Responding to a GL Educator's Perspective on Diversity as "Regressive" in Schools

Recently, BH Unfiltered received an article submission from a Governor Livingston High School teacher, who happens to also be a Mountainside resident, and a GL alum. When we received it, we did not know how to respond. We waited until the election passed, our hearts swelling with emotion as we watched someone who looked like us finally ascend to the second highest office in the country. We felt hopeful that our nation’s trend towards a racial reckoning would be reflected in our town as well...and to a certain extent it was! We are so grateful for everyone who has reached out, for everyone who is making small changes, for everyone who is stopping and thinking. We see you, we stand with you, and from the bottom of our hearts, we appreciate you.

Community members might remember our most recent article describing our experiences with racism within the GL student body; we did not tackle necessary conversations about race & faculty. However, almost simultaneously, an Instagram account vehemently disparaging Black students at GL emerged. We thought that would be the last straw for our community; though, we woke up a couple days later to a person in the BH community forum expressing distaste for loud music by identifying its cultural origin with a derogatory and incorrect term.

In the midst of everything unfolding in our towns, and with our commitment to dialogue strong in our minds, we knew we had to address the article from the GL educator, and explain why we believe the argument failed to critically analyze evidence beyond numbers. We feared posting the article because we were afraid people in the community would agree with the sentiment that our NYC peers didn’t belong in public schools because their very presence somehow prevented “more deserving” students from accessing education. We also knew it was all the more reason to post the article.

Though perhaps not intentional, it felt personal to us; it both indirectly and directly attacked our place as students of color at a public school. And it came from a faculty member at our school. You can read his perspective here or by downloading the attachment below.

2020.10.15.DiversityALessonFromNYCPublic

Download DIVERSITYALESSONFROMNYCPUBLIC • 79KB

We want to sincerely thank Mr. Polce for sharing his perspective, as we are sure that it reflects the sentiments of some in our community. Though we strongly disagree with his opinion, we recognize that it takes courage to speak up in a public setting. Our response is below.

Defining Diversity vs. Equity in Education

Before we start, it’s very important to define the difference between “diversity” and “equity”. This explanation from the University of Southern California clarifies the key differences between diversity and equity in education: “Diversity seeks to increase representation of historically marginalized students, faculty and administrators. However, often it doesn’t focus on correcting the central issue: racial injustice. Equity aims to fix the systemic conditions that cause the exclusion of students of color in education”. In short, diversity is a step towards, or a part of equity, so though Mr. Polce doesn’t explicitly state this, the only takeaway that we potentially agree with is that “diversity” in education is not enough. There must be a combined approach via diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Simply explained, “Diversity is where everyone is invited to the party, Equity means that everyone gets to contribute to the playlist, and Inclusion means that everyone has the opportunity to dance”.

But that, however, is not what Mr. Polce’s article calls for: it calls only for eliminating diversity.

Education equity is tied to housing insecurity, food insecurity, residential isolation, etc. That’s a problem that all students may potentially face, not just students of color. But to argue that diversity in schools is “regressive”, and that diversity “makes things worse”, is quite frankly, narrow-minded and racist to the core. Mr. Polce goes on to describe Stuyvesant High School as not racially diverse, but high-achieving. He suggests that lack of diversity is not inhibiting success at these schools, and thus there is no need to boost the Black population at the school, that stands at an alarmingly low 1%, or the Hispanic population at the school, which also is dismayingly low at 3%. It would be easy to look at these numbers and shrug, if there wasn’t a historically-rooted, incredibly clear reason for them that made fixing them necessary.

If you’re not bothered by those numbers, hopefully the explanation that follows will help clear things up.

"Life is Unfair"

Mr. Polce writes “life is unfair”. That is something we can all agree on. But then, he goes on to say “for those who want to attend Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, or other highly ranked schools, they should work hard, and pass the admissions test”. Simple enough, right? The approach to education policy used here, which draws from libertarianism (PLEASE read the first paragraph of the link to understand the root of this article’s argument!) ignores the social and historical factors that influence equity, and yet it would still be minutely plausible if everyone started from the same place in life. But, as Mr. Polce wrote, “life is unfair”, and that’s not the case. For us to truly understand why this argument falls short, and why this argument, though perhaps not intentionally racist, is inherently so, we need to take a look at history and equity. And yes, before you roll your eyes, it does indeed go back to slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, understanding White privilege, and racial discrimination.

People who were born into slavery and then freed from slavery, were forced into menial roles such as share cropping, backbreaking housework or manual labor, or to jobs that required little to no education. They were not miraculously given an education, or money, or housing. So they DID work hard, and yet, they could not achieve the same economic mobility, or work towards generational wealth like their white peers because the law mandated de jure segregation (Jim Crow) and society celebrated de facto segregation.

As the law began to roll back segregation, racism didn’t magically disappear; in fact, as we all know, it’s still incredibly present today, along with de facto segregation, a prominent wealth gap, and implicit biases contributing to racial discrimination in workplaces. This well-known study, called “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination”, looked at “race in the labor market by sending fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perceived race, resumes were randomly assigned African-American- or White-sounding names. White names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks were also more responsive to resume quality for White names than for African-American ones. The racial gap was uniform across occupation, industry, and employer size”. If without even acknowledging a person’s qualifications, a resume is discarded due to a name that already sets people of color back in being able to secure a job.

