That’s the report from South Carolina Lawyers Weekly:
The two students each received $50,000, and two family members who filed the suits on their behalf received $25,000 apiece ….Title VI prohibits allowing a racially hostile educational environment in schools and programs receiving federal financial assistance and provides for a private cause of action for violations….
Both students were African-American, and so was most of the elementary school’s student body, according to [the students' lawyer, Lawrence C.] Kobrovsky….
[The younger student] claimed she suffered emotional trauma because she was subjected to racial and sexual slurs at … elementary school … Despite complaints, school administrative staff and district officials allowed the abuse to “escalate to the point where [she] was physically threatened, assaulted and battered,” the suit alleged.
“You have a culture where to act like you want to do well in school is considered acting white. And that is part of why we’re saying that it was racial, even though the students were all of the same race because they weren’t acting how the others thought they should be acting as members of that race,” Kobrovsky said….
ChrisTS says:
So, would a school’s allowing things to rise to the level of a student’s being “physically threatened, assaulted and battered” not be a sufficient basis for liability???
December 29, 2009, 6:10 pmSara says:
Chris, It was the basis for $150,000 in liability.
December 29, 2009, 6:14 pmPaul says:
Eugene,
I can’t help but wonder what your implicit message is in posting this article without any corresponding commentary. Might it be that you think this incident is unjustified or inexplicable? If that is the case, it is worth noting that the issue is fundamentally about school officials’ lack of responsiveness when it comes to the safety of their students (even if the facts implicated Title VI).
Students of any race are susceptible to extreme bullying – in this instance, it just so happens that the cause of that bullying (and the school’s subsequent mishandling of the safety risks posed) had racial motivations.
A post with your take on the story is welcome.
December 29, 2009, 6:15 pmHans says:
Under this reasoning, all honor killings are religion-based crimes, because the victims are killed for not acting Muslim enough.
Of course, whether that is so or not, honor killings target girls, not boys, which is all that the new federal hate crimes law requires (it does not require hate as a motive, only that the perpetrator act partly or wholly based on the victim’s sex, religion, race, sexual orientation, or transgender status). They are clearly sex-based hate crimes, more obviously so than many rapes.
Yet no honor killings are being prosecuted by the Justice Department as hate crimes, despite falling within its literal language — even as white defendants acquitted of hate crimes against illegal aliens get reprosecuted in federal court after being found not guilty in state court, suggesting they might actually be innocent of the crime.
By the way, the Eighth Circuit found an employer liable for allowing one African-American to racially harass another.
December 29, 2009, 6:28 pmDaniel Charlies says:
It’s a stretch to find that black students harassing other black students for their behavior is “racially motivated” enough for the students’ families, and their enterprising attorney, to sue the school.
The school district apparently thought $150,000 would be cheaper than paying the legal fees in fighting this thing. Too bad that Title VI is being stretched for money this way. Imagine all the poorer children, black and white, who are struggling to advance in schools and now will have to do without $150,000 in school resources that might have benefitted more students than just the ones winning in this settlement (and their enterprising attorney who’s probably having a steak dinner with the money coming from the school children’s resources.)
December 29, 2009, 6:28 pmSW says:
Hans -This was a civil suit not a prosecution. It was a settlement under Title Six not the hate crimes law.
Finally, pimping your own articles on someone else’s blog is bad enough but you should at least try to stay on topic when allowed to do so.
December 29, 2009, 6:38 pmPeteP says:
Wait until Sharpton and Jesse J get a holt of this one ! A whole new form of ‘blackmail’ ( may I say it ? :-) ) for them to get rich off !
Sue the government for black people being mean to black people !!
December 29, 2009, 6:38 pmEugene Volokh says:
Paul: It’s an interesting story; I’m not trying to criticize it or praise it, just to report on something that I thought many readers (and perhaps some journalists) would find interesting, but that I suspect has not yet been covered outside the South Carolina.
SW: Hans has a point; while the bodies of law are different, they share a focus on whether someone was harmed because of his race.
December 29, 2009, 6:43 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
They’re suing the government (school) for not putting a stop to the harassment.
