much as watching families struggle to scrape together the tuition for a supbar education for their kids. It’s also perplexing, because unless you know the intricate world of private school testing standards, these schools aren’t even required to provide an education that meets state standards. I would rather money be reinvested into public schools in a way that helps revitalize affordable and accessible primary education for all kids instead of siphoning funds away into cockamamie schools that use the illusion of choice to advance their argument.
Manju, please see the SCOTUS decision in the Seattle school district case (linked above).
In order to be constitutional, using race in such instances has to satisfy the highest level of constitutional scrutiny: it has to serve a compelling governmental interest and use the least restrictive means possible to achieve an objective. For example, at the University of Michigan both the undergrad and law schools had different race-based plans that were used in admissions. The undergrad plan was deemed unconstitutional because was too rigid and gave race too much weight. It wasn’t the least restrictive means. But the law school plan was constitutional because it took race into account as one factor among many. (Gratz v. Bollinger, Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)) It’s a pretty subjective test, but in order to use race the plan has to show that it can stand up to strict scrutiny.
Also, I can’t help but feel awful for this little girl..if her father was rigid enough to sue and take this case public, I can’t even imagine the kind of belittling and punishment (‘you can’t go to the mall! you have to stay home and study so you can go to Harvard!) that she has been subjected to..
122 · teacup said
i gather that the “compelling governmental interest” in the UMich cases was diversity, ie a narrowly tailored use of race in admissions to obtain educational benefits flowing from a diverse student body. would it be accurate to say that rectifying past discrimination is no longer considered a govt interest compelling enough to allow the govt to take race into consideration, presumably b/c such historical grievances are addressed by civil rights laws and other non-discriminatory govt policies?
Based on the cases I’ve read about the use of race in public education, I would agree with you. The courts generally formulate their decisions to reflect a movement forward to prevent discrimination from happening in the future, not get bogged down in remedying past wrongs. Retroactive policies are, as far as I can tell, extremely rare if they exist at all.
124 · teacup said
i’m not sure if i’d even go that far, teacup. in bakke and the bollinger cases the courts allowed the govt to take race into consideration only for educational reasons, ie students benefit from being around others from different cultural backgrounds, but not for discrimination reasons, past or future. so presumably if we were talking about an employment setting, race could not be taken into consideration at all. i think. but then i do still hear about minority lending and govt contract programs. so i’m not sure.
It’s hard to tell..there haven’t been any Supreme Court decisions about the use of race in public employment, and the circuit courts are split on this issue… there have been decisions which go both ways.
120 · Camille said
So you would characterize this blog as one for primarily ABDs?
thanks for the edification
Manju and Teacup,
There are Supreme Court decisions that allow the use of race as a preference in the issuance of government contracts. For example, in the sale of radio airwave licenses by the FCC to minority owned radio stations to insure there is a diversity of programming. The case is Metro Broadcasting v. FCC. Additionally, in Adarand (don’t remember the full name), the court recognized that the government could use racial/gender preferences to issue gov’t contracts to minority/women owned business to remedy past discrimination. (Ex. Construction contracts). So race while not explicitly used in the employment context, it can be a factor in the issuance of gov’t contracts to companies that are likely to have minorities employees.
Aargh, that last line should read minority employees.
thanks JJ. i would be careful about extrapolating cases involving radio airwaves out to other areas, since the limited supply and public ownership of the airways apparently entitles them to a lower level of constitutional scrutiny even when it comes to the first amendment (think “fairness” doctrine, which would be clearly unconstitutional if applied to the print press, for example).
it’s also interesting to note that some private financiers–start-up ibanks and vc firm–often explicitly discriminate on the basis of race and gender (only investing in women or POC led business) and have not come under any ’64 civil rights act challenges, as far as i know.
Manju,
Fair enough on the lower scrutiny applied to radio airwaves. My mention of them was to simply an illustration that race is considered in other contexts. The equal protection clause of the Constitution only applies to public entities or government intervention. Discrimination in the workplace (hiring or firing based on race) would be restricted by a whole host of laws and constitutional clauses, 13th Amendment, Commerce Clause and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Private entities such as Ibanks and VC firms that use private funds (hence free from gov’t involvement) are free to invest in whom they choose. If they choose to invest in only one type of group, I don’t see that as being impermissible.
131 · Jangali Janwar said
actually, if a vc firm only invested in white-owned business, i think the govt would come down hard using the ’64 civil rights act, no? i understand the public/private dichotomy and perhaps bringing up private actors is a little peripheral to this post, but i was just curious as to what extent the law allows for favorable treatment of POC and women. my guess is in public education it is now very narrow, in public employment there is a little more leeway but scotus hasn’t quite got to it yet, and in private employment its a free for all. but i could be wrong.
Manju,
I’m not aware of any provision in the act or a case that follows your conclusion. I may be missing something in the analysis. If you know or come across something that supports your hypothesis, please let me know. I mean that sincerely. (I say without any hint of prickishness – I really am interested).
133 · Jangali Jaanwar said
well, i know of no investment firms that only invest in white-owned business’, but if one had such a charter i’d assume they’d fall under provisions outlawing employment discrimination (especially in the venture business where the investment firm essentially owns the start-up outright) or public-accommodations clause since such a bank would be telling prospective entrepreneurs that they can’t approach the bank for financing, based on their race. and this is a bank that would be otherwise open to the rest of the public, as one look at their website, replete with e-mails, phone #’s, and instructions on how to submit a b-plan would indicate that they are open to the public.
i mean, if commercial banks can’t discriminate on the basis of race when it comes to lending, why would ibanks or vc firms be allowed to when it comes to investing?
21 · tamasha said
I went to one such school and I survived. Meh…It builds character. NYC public education all the way!
While I agree with the premise of the parents’ suit, its naive to believe her attaining a Harvard education is stifled by her not attending this particular school. Ultimately, where one went to junior high school won’t be a hindrance on getting into the ivys. Your intelligence (and numbers) will qualify you, and that’s prioritized before the name of your JHS or HS.
I said it was U.S.-oriented — you are welcome to interpret that as you like. Unless you are going to provide a context or definition when using an amorphous term like “progressive,” then don’t be surprised if people try to contextualize it, either by framing it in the context of the U.S., of India, of the UK, or of Canada (the four most frequent “posting regions” from commenters on this blog).
Anyone see this article a few months ago?