Race and Ethnicity

The Texas State Board of Education approved standards for U.S. history and other social studies courses Friday. That is national news because of Texas’ huge role in shaping textbooks across the country. Given that conservative Christians dominate the board, the result was predictable.

Teaching Tolerance has reported many times and in many ways that the United States is plunging headlong toward racial and cultural re-segregation. That process took an enormous leap in the wrong direction last week when the Wake County school board in North Carolina voted to dismantle its policy of diversifying the schools.

It used to be thought that college was where you went to open your mind, explore ideas and, in the words of Robert Maynard Hutchins, former president of the University of Chicago, “be freed from the prison-house of … class, race, time, place [and] background.”

School kids today struggle with a lot outside the classroom. Their distractions range from drugs and cyberbullying to over-busy schedules and ads peddling unrealistic body images.

The recession has not helped with this. In fact, it’s created more serious distractions, especially for Latinos and African Americans.

Are charter schools helping to resegregate public schools? A just-released study states flatly that they are.

You’re forgiven if you missed it.

Late last month, Congress passed and President Obama signed a bill that included text that “apologizes … to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.” Not only was news of the measure knocked from front pages by the health care debate and Tiger Woods, it was well-camouflaged within the 2010 defense appropriations bill. 

What do you do with 4,100 books full of racist nonsense? One solution is to turn them into something that can hang on a museum wall.

There’s bullying, and then there’s what’s going on at South Philadelphia High School.

This week, about 50 Asian students at South Philly have opted to stay away from classes. They launched their boycott after a series of fights last week between Asian and black students. The violence was so bad that seven of those involved required medical attention for cuts and bruises. Ten of the students involved in the fights, both blacks and Asians, were suspended or sent to alternative schools.