It is not rocket science to stop bullying. I’ve seen it done.
I’d be interested to read all of the testimony. It would be interesting to know if the family thought the school personnel, rather than being apathetic, actually agreed with the acting-white thing and colluded in the harassment.
December 29, 2009, 6:44 pmDjDiverDan says:
I don’t have any problem with the liability finding, but if I were a District taxpayer, I’d be demanding that the District fire the Principal & School Administrators responsible for not putting a stop to this kind of conduct. Query – if the responsible School officials are black, and are replaced by white administrators that crack down on same-race harrassment, do you think the fired black administrators will sue for racial discrimination (even though it appears that there’s a very good reason to fire them)? Will the white administrators who crack down on black on black harassment be subjected to political repercussions from the neighborhood? If you were a large absentee landowner in that District (assume it is a majority-minority district) who was required to continue to pay ever-increasing Property Taxes because of these kinds of liability claims, while the voters who reside there continue to reelect the School Board Members who take the politically easy road of ignoring this, how would you feel about your decision to invest in a majority black District?
December 29, 2009, 7:04 pmShelbyC says:
Heh. I’ve seen crime stopped. Yet it continues…
And wern’t most of us “physically threatened, assaulted and battered” at school to some degree or another? For the effects of liability of that nature I suggest people watch the South Park “Sexual Harassment Panda” episode.
December 29, 2009, 7:18 pmChrisTS says:
Ah. I suspected it might be the $$ matter.
Thanks.
December 29, 2009, 7:21 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Sure crime continues. And bullying will too. But for a specific kid having a specific problem, the school can stop it if it wants.
December 29, 2009, 7:25 pmChrisTS says:
Jeez, Shelb. I was not “physically threatened, assaulted and battered” in school! Ok, I was sometimes treated as a weirdo – because I am. But, physically abused?!
December 29, 2009, 7:25 pmShelbyC says:
Well, if you’re a weirdo it’s tough to imagine you’re not familiar with the ol’ weggie. No pushing, kicking, headlocks, tripping, noogies, none of that? IIRC much of that was pretty much par for the course, no?
December 29, 2009, 7:31 pmChrisTS says:
Laura:
THAT.
Even for several kids, our schools ought to be doing better.
There is a current case in my area of Asian-American kids being seriously abused by their ‘schoolmates.’ While hearing the kids’ initial complaints, the principal played with her phone and the chief security officer fell asleep.
This is insane.
P.S. I want to tell you how fond I have become of you – in this odd internet way – despite our evident political disagreements. And, I wonder if you sometimes post at IHE as ‘Laura’?
December 29, 2009, 7:32 pmChrisTS says:
I went mostly to private schools, as my dad was a teacher (free tuition for the kids). The forms of abuse were different. Although …. I did once get an especially nasty girl to hit me; she was expelled. :-)
December 29, 2009, 7:36 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Well, Chris, likewise. And yes, I do, although not all Lauras are me. I’ve suspected that my style of writing is not generic enough to get by with sock puppets, if I ever wanted to have any.
December 29, 2009, 7:42 pmA Law Dawg says:
Before law school my wife and I taught secondary school in a rural Low Country South Carolina school district similar to this one. I can verify that the Uncle’s testimony is a fair description of the environment there. The district we taught in was 50% black and white on the census, but the enrollment in the public school was overwhelmingly black due to white flight into the local private schools.
I had one student openly declare in class that “Mr. Dawg, I don’t trust white people.” I observed several black students with high achievement suffer the exact treatment alleged in the complaint (though only verbally) and this occurred in my immediate presence. Mrs. Dawg, who taught high school (I was at a middle school) saw it get worse than this.
This was among students, by the way. Among actual faculty, fraternizing between races was frowned upon (by the white faculty) and members of the (overwhelmingly black) district administration allegedly said “if 90% of our students are black, then 90% of our teachers should be too.” Guidance counselors steered college-bound students to historically black colleges with frightening tales of assured racial hostility at the mainstream public universities, and with what they’d endured at the local level the kids were somewhat justified in believing it.
