Home » Disparate impact: DeVos and the Obama directive on school discipline

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Disparate impact: DeVos and the Obama directive on school discipline — 19 Comments

  1. “However, the left must sacrifice all those children in order to pretend that the world conforms to its vision of what should be.”

    Very well put!

  2. I’m sure the Left will find a federal judge who will order, on a nationwide basis, that the Obama directive be continued, on the same basis that a federal judge refused to allow Obama’s DACA executive order to be cancelled, — Non revocatas Obamum.

  3. That linked RedState piece says that the 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter “states that even a race-neutral policy that results in more minority students being disciplined will be termed discriminatory and Department of Education will intervene”. I just read the full letter and it doesn’t actually say that. Rather it lays out three steps that should be taken with regard to assessing disparate impact:

    In determining whether a facially neutral policy has an unlawful disparate impact on the basis of race, the Departments will engage in the following three-part inquiry (see also Illustration 2, page 13).

    (1) Has the discipline policy resulted in an adverse impact on students of a particular race as compared with students of other races? For example, depending on the facts of a particular case, an adverse impact may include, but is not limited to, instances where students of a particular race, as compared to students of other races, are disproportionately: sanctioned at higher rates; disciplined for specific offenses; subjected to longer sanctions or more severe penalties; removed from the regular school setting to an alternative school setting; or excluded from one or more educational programs or activities. If there were no adverse impact, then, under this inquiry, the Departments would not find sufficient evidence to determine that the school had engaged in discrimination. If there were an adverse impact, then:

    (2) Is the discipline policy necessary to meet an important educational goal? In conducting the second step of this inquiry, the Departments will consider both the importance of the goal that the school articulates and the tightness of the fit between the stated goal and the means employed to achieve it. If the policy is not necessary to meet an important educational goal, then the Departments would find that the school had engaged in discrimination. If the policy is necessary to meet an important educational goal, then the Departments would ask:

    (3) Are there comparably effective alternative policies or practices that would meet the school’s stated educational goal with less of a burden or adverse impact on the disproportionately affected racial group, or is the school’s proffered justification a pretext for discrimination? If the answer is yes to either question, then the Departments would find that the school had engaged in discrimination. If no, then the Departments would likely not find sufficient evidence to determine that the school had engaged in discrimination.

  4. Ann, the “three-step process” you quoted really boils down to a simple implicit position: disparate impact is discrimination, and if it isn’t, we’re gonna make it so. Making schools jump through three hoops to avoid being deemed “discriminatory” really means that the burden of proof is on the school districts and not on the parties suing for relief. The “Dear Colleague” letter itself represents the absolute worst in unaccountable Administrative State malfeasance.

  5. This also has a disparate impact on race relations. What this means in practice is the blacks get away with things that get the whites disciplined. This causes the whites to resent the blacks.
    I knew a guy that got out of teaching because it was impossible to control the students. He would send a disruptive student to the principals office and an hour later the student would be back in class doing the same thing. He had students threaten to kill him and nothing happened to the students.

  6. The doctrine of “disparate impact” normalizes the belief in diversity or color judgments (e.g. racism, sexism, genderism).

  7. When consequences for those who refuse to adhere to civil norms, are a minor, short lived pinky tap on the wrist the wild things will rule.

  8. I think the disparate impact evidenced in the NBA, where a minority group representing 13% of the population manages to get 80% of the jobs paying multiple million dollars is a real travesty. Not only that, but those of us who are of a certain age, short in stature and little spring in our legs are discriminated against. There must be a law against this cruelty.

  9. Two can play this game of ‘tribalism’. European/whites invented the internal combustion engine, refrigerant, digital tech, modern medicine, modern agriculture, etc. Any use of these by those who are not European/evil whites is hereby forbidden. Any use by European/whites of the boomerang is forbidden. I can live in that world. Anyone from anywhere who did not grow up as citizens of Western Civilization, should be denied access to the fruits of WC, and return to their dream land. Otherwise, don’t piss down my leg and tell me it is raining.

