Arkansas School District’s Attempt to “Desegregate” Backfires

62 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional during the revolutionary Brown v. The Board of Education case in Little Rock, Arkansas a school district in the southern state has come under fire for organizing an assembly for all the black students in the ninth grade.

The assembly had local pastor Dante Shelton give a lecture about gang and drug violence. The American Civil Liberties Union responded to the situation by sending a letter to the school saying the assembly, “violated these students’ rights to equal protection under the law and labels them with harmful stereotypes about students of color.”

The Pulaski County Special School District put out a statement describing why they chose to single out black students writing, “Black students were selected with the intent that the assembly would be an extension of the district’s court-ordered desegregation efforts, which encourage programs and opportunities tailored to minority students.”

So the thought process behind unconstitutionally segregating black students was that by doing so they were actually desegregating. This explanation from the school district provides a unique example of the subconcious racism that still exists today. The school district’s attorney, Whitney Moore, responded to the ACLU with a letter which described the federal desegragation orders that the district was under writing, “I offer this only in mitigation, not as a defense.” Asserting that something is not a “defense” while the statement itself is defensive makes as little sense as the efforts to desegregate by separating black students. Stereotyping black students as at risk for involvement with drugs and gang violence is inherently racist.

The attorney letter admitted, “You are right, we were wrong, and we won’t do it again.”

Hopefully they mean it.

Mary Schlichte
OBV Intern

Original Story: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/22/black-students-only-assem...