That entire district was utterly dysfunctional from a racial standpoint, and I hope this lawsuit sheds a light on what remains a cancer in South Carolina’s school system.
December 29, 2009, 7:54 pmShelbyC says:
Huh. As a public school student I was both receipient and perpetrator of many of the behaviors above. Most of us outgrew that stuff by Junior High or High School though. Part of the purpose of childhood is to work that stuff out.
And you seem to have survived getting hit (battered) ok. Looking back, are you really happy that that poor little girl got expelled?
December 29, 2009, 7:55 pmMalvolio says:
I‘m happy. People learn stuff at school; it may not be reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic, but it should not be “there are no consequences to hitting people you don’t like”.
December 29, 2009, 8:44 pmShelbyC says:
Consequences are one thing, expelling is another. If we expell every elementry school student who hits, trips, pulls hair, pushes, etc, who’s going to be left?
December 29, 2009, 9:07 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Expulsions I’ve seen were not over one incident, but just one too many.
There were boys expelled from my daughter’s elementary school. One held another boy’s hand under the hot water in the boys’ bathroom, trying to scald him. This was after many, many other incidents, counseling, his mother at the school all the time, etc. They just couldn’t keep him any more – the rest of us parents didn’t pay tuition to have our kids put up with his aggression. Another boy was fidgeting at Mass, in 5th grade – they’d been going since kindergarten and knew how to act. The teacher whispered to him, “What are you doing?” and he said, “You tell me.” The last the kids saw of him was that he was taken to the office and the teacher took his bookbag from the classroom. But once again, that was the culmination of a whole lot of stuff. (The teachers told me that they got paid about half what the public school teachers got, and the reason they put up with the low pay was that they didn’t have to put up with disorder and disrespect from the kids.)
December 29, 2009, 9:14 pmG-Veg says:
At the very least, students have a right to expect that the adults in the school will protect them from bullying. It is true that part of growing up is learning to deal with mean spirited jerks, but children should never feel like we, the grownups in their world, don’t care or won’t intervene. How much more so where the abuse is heaped upon students BECAUSE they are doing what society tells them to do – study hard, prepare for class and tests, complete assignments, pay attention… If that behavior isn’t worthy of support then why hold it up as virtuous?
December 29, 2009, 9:57 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » $150,000 Settlement for Black Public School Students Harassed by Other Black Students for “Acting White” -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Regina Mullen and Legal Data Services, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: $150,000 Settlement for Black Public School Students Harassed by Other Black Students for “Acting White”: That’.. http://bit.ly/4Dt576 [...]
December 29, 2009, 10:20 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » EUGENE VOLOKH: $150,000 Settlement for Black Public School Students Harassed by Other Black Student… says:
[...] EUGENE VOLOKH: $150,000 Settlement for Black Public School Students Harassed by Other Black Students for “Acting … [...]
December 30, 2009, 7:12 amPeter Buxton says:
I agree with Hans that honor killings are hate crimes, and I am happy to see that the school was punished for their spinelessness.
December 30, 2009, 7:32 amsomeguy says:
OK. Now … you harass me so I can get my $50,000 settlement.
REPARATIONS!
December 30, 2009, 7:42 amseejay says:
Yup, everything’s working fine……
December 30, 2009, 7:46 amWhite taxpayers pay to build and run a school for mainly black students. Black students behave as black students do everywhere, so white taxpayers must give them additional HUGE CASH BONUSES!
Wake up America. This “racism” crap is nothing but an anti-white pogrom, and many of us are beginning to resent it….Unruly blacks are the rule, not the exception..!
The Colonel says:
Sir:
School Funding constraints is not a causal factor in this case. In fact, lack of resources is not the cause of underperforming students or their woes in these United States. the U.S. overspends for the pathetic performance we recieve. You imply that this issue is caused by some greedy, carnivorous lawyer… this completely misses the author’s point. Instead of pointing your angst at the lawyer, how about you cast your derision on Teachers unions and particularly administrators. They are a much more appropriate target.
