TexProdigy

Going Back to Separate, But Equal?

Salon (Subsription or DayPass required) has an article about how my “wonderful” Senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, introduced a bill that would to allow school districts across the country to open separate schools for hurricane victims. Are we going back to Brown v Board of Education again? I thought “separate, but equal” was tried before and failed miserably. It took the Supreme Court of the United States to scrap that vestige of racism.

I guess the Supreme Court was not that successful. The bill “would also allow schools to issue ‘identification cards or other identifying insignia’ for students affected by Hurricane Katrina.”

Chris Paulitz, a spokesperson for my “wonderful” Senator, Kay Baily Hutchison says:

Our top priority is keeping the kids from Louisiana in an environment that is safe, secure and familiar.

Mr Paulitz argues:

In some cases evacuees might be better served by going to schools with other evacuees.

He adds:

This is only a temporary waiver for the remainder of the school year.

I have seen too many “temporary” programs that have been implemented by well meaning Representatives and Senators that have turned into permanent programs.

I believe this “temporary waiver” is basically giving school districts carte blanche to discriminate against students who come from New Orleans. Since many of the evacuees are Black, it certainly raises the question about whether these students are being segregated simply because they come from New Orleans or because they are Black. In my opinion, segregating the students would not be good for them. These students need to be treated just like everyone else.

Chad Colby, a spokesman for Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said:

The point is to get these kids into some kind of normalcy across the board.

He added:

In a unique situation like this, which McKinney-Vento was not written to address, the secretary thinks she needs the authority.

The McKinney-Vento Act is the law that requires equal treatment for homeless students. So basically, Senators Hutchison and Cornyn and Secretary of Education Spellings want flexibility to segregate the evacuees of New Orleans and want to go back to a pre-Brown v. Education era.