Though public education is technically free and available, the standard of education across the country is not uniform, because as we know, “life is not fair”. Without education and a job, there is no opportunity to live in an area with access to good, well-resourced public education. Kids in those families don’t have the time to “work hard and pass the admissions test”, because perhaps they have to contribute to rent for their families, or to put food on the table. On top of that, those kids are facing the same job discrimination that their parents faced. There’s something called the intergenerational cycle of poverty. Though not directly tied to race in our country, it is evident in communities of color because arguments like this article’s assume that laziness is the root of economic inequity and immobility. White families are more likely to have generational wealth due to historic economic opportunity, and the benefits that they experienced due to racial discrimination against people of color. This generational wealth allows young white students to live in areas with access to private tutoring, potentially a guardian to help them through school work, with time and money to attend test prep classes, and thus the ability to excel and attend these elite public institutions. Even this Covid-19 crisis has revealed the disadvantages that low-income students of color are at in comparison to students who are provided with the resources and support to thrive in an at-home learning environment. Not only are they being forced to stay on top of their school work, preparing for tests alone with little to no resources, COVID is ravaging Black, Hispanic, and Native communities. And with racial disparities in housing insecurity, once again due to historical inequity, many of them are doing it without basic resources and comforts. How can one successfully take an exam or complete school work while facing food and housing insecurity?

This is not meant to minimize the struggle of low-income, White students at all; they too, are very much affected by the intergenerational cycle of poverty. But it is important to keep in mind the differing racial poverty rates, the aforementioned reasons for those rates, and the racial discrimination that still seems plays a role in admissions and job hiring processes.

We have primarily focused on Black students so far because there is an easily illustrated link between education/economic inequity and racial discrimination that dates back to slavery and segregation. Our discussion, however, extends to Hispanic students and other minority groups that face racial discrimination in education due to societally imposed low economic mobility. In our Hispanic Heritage Month article, we delved into the bracero program, and the rampant discrimination against Mexican and Central Americans that still lingers today. With similar experiences in job discrimination, as well as language barriers, Hispanic-American families also fall prey to the intergenerational cycle of poverty, and thus they also experience inaccessibility to quality education. This in turn leads to lack of representation in “high achieving” schools. Once again, low representation of Hispanic students in elite public schools is not due to lack of “hard work”.

Stirring Up Racial Resentment

So what about Asian Americans? The crux of Mr. Polce’s argument lies in pushing a narrative that puts people of color against one another by labeling Asian Americans as the “model minority”. As NPR explains, the “model minority” myth relies on a premise that highlights Asian Americans as a minority group that have managed to achieve high economic and academic success, yet it fails to take into account the broad diversity of Asian Americans (Southeast Asians experience much higher rates of poverty than East or South Asians, and there are reasons for that), and it is often used to drive a wedge between Asian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans. It’s a tired trope that is quite literally always used to bolster the “work hard and you will achieve” narrative.

Most importantly, “at the root of [the] pernicious argument is the idea that Black failure and Asian success cannot be explained by inequities and racism, and that they are one and the same; this allows a segment of White America to avoid any responsibility for addressing racism or the damage it continues to inflict.” (NPR) Anti-Asian racism 100% exists but anti-Asian and anti-Black racism do not manifest the same way, are not rooted in the same ideology, and do not have the same outcomes. Japanese Americans were once forced into internment camps during World War II. Chinese Americans faced job discrimination and immigration quotas. However, politics played a conveniently powerful role in reducing discrimination and reversing inequity that many East Asian Americans faced. To maintain allyship with China during World War II, under the Magnuson Act, Chinese immigrants were rebranded as “'law-abiding, peace-loving, courteous people living quietly among us' instead of the "'yellow peril' coolie hordes” they were formerly called (LA Times). It soon became clear that Asian Americans did not suddenly start doing better because they were working harder than they had before, but rather because they had been granted the opportunity to increase their educational and economic attainment. Comparing entrenched racism rooted in slavery with politically convenient racism, claiming that they have the same outcomes, and then using racial resentment to stir up arguments against diversity is a means to enforcing a social hierarchy that ensures White supremacy. Whether intentional or not, it hides behind the facade of being a poorly dissected yet easily convincing way to discredit the historically-rooted inequity evident in public education.

Finally, the solutions to the “regressive" diversity presented by the author come from a libertarian, conservative think tank. That doesn’t necessarily discredit the work of the think tank, and everyone is entitled to their political beliefs, but we encourage you to recognize that politicizing education is what is regressive.

And yes, if you “feel like a bad person”, as the quote in Mr. Polce’s article states, because people are saying schools are “segregated” and reminiscent of “Jim Crow”, maybe that means there’s some personal reflection necessary. Privilege may not be a choice, but it can explain a lot about our internal biases. It’s time to look outside ourselves and to start thinking about why things stand as they are, and why people are calling for change.