December 30, 2009, 7:48 amRamos says:
What is wrong with these comments? The real news is the comment “You have a culture where to act like you want to do well in school is considered acting white”. This means that only two students out of the entire class wanted to do well in school.
In other words, the vast majority of these students were not in the classroom to do well. They were wasting tax payer dollars and the teachers time. Parents of these children are the ones that should be in school. Perhaps this explains the 32% of Americans on food stamps. They are the direct result of not doing well in school.
December 30, 2009, 7:49 amTwirip says:
Of course they are. But it’s not supposed to be covered under Title VI and it normally isn’t.
December 30, 2009, 7:52 amRoy E says:
It’s good that they won this case.
It’s distressing that the $150,000 awards are our tax dollars. Wouldn’t justice be better served if that money came out of the guilty administrator’s pockets?
December 30, 2009, 7:54 amMoneyrunner says:
As an aside, I note that there is a lot of hostility among some posters regarding links to another poster’s own website. It’s referred to as “pimping” and I have seen other derogatory terms like “link whore.” Why the hostility?
December 30, 2009, 7:57 amTwirip says:
That opens a can of worms, doesn’t it? What does it mean for two members of the same race to “racially harass” each other?
(Yes, I’m wondering if I can cash in on this myself.)
December 30, 2009, 7:58 amRamos says:
Twirip and others can cash in on this by insisting that any food stamp recipients with school age children have a letter from the school that verifies their children are attending regularly and achieving passing grades.
This would result in an immediate improvement in classroom behavior and grades. It would also directly benefit Twirip and all other taxpayers by having those that do not comply removed from the food stamp rolls.
December 30, 2009, 8:12 amDonAnon says:
You know, I gotta say that solving a bullying problem by suing the school really IS acting kinda stereotypically white.
December 30, 2009, 8:17 amFantasiaWHT says:
I taught at inner city schools for 3 years before getting out and going into law. Just like how crime in big cities is much more “black on black” than “black on white” (or white on black), bullying and racist remarks are much more “black on black” than from one race to another. Like this post, I saw a lot of hate against the high-achieving black kids. Not just from other black kids, but from other black kids PARENTS. Aside from that, I also saw a lot of racism against black students who had really dark skin from those black students with lighter skin.
December 30, 2009, 8:24 amDuke says:
Apart from any legal issues, I find it disturbing that taking your education seriously is seen as acting too white. A few comments indicate that’s not an outlier attitude. If the KKK were in charge they could come up with no better way to keep black America from economic success. But that attitude seems to come from within the African American community itself. WTF?
December 30, 2009, 8:25 amnk says:
And, in the end, it was not the ghetto rats who were punished, it was the taxpayers. God damn all slave traders and slave owners. May they burn in Hell forever.
December 30, 2009, 8:26 amSFC MAC says:
So, a black kid facing a barrage of insults for “acting white” isn’t racially motivated? If the connotation is that they act educated, study hard, and keep their noses clean, then why not accuse them of being “nerds”? I attended racially-mixed city schools. Don’t tell me that blacks don’t behave that way. I know better.
December 30, 2009, 8:27 amBill says:
The comments seem to center around bullying by the students. Did anyone else notice that the school administrators initiated a DSS investigation of the families, including a strip search of the students? It appears to me that the administration tried to do some bullying of their own.
December 30, 2009, 8:29 amDarel Finkbeiner says:
If white students bullied ( assaulted ) a white student for “acting black” ( and we all know those kids ), would this still have been fallen under Title VI? ( IANAL )
December 30, 2009, 8:32 amThe ceremony of innocence is drowned says:
[...] so I have to turn to Yeats. This is a nightmare. These are elementary school children being described here. [The younger student] claimed she suffered emotional trauma because she was subjected to [...]
December 30, 2009, 8:38 amiowan2 says:
What most responders are missing is the notion of ‘protected status’ whether hate crime or title VI.
The law seems to imply only those that have aquired legislative protected status can be harmed. And conversly Those attaining protected status dont have the ‘power’ to be guilty of the above infractions.
