Ann Arbor elementary school bans white students from field trip, principal defends discrimination - Part 2

I wrote yesterday about a shameful act of racial discrimination perpetrated by an elementary school principal who not only organized a black-only field trip to see an astronaut, but derided non-black students who objected to it (Ann Arbor elementary school bans white students from field trip, principal defends discrimination).The principal of Dicken Elementary School in the Ann Arbor School District, Mike Madison, vehemently defended the act, saying, among other things:

“In hindsight, this field trip could have been approached and arranged in a better way ... But as I reflect upon the look of excitement, enthusiasm and energy that I saw in these children’s eyes as they stood in the presence of a renowned African American rocket scientist in a very successful position, it gave the kids an opportunity to see this type of achievement is possible for even them.

“It was not a wasted venture for I know one day they might want to aspire to be the first astronaut or scientist standing on the Planet Mars.

 “The intent of our field trip was not to segregate or exclude students as has been reported, but rather to address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education here in our community.”

I should have pointed out in my prior article that Michigan voters overwhelmingly passed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) back in 2006 (called proposal 2 on the ballot) that was supposed to have removed any discrimination in the public square based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, etc. That included the so-called affirmative discrimination action programs in public schools and universities. Didn't quite turn out that way though. The blatant racial discrimination perpetrated by Mike Madison is being defended by other administrators and even academics. From The Macomb Daily: Ann Arbor schools field trip for black students draws anger. Listen to some of the abject ignorance in these statements:

Administrators and teachers "thought it would be an excellent mentoring position for African-American kids to see a successful professional in sciences," said district spokeswoman Liz Margolis.

Question: why not for white kids? Or Asian kids? Or Hispanics or those from middle east decent?

Margolis said the district doesn't believe it's broken any laws but is looking into it.

If the district "doesn't think it's broken any laws," what is it looking into exactly? Has the district never heard of eth MCRI of 2006? The state constitution? Hello?

"While I see this as something there should be room for in our schools, I think it's pretty clear our community wasn't ready for this at this moment," said Haviland (a parent of three Dicken students and officer with the parent-teacher group), who is white.

Wasn't ready for what - discrimination based on skin pigmentation?  Should the community have been? Should anyone be ready for any such thing? Besides being a clear violation of the Michigan state constitution, does that not violate also the equal protection clause of the US Constitution? And of the MSM has to specifically point out that Havilandis white. Identity politics. Peraps the most objectionable opinion though is this one:

Katherine Magnuson, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said research has shown that the achievement gap grows even in the case when white and black children are in the same school.

"Even in places like Ann Arbor that have high-quality schools, you still see this gap in schools," Magnuson said.

"I'm very sympathetic to the parents who say this would have been a great opportunity for all kids," she said. "But if you're serious about closing the gap, you're going to have to do something different for African-American students for it really to work."

6 decades ago, the SCOTUS struck down "separate but equal" in education, effectively banning segregation.  What Magnuson is proposing is even worse than that - separate and unequal. You have to wonder just what the heck kind of gobbledygook she is teaching the next generation of social workers as a professor. The field is already well known for inculcating students with a heavy dose of liberalism in the curriculum. Gulp. The Detroit Free Press has more on the MCRI: Elementary is in hot water over field trip

An Ann Arbor elementary school field trip has led to allegations that the school violated Proposal 2, the 2006 voter-approved initiative that bans racial preference in Michigan public schools.

And in government contracting and hiring, but that's neither here nor there.

Leon Drolet, former chairman of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which successfully amended the state constitution with Proposal 2, said that the trip "absolutely" violated Proposal 2.

"If it was directed, guided, organized by the school district, they cannot say they are doing a field trip today for blacks only, or for whites only, or for Hispanics only or for Asians only," Drolet said.

...Proposal 2 is most famous for banning race-based admissions at U-M, but it applies to racial preferences at other public institutions.

Attorney George Washington, who is currently leading the appeal of Proposal 2 in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, called the field trip a "well-motivated operation to bridge the race gap."

"What's wrong with that?" Washington asked.

Uh - because it's unconstitutional, that's why. As with the Macomb Daily piece above, district spokeswoman Liz Margolis gets into the conversation with this:

"We don't feel that it at all violates (Proposal 2), but frankly, as with any group of students, if we identify a group of students that need support, we would be addressing that," Margolis said. "But we also have to have better education for our parents so they know why it's being done."

Why does she not 'feel' that it violates the MCRI if you specifically pick out kids based on skin color and hand out burdens and benefits (in this particular case the latter) based solely on that basis? She says that "if we identify a group of students that need support, we would be addressing that," but the group of students wasn't picked out based on poor test scores but rather on skin pigmentation. Were there no white students with low test scores that could have benefited? Or Hispanic students? Or any other delineated group? Were there no black students in the group that went that actually had decent test scores? Perhaps the most galling part of her statement though is the last part, that the school district somehow needs to "better educate" the parents who she implies are too stupid to know this is a good thing. It sure wasn't a good thing for their kids. It seems to me these school districts need to be themselves educated on what equal protection under the law means. And of course what the MCRI was and is.

Previously:
Ann Arbor elementary school bans white students from field trip, principal defends discrimination
Cal School District Segregating Students By Race! Call it "Heritage Assemblies"
"Disproportionate Representation" in Special Ed?
Teaching racism