You almost have to admire the chutzpah of the teachers unions. Even as they fight to keep poor minority kids trapped in failing public schools, they plead that racial preferences in college admissions are necessary to compensate for these students’ inferior K-12 education. High-achieving Asian-American and white students must be discriminated against to make up for the educational “privileges” that unions deny minorities.
That’s the argument advanced by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers in their friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Harvard and the University of North Carolina in cases the Supreme Court will hear on Monday concerning the legality of racial preferences. “Our schools, from K-12 to higher education, still struggle to provide equitable opportunities for students of color,” the NEA laments.
No argument there—but whose fault is that? Perhaps the gravest injustice of our time is the imprisonment of minority kids in substandard public schools. Students’ dismal scores on the Nation’s Report Card last week provided another reminder.
In Illinois 36% of white eighth-graders were rated proficient or better in math, which isn’t anything to brag about. But figures were only 14% for Hispanics and 8% for blacks. Similar or even wider gaps were found in other cities and states. In Los Angeles, 62% of whites scored proficient or higher in fourth-grade reading, compared with only 18% of blacks and 16% of Hispanics.
Unions blame these disparities on racism. “Racial minorities are disadvantaged in the United States—not only by the persistence of de facto segregation in schools—but by overt racial violence and coordinated efforts to stifle recognition of the nation’s shameful history of racial oppression,” says the NEA in its brief, citing state laws that limit the instruction of critical race theory and the “1619 Project.”