It comes down to the politicaly correctness we have imposed on ourselves. Substituting common sense with a PC notion of ‘fairness’
How can the school stop blacks from harrassing?….when we are told that blacks dont have the power to harrass.
The school is forced to act against blacks because they harrass other blacks for not ‘acting’ black enough.
I love liberals tying their own hands and not have a clue how they ended up in their predicement
December 30, 2009, 8:47 amJack says:
John McWhorter comments on race and he sees the same thing in his classes at a college level.
Like crabs in a basket.
December 30, 2009, 8:59 amOh Geez… « Tai-Chi Policy says:
[...] December 30, 2009 Posted by taoist in Idiocy. Tags: Law, Racism trackback Here’s our stupidity of the day. On so many [...]
December 30, 2009, 9:01 amPeterM says:
Wow! One doesn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry. One doesn’t know whether to cry at the fact that these students were harassed for acting white or to laugh at the fact that they could successfully sue (the issue of physical intimidation or violence aside) for big dollars. Either way, the taxpayer gets screwed.
The lesson: abolish all government schools.
December 30, 2009, 9:04 amMilwaukee says:
Somehow I get the feeling that the worse thing in the world that could ever happen to anybody is to grow up Black in America. So students who want to do well in a black community are trying to be “white”? How racist is that? Sounds like blacks are dragging down blacks. Requiring children to attend and do well in school as a prerequisite for the family receiving welfare is a farce: the schools will cover for the students. I would bet that most of the teachers, administrators and parents are underachieving as well.
I used to teach in a racially mixed high school and I never tolerated teasing or bullying in my classroom or the halls nearby. The victim would usually protest, saying they didn’t mind, it was in fun. I would reply that didn’t matter: I didn’t want any student to think that they would be treated that way in my classroom.
December 30, 2009, 9:06 amJH Barker says:
Well, perhaps the school saw the alleged ‘harassers’ as being in the right.
December 30, 2009, 9:07 amWhy should the supposed ‘victims’ be allowed to get away with disrespecting African-American culture like that? Why are they not proud of their heritage?
We have school programs that try to ensure that every student is raised with proper self-esteem. The school system did not fail the students who are alleged to have been bullying but rather the ones who claim to have been bullied. But, sadly far too often, supposed ‘objective’ education, such as in maths and science, the products of the usual gang of dead white men and culturally biased to boot, are the measures of the ‘success’ of school systems.
Black Students Harassed by Fellow Black Students for ‘Acting White’ « The Foxhole says:
[...] http://volokh.com/2009/12/29/150000-settlement-for-black-public-school-students-harassed-by-other-bl... Two Williamsburg County students and members of their family have reached a $150,000 settlement in what may be the first Title VI lawsuit based on claims of intra-racial discrimination in South Carolina public schools. [...]
December 30, 2009, 9:14 amJFP says:
It’s rather strange to talk of it as “acting white” when acting Asian would be more accurate. Also, the black students I met in grad school who were from foreign countries were much more studious than the average white.
I remember back in 1970 when I first heard blacks announce that they were rejecting the “white” value of doing well in school. It shocked me, but as a good leftist I thought that they were free to choose to reject white society and its values. I’m sorry now that I didn’t speak up against it. As Duke says above, this is something one would think the KKK had perpetrated against black people.
December 30, 2009, 9:23 amplutosdad says:
Actually maybe this is good. There is so much black on black crime and abuse in cities and urban schools. Someone needs to start pointing out the bad ones are pushing other black people down far more than any white people could hope to. And then, if enough of these lawsuits happen, people will begin to see the futility of regulations like this.
December 30, 2009, 9:27 amAl Reasin says:
Maybe I missed it in the comments, but I will defend the school administration a bit. I have seen the product of the lawsuits for discrimination, real and imagined, against school systems; intimidation of the school administration in Georgia and Maryland. They are all to often afraid to discipline black students even if it is to defend other blacks.
