Spoiler alert: No, Los Angeles schools do not discriminate against white students. <\/p>\n
But a new lawsuit from a conservative group is claiming that they do \u2014 and there are enough frustrated parents out there that it\u2019s getting a lot of attention. <\/p>\n
So here we are, folks, in the age of Trump, once again faced with those who are serving up vitriol disguised as sweet tea in the hopes you\u2019ll down it willingly. <\/p>\n
As my colleague Howard Blume wrote<\/a>, a legal challenge with an anonymous LAUSD parent mentioned is seeking to dismantle protections for disadvantaged students of color that were originally put in place to comply with a court order meant to lessen the harms of segregation in our schools.<\/p>\n To put it simply, the Los Angeles Unified School District gives more resources to schools that are more than 70% non-white, which is the vast majority \u2014 about 600. The suit claims that about 100 schools are left without these additional resources, penalizing them with larger class sizes and fewer opportunities to meet with teachers, among other drawbacks.<\/p>\n This, the suit argues, is discrimination against white and Middle Eastern students, though there don\u2019t seem to be any Middle Eastern students specifically represented. <\/p>\n As the parent of school-age kids, this does seem bad. Like all parents, I want the best schools \u2014 public schools \u2014 possible, and I want them to be fair. Which is what makes this lawsuit so appealing to believe. Of course all schools should get the same resources, right?<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a racist distraction,\u201d Tyrone Howard, a UCLA professor of education, told me. <\/p>\n \u201cLook, I want to be nuanced here,\u201d Howard said. \u201cI am sure there must be some white Americans somewhere in our country who have and are experiencing discrimination in some form. Surely there must be, but they\u2019re not at all the overwhelming majority of citizens who are on the receiving end of race-based discrimination, not hardly.\u201d <\/p>\n That goes for our schools and elsewhere. <\/p>\n The lawsuit comes from the 1776 Project Foundation, whose members<\/a> also back anti-transgender policy<\/a> and the \u201cclassical\u201d education now favored in some Florida schools.<\/p>\n The president of the project <\/a>also seemingly promotes a nostalgia for an America of white Anglo-Saxon protestants \u2014 WASPs, if you are old enough to remember that term \u2014 at least according to one recent social media post<\/a> from another group he founded to advocate for a \u201cdominant American future.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Shaun Harper, a professor of education, public policy and business at USC, points out that the current system at LAUSD exists precisely because schools weren\u2019t all getting the same resources when segregation was rampant, and in reality, schools today where students of color make up the majority often still face barriers to equity. <\/p>\n \u201cThe data across so many domains irrefutably show that the work of civil rights remains undone and that it is Black Americans and other people of color who continue to be on the losing end of that unfinished agenda,\u201d Harper said. <\/p>\n I\u2019d argue that this has as much to do with economics \u2014 specifically higher poverty rates in communities of color \u2014 than race itself (though racism is real, no doubt).<\/p>\n Put them on a map and it would likely be easy to see that even today, schools with high percentages of white students are in more affluent areas, including the Valley and the Westside, where the best teachers want to be, where parents have the time and knowledge to be heard, where English is the first language. Where, frankly, it\u2019s often easier to learn for a multitude of reasons. <\/p>\n So \u2014 white, Black, brown \u2014 kids in disadvantaged areas still struggle, in ways that those in wealthier areas can at least mitigate for. <\/p>\n \u201cMake that argument, say that we have a poverty issue in this country, and people across all ethnic and racial groups suffer from it, and white people suffer in large numbers,\u201d Howard challenged. \u201cBut that\u2019s not the argument they\u2019re making.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the founder of the 1776 Project Foundation, Ryan James Girdusky, acknowledged that white wealth was at the center of his lawsuit<\/a>. In an interview he posted on social media, he explained that the idea for the suit came about because of the gentrification of Silver Lake and the resulting changes to schools. <\/p>\n \u201cTheir student population was changing pretty dramatically,\u201d he said<\/a> of the enclave that has morphed over the last few decades into some of the hottest real estate in L.A., where the average home price is about $1.5 million. \u201cGentrification had really brought in a lot of white families into the district.\u201d <\/p>\n The hard bargain of public education has always been that it seeks to do the greatest good for the greatest number of kids, meaning it rarely offers perfection for individual children.<\/p>\n If parents in these schools with more white kids wanted to prioritize lower class sizes and more access to teacher conferences, they could live in a neighborhood with a more diverse student body, or simply opt for a school in those areas. <\/p>\n They have that choice. They don\u2019t want it, and I get it. We all want the best neighborhood we can afford, with great schools.<\/p>\n The LAUSD policies aren\u2019t an attempt to hurt schools with higher numbers of white students, but rather to raise up those schools that have larger numbers of students who historically have lacked opportunities \u2014 to meet the outcomes those wealthy-neighborhood schools already have.<\/p>\n When Silver Lake became a neighborhood ripe with advantage, the needs shifted. It is not discrimination, but rather, continuing to address the persisting harms of segregation, in schools and in communities. <\/p>\n \u201cAll it takes is visiting these schools and you see the material difference that exists,\u201d Howard said. <\/p>\n But under this second Trump administration, white grievance has become not only fashionable but also lauded. This lawsuit is just one of many legal and social challenges pushing the idea that white people are under attack, and that the civil rights movement went too far. <\/p>\n Vice President JD Vance recently proclaimed<\/a> that white people \u201cdon\u2019t have to apologize for being white anymore,\u201d as if they ever did. President Trump recently said<\/a> that civil rights had left white people being \u201cvery badly treated.\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s not a rewriting of history. It\u2019s an attempt to erase it and, like a pointillist painting, focus on only one dot while ignoring the big picture. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an effort by the current administration to say, \u2018Look, white people suffer too,\u2019 \u201d Howard said. <\/p>\n But discrimination requires power \u2014 the power to enforce unfair terms on the targeted group.<\/p>\n To believe that white students are being discriminated against in L.A. schools requires folks to also believe that white people in general do not still hold the majority of positions of power. Yes, our mayor is Black and some of our politicians are people of color. <\/p>\n But are people of color truly in the majority of decision-making roles? <\/p>\n \u201cOverwhelmingly those positions of power are occupied by white people,\u201d said Harper, who studies such things. \u201cWhite people certainly, definitely have not lost power. They\u2019re certainly not underrepresented.\u201d <\/p>\n But \u2014 no different from those of any color frustrated by economic inequality \u2014 white people who see the unfairness in our current systems, from schools to retirement, are fed up and angry and rightfully want change. That makes lawsuits such as this powerful, if misleading. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spoiler alert: No, Los Angeles schools do not discriminate against white students. 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