Zero Tolerance and Disparate Impact

Two blog posts illustrate how a lack of intellectual honesty and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement (and various Supreme Court decisions) have led to a national education system responding to incentives: to avoid being sued for "Disparate Impact" by creating "Zero Tolerance" policies that allow for random punishment of White students to balance that of Black and Hispanic students. Hotair reports that a 17 year old girl, an honor student and athlete, has been charged with weapons possession and suspended for a year. Because she had a paring knife in her lunchbox for an apple. Does this make sense? Certainly if you are a school district, and must show punishment of White students at a rate approaching that of Black and Hispanic ones.


Steve Sailer reports that Black students are suspended at rates three times that of Whites. Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, pledges "stronger efforts to ensure racial equality in schooling." Reality, as the legacy (inevitable) of the Civil Rights Act and various Supreme Court decisions regarding Disparate Impact, means that school districts will get sued if they cannot impose discipline without resorting to suspensions and other administrative acts. This means, as Steve Sailer notes, that schools choose (rationally) teachers who can maintain order in the classroom, without resort to administrative functions, which get districts sued (since Black kids act out more than Whites, and far more than North East Asian kids). Thus as Sailer notes, a preference for the Offensive Line coach who doubles as a Social Studies teacher.

The other method is to construct "zero tolerance" policies designed to entrap and punish, randomly, White kids to maintain racial balance. This is entirely a rational response by school boards and school officials, who do not like being sued by the NAACP, the US Justice Department, the Urban League, National Council for La Raza, and more. Far easier to simply suspend and expel as many White kids as can be constructed, and demonstrate racial or near-racial parity. Voila! No lawsuits! Sailer notes in his post, the data for Chatsworth HS, where tellingly, White and Black suspensions seem to mirror each other, year by year. Even though Blacks are 9.3% student population, for the last year available, as opposed to Whites at 22% or so.

Naturally, this preference for avoiding lawsuits and investigations over racial disparity, among all other things, means instruction suffers. Schools rationally prefer guys who can maintain order, over passion for learning and instruction. Schools also rationally seek to suspend/expel as many White kids as possible, to balance out those that must be suspended, almost all of the latter being Black and Hispanic. This was the natural and inevitable legacy of the Civil Rights movement, which sought, not color blind treatment of all, but rectifying past discrimination by permanent discrimination against others (Whites). Codified by decisions including Grutter vs. Bollinger, that concluded:

the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

It is pretty clear that outright quotas are illegal, but everything else to promote "diversity" and avoid Disparate Impact of protected class (Latinos and Blacks are protected classes) people are indeed, not only legal but endorsed by the majority decision of the Supreme Court. Thus, carefully tailored policies designed not to create quotas for suspensions but serve the incentives created by Civil Rights laws and more than half a century of jurisprudence around them. Which holds not color blind neutrality, and equality under the law, but a clear preference system and protected classes.

What is the likely outcome of all this?

First, White parents will gradually but inevitably discover the truth. Zero Tolerance is just a "speed trap" designed to suspend and expel White kids to maintain racial parity in disciplinary action. The internet, and the ability to end-run the media blockade in discussing this reality, will help. But most will see it inevitably for themselves, as their kids or kids friends fall victim to seemingly idiotic enforcement of rules designed to produce White disciplinary action and avoid lawsuits over disparate impact.

This in turn will lead, to home schooling, or private schooling. This will have a side-benefit, increasing the value of beta males (whose extra income and ability to help with home schooling or paying for private school make the difference between success and failure for the children of White women). It is not just the random nature of White kids having their lives ruined (the young woman in the Hotair link will likely face arrest, and little if any college interest and certainly no scholarships). No, it is the miserable state of educational instruction, where teachers are selected for the ability to maintain discipline, not teach the subject.

While it is true teachers have generally, only a marginally good or bad effect on student learning (sad to say), and student aptitude, attitude, habits, discipline, and family support accounting for most of learning outcomes, teaching can make a marginal difference. And when parents aim for college scholarships as the cost of attending a "good" school increases radically, and quality of school (say, Northwestern vs. University of Idaho, Sarah Palin's Alma Mater) determines life success, well every bit matters. Matters as much as proper extra-curricular activity (athletics, band, student government) and avoiding "bad" activities (Junior ROTC, 4H).

Incentives matter. School administrators respond to the real, powerful incentives in front of them. So too, will parents. And the net result will be more White Flight. From any school district that is not almost 100% White. Since the cost of moving to a district like that is pretty high (not much real estate lending, home prices are depressed), the growth in private schools and home schooling is likely the most likely outcome. Which will in turn make, gradually, public K-12 education "not for Whites" and for "Black and Hispanics only." Asians, of course, are protected classes so they face little action by school administrators to "get" them via Zero Tolerance.

This in turn is going to reduce White voters desire to support K-12 with tax dollars. White voters and parents respond to incentives, that create a demand for "punishing" White students and degrading teacher effectiveness, as much as any one else. No, this will not be some giant avalanche of action. And no, White parents don't want a return of segregation or separate but equal. [Though aspects of punishing White kids to maintain rough racial parity with Black kids disciplinary action smacks of separate but equal. As does the notion of protected classes, only the other way around.] But generally speaking, it is a bad bet to figure on an eternal White self-flagellating, cringing apology for past (and very real, let us say) racism against Blacks. How much guilt do the current generations of White folks hold for past segregation and slavery? Almost none, I'd say. And even less when it comes to punishing their kids for George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse doorway.

The very predictable White response is to flee the public school system, and desire to pay nothing at all for something that is hostile and punishment-prone to their own kids. Along with that, will come an end to support for "diversity."

Young, SWPL folks love the idea of diversity. Even, the sometime reality of gentrification. Until they have kids. The most ardent, left-wing woman can be transformed into an enemy of diversity when she sees her kid is being punished, in effect, for being White. And measures the true cost of diversity (lots of extra transaction costs and ceding of opportunities to different groups to obtain social peace). Diversity does not, in practice, resemble a Target ad, or the Colors of Benetton, rather it means the constant, grinding, costly bargaining and conflict over a constantly shrinking set of opportunities, distrust, ancillary costs, and the goal being not growing wealth for everyone, but making sure everybody gets the cut that society has determined, by race or religion. In the current arrangement, unlikely to changed absent a widespread, hyper-violent civil war, Whites are at the bottom of the totem pole, "cuts" of opportunities, and face as in Grutter vs. Bollinger, discrimination in favor of diversity (i.e. promotion of non-Whites over Whites).

Hard times of course will lead to delayed family formation for Whites (probably not for Hispanics and Blacks, according to various preliminary census data and media reports). But eventually (and now, for parents of White kids already born and in school), this process will continue. White flight from K-12 education, and opposition (led by White parents) to "diversity." Its all very well and good to enjoy diversity in commercials and movies and TV. It is another thing when there is a risk of ruining your kid's life, and marginal degradation of teaching, when the struggle to get into the "right" school seems to start at kindergarten.