I stopped chaperoning school events when my children were in school because the fear of disciplining black students had spilled over to little discipline permitted for the entire student body. Years ago read a letter to the editor where a retired principal from a Philadelphia school returned to find black students wondering the halls with apparently little control by the school administration. He, also black, condemned the school for not caring. I wrote him that based what I had seen in other schools, it was the fear of repercussions if they acted against the black students.
I knew a former principal who went back to teaching after retiring who was threatened with death by a black student if he gave him another bad grade. I told him to report it but he said it would do no good and would cause him more problems. That was over 20 years ago; my view, as a now grandparent, is that the discipline and student control has become worse. My wife, a former public school teacher, has said that if we still had children, they would be going to a private school.
December 30, 2009, 9:45 amJim says:
Middle school is where it happens. Anyone who tries to achieve in school finds it extremely difficult to be “in with the in crowd”. And at this age, peer acceptance is very important.
There are very few African Americans where I live but I see the same phenomenon among Native Americans. They seem to do well until middle school, then they seem to want to conform to a culture that disparages achievement as — similar to this case — “acting white”.
No generalization is worth a damn — including this one — but we will see this until we completely eradicate the “white” culture of achievement. The school are trying very hard to do this. In a couple of generations, the entire population will be on welfare. I’m just not sure who’s going to pay for it all.
December 30, 2009, 9:46 amJGreene says:
Is it too much to assume that the administration and teachers in this school and schools that allow this behavior to continue are incompetent and disfunctional in their lack of professionalism?
Is it too much to assume that the student body lacks two parent familial guidance when not at school?
Is it too much to assume that this is the NORM in schools with a majority black student body?
Is it too much to assume that this will not change until our Black American Citizens begin assuming responsibility for their lives and the lives of their children?
Does anyone expect this type of incident to cease in this and other schools in the forseeable future?
December 30, 2009, 9:53 amVinnie Bartilucci says:
“we will see this until we completely eradicate the “white” culture of achievement.”
I get the distinct impression there’s a word or two missing from that sentence.
December 30, 2009, 9:55 amJAY says:
Vouchers would be more straightforward.
December 30, 2009, 10:07 amWalt Bolil says:
Check out this clip with a discussion by Charles Payne that what happened to him growing up in Harlem is EXACTLY what happened in Willamsburg County, SC. At least he’s not alone in his frustration…(the relevant section is at the 7 min mark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTSaxp6kK68&feature=related
December 30, 2009, 10:14 amNorthern Dave says:
I doubt it. It’s the way people like JH Barker think. Food, Science, Technology, Medicine, all those horrible products of Western Culture must be expunged to make way for the glorious future where warm human understanding will transcend those horrible objective connections to reality. Jim just has a finely tuned sense of sarcasm…………..:-)
December 30, 2009, 10:15 amWednesday Highlights | Pseudo-Polymath says:
[...] “Acting white” = “Applying yourself in academically”. Hmm. [...]
December 30, 2009, 10:17 amStones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e99v2 says:
[...] “Acting white” = “Applying yourself in academically”. Hmm. [...]
December 30, 2009, 10:19 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Jay, vouchers would work only if there is a decent private school available to those kids.
December 30, 2009, 10:44 amquasimodo says:
Where did the bullying take place? If the administration stops it at school, it will move to the streets. If only a little happens (quietly) in the school and a lot happens in the streets, what is the administration’s $hare of the blame?
This is a serious widespread problem and has been around for a LONG time. The attitude that gives rise to it is an enormous millstone around the necks of these poor children and it was put there by their parents and ‘culture’.
December 30, 2009, 11:05 amShelbyC says:
Isn’t that backwards? The point of vouchers is to incentivize people to produce private education for those kids.
December 30, 2009, 11:20 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Shelby, how long does it take to set up a private school?
December 30, 2009, 11:31 amShelbyC says:
So you’re saying they’d need some type of phase-in or transitional approach, not that they wouldn’t work?
December 30, 2009, 11:41 amNombody says:
Look at this way – this lawsuit and other ones like it are the quickest way to get vouchers for private school tuition for motivated minority students who want to succeed. And it doesn’t even require changes to state law.