  10. The Disparate Impact scam was started by Jesse Jackson over 20 years ago when he went to Pontiac Illinois and led demonstrations because black boys were suspended more than white boys. It creates chaos in schools. The Powerline guys have about the effect on schools in the Minneapolis area.

    When the witnesses who were teachers were asked what effect it would have on non-disruptive students if the disruptive student were back in class, the witnesses agreed it would be very negative. This is partly because the disruptive student continues to disrupt the classroom.

    But it also has a negative effect on other students because it demonstrates that there is no real punishment for misbehavior. As an educator, you are doubtless aware of this, yet your new policy is designed to make it more difficult to remove disruptive students from the classroom. You may disavow that is the case, but teachers and administrators will get the message: we must reduce racial disparities in discipline, so suspend fewer black and brown kids.

    And here.

    Edina is one of the Twin Cities’ wealthiest suburbs. For decades, its public schools have been viewed as among the nation’s finest. But no longer: a leftist political agenda now dominates the Edina school system, and quality of instruction has slipped badly. Edina is not alone. What has happened there is going on in public schools across the country. Edina’s experience should be a warning to all of us.

    That is a wealthy suburb, not an inner city school.

  11. However, the left must sacrifice all those children in order to pretend that the world conforms to its vision of what should be. –neo

    With the added benefit — those children will likely grow up to resent whites and become reliable Democrat voters.

  12. Creating the conditions that will lead to societal “idiocracy” is entirely in the Left’s interest. Ignorance is easily led by appealing to the ignorant with the meme that they are victims of an unjust society.

    None of this is accidental and given its intentionality and desired outcome, it easily qualifies as treason.

    Rhetorical questions; how bad must things get before the obvious is acknowledged? And once forced to face reality, will we act to cut out the cancer or will we go quietly into the night?

  13. Rhetorical questions; how bad must things get before the obvious is acknowledged? And once forced to face reality, will we act to cut out the cancer or will we go quietly into the night?

    Geoffrey Britain: Europe will go first. We get the chance to learn from her example. No guarantees, of course, that we will.

  14. Mike,

    Thanks for the link to Mr. Mirengoff’s piece at Powerline. I am particularly struck by his quote from Richard Posner, which hits the nail square on the head. It’s only common sense, yet it’s brilliant:

    The Seventh Circuit has addressed the problem of racial quotas in school discipline. In People Who Care v. Rockford Bd. of Educ., Judge Posner wrote, “Racial disciplinary quotas violate equity in its root sense. They entail either systematically overpunishing the innocent or systematically underpunishing the guilty. They place race at war with justice. They teach schoolchildren an unedifying lesson of racial entitlements.”

    As a case involving the Rockford (where I now live) Board of Ed, I’ll have to check that out.

  15. Edit…here again gone again…currently AWOL, what a surprise.

    I just wanted to add that I hope Santa was exceptionally beneficent in the matter of Ms. Kerstein’s gifts a couple of days ago. Her letter, which Mr. Mirengoff discusses, should earn her a Medal of Freedom at the very least, plus thankful Hallelujahs! from the populace at large.

  16. Sigh: Edit again: The person I mean is Mr. Peter Kirsanow, then of the Office of Civil Rights, not Ms. Kersten (whose name I also misspelled). :>((J

  17. Disperate Impact was a viable theory in employment discrimination cases until the early 1990s when appellate decisions including the Supreme Court made it completely impractical for a plaintiff to establish. The concept lives on but only as an abstraction.

    An illustration would be that I decide to lay off 10 employees and select a racially neutral criterion – the 10 most recently hired must go. But when I put names with the numbers I see that I have eight Asian employees and all eight of them are the most recently hired. Clearly, what seems a racially neutral filter is not, because the result is a policy that effectively wipes out my Asian employee group as if I had decided to just get rid of my Asians. Then the employer can still win by showing that it was tuly a goid faith criterion as opposed to deciding that the Asians were most recently hired, aha, I’ll use last in/first out!

    As I say, there are now so many hoops to jump through it’s totally impractical and I can’t recall any Disperate Impact cases won by a plaintiff in the past 25 years; the concept is understandable, though, and when a company eliminates 100 employees and they’re all black/female/disabled, it should raise a few eyebrows.

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