December 30, 2009, 11:55 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Shelby and Nombody, the majority of the black kids in the area are evidently not interested in schooling. It would be nice to think that the white private schools that do exist would welcome these black kids who want to learn, but I wouldn’t count on it. To have a successful private school you have to have enough students who want to be there. I don’t think you can assume that in every circumstance.
December 30, 2009, 11:58 amSparky says:
Please actually READ the cited article before commenting.
1. Daniel Charlies: “The school district apparently thought $150,000 would be cheaper than paying the legal fees in fighting this thing.”
Read the article. The case settled after two days of trial, when the school district belatedly realized that it was going to lose. 97% of the legal fees had already been spent.
2. Laura(southernxyl): “[V]ouchers would work only if there is a decent private school available to those kids.”
Read the article. The school is predominantly black because all the white families in the area send their kids to privater school.
December 30, 2009, 12:05 pmShelbyC says:
I’m sure the majority of all the kids in the area would rather be out playing. But the purpose of vouchers is to give parents market power to shape the nature of local private education.
December 30, 2009, 12:14 pmmischief says:
This lawsuit is, in fact, a blow for all black children everywhere. Sue more schools. Sue parents who let their children do this and do it themselves. Scare them into silence. More black children will be able to achieve
December 30, 2009, 12:19 pmGranite26 says:
Depends… how much are the vouchers worth?
December 30, 2009, 12:21 pmBrian G. says:
I didn’t vote for Obama but after he won I hoped this would be one of the benefits of his election. This happens everywhere between blacks, but it is racist to even bring it up. I gotta think that many parents are now telling their kids if they study they can be President like Mr. Obama.
December 30, 2009, 12:29 pmJH Barker says:
Apparently Northern Dave thinks he knows me. And apparently I gave the impression that this was anything other than pure snark, cynicism and sarcasm.
I choose to take that as acompliment to my ability to camouflauge my own views. Mine are actually a little close to Jasper from the Simpsons (“Talking out of turn…that’s a paddling. Looking out the window…that’s a paddling. Staring at my sandals…that’s a paddling.”)
December 30, 2009, 12:37 pmNorthern Dave says:
My apologies, JH. Your comment:
“But, sadly far too often, supposed ‘objective’ education, such as in maths and science, the products of the usual gang of dead white men and culturally biased to boot, are the measures of the ‘success’ of school systems.”
could have been Dept of Education boilerplate. So many believe it.
Kudos, your sarcasm was too subtle for my jaded thoughts!
December 30, 2009, 1:22 pmFen says:
That opens a can of worms, doesn’t it? What does it mean for two members of the same race to “racially harass” each other?
Nothing new. Blacks are the most racist demographic in America. See FBI hate crime stats.
This is less about bullying and more about Democrat slaves taking down anyone who wants to flee the plantation.
December 30, 2009, 1:23 pmquasimodo says:
sounds like crabs in a bucket
December 30, 2009, 1:46 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Sparky, I read the dadgum article, thank you. I read it before I ever commented. The WHITE kids go to the private school. Now it’s possible that they would welcome these kids with open arms, if they only had vouchers, but that is not something anybody with sense assumes. Black cultures are not the only ones with terrible pathologies. (Sounds like I’m talking about bacteria.)
December 30, 2009, 1:52 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Shelby, if the parents of the kids in the story are the only ones who care, then giving the other parents market power won’t accomplish a thing.
December 30, 2009, 1:53 pmJordan says:
He was being sarcastic, and funny. :) Getting rid of any incentive to achieve is a feature, not a bug, as the saying goes.
December 30, 2009, 2:03 pmSandy MacHoots says:
I think it’s reasonable to assume this. I’ve lived a fair amount in the South and I’ve never heard of a private school that would refuse a black child who could pay. Even private schools usually celebrate diversity in the student body. I can tell you that the local Catholic school, the local Baptist school, and the local Offbeat Nondenominational Protestant school would all sign them up in a heartbeat.
December 30, 2009, 2:23 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Sandy, the school can’t legally refuse the kid. I’m not sure that the kid would be much better off among her white peers than among her black ones. I’d like to think she would, but I would not make the assumption that vouchers would fix the problem.
Also, you realize there are two problems.
1 – The kids being bullied for acting white need to get an education without being harassed.
2 – The kids doing the bullying are setting themselves up for a lifetime of un- and underemployment, which means the taxpayers having to take up the slack.
December 30, 2009, 2:31 pmSandy MacHoots says:
Sure. Vouchers might not work for particular students, but the record so far suggests that parents vastly prefer sending their kids to the private schools than leaving them in the hellholes they’re in now.
True. But neither the education establishment nor the Democratic Party has any interest in fixing this situation. If they get educated and get decent jobs and start paying taxes, they start turning Republican. A vast ethnically distinct under-educated underclass is always valuable for the rulers who exploit them.
The Republicans aren’t any better, of course. They have no incentive to help blacks who vote 90% against them. Bush put in vouchers to help those kids in the worst D.C. schools, and I expect their parents voted 95% for Obama. . . . who promptly stopped the voucher program.
December 30, 2009, 6:14 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Except for the parents of the kids responsible for making the schools hellholes, who either like the schools being just the way they are, or who can’t be roused to give a damn. In some communities there are enough of the other kind of parent to support private schools, and in some, not.
Thank you for depressing me further.
December 30, 2009, 6:18 pmChrisTS says:
Well, this has taken a predictably nasty turn.
I’ll just address Laura, Shelby, and G-Veg on student behavior and schools’ responsibilities.
I do not think that being subjected to physical assault is part of growing up.
And, no, Shelby, Dear, I did not feel the least bit sorry for a rich, pampered, purportedly ‘well-bred’ girl’s being booted out of school. (Also, she was not ‘little;’ she towered over me by several inches.) Those girls had plenty of ways of misusing others without resort to physical violence. She only did resort to that because she was stupid and unimaginative; having coasted through one school after another on Daddy’s dime, she had no idea how to deal with a victim who fought back using her wits.
Of course every school should seek to protect the students from abuse. Physical abuse is, at least, easily discerned.
December 30, 2009, 9:28 pmChrisTS says:
In the face of all this all-over-the-map racial crap, allow me, as a college professor, to point this out:
Many, many U.S. students despise education and have no respect for intellectual growth or achievement. Even the whitest of the white kids have this viewpoint, encouraged by their parents.
The difference between these ‘good’ [white] students and under-class black kids is that the former have been trained to ‘get it done.’ This might mean cheating and learning-disability-ing their way through school as easily as it might mean trying to become an educated, thinking person.
In other words, the great divide is between those who are trained to game the system and those who are trained to despise the system. And, trust me, it is far more a matter of class than of color. The increasing minority are those who want to learn.
December 30, 2009, 9:34 pmPorn Images and the Public Sector | Fling Hotel says:
[...] The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » $150000 Settlement for … [...]
December 30, 2009, 11:39 pmNoah David Simon says:
some black kids sued other black kids for racially bullying them for acting white. the court decided that the claim was valid because of the crime… and the identity didn’t matter… therefor an honor killing is wrong because of violence towards a former Muslim and not because of the identity of being Muslim. interesting note when prosecuting Muslims for acting out their religion. legally their status as Muslims is irrelevant.
December 31, 2009, 8:45 amYour education dollars at work | Lux Libertas - Light and Liberty says:
[...] the Volokh Conspiracy, we find this item from South Carolina Lawyer’s Weekly where trial attorneys have discovered a [...]
December 31, 2009, 9:33 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Well, I’ll second this.
Chris, the idea of black kids accusing each other of acting white if they do well sounds like something racist white folks made up. Unfortunately, one hears it all the time from different (black) sources. And I think it’s one of those problems that we white folks probably can’t fix.
I’ll also partially second nk who wanted slave traders and slave owners to burn in hell. I shrink from consigning anyone to hell (that’s for God to do if he chooses) but I warmly embrace the sentiment.
December 31, 2009, 10:29 amChester White says:
Adolescent black kids mistreating other adolescent black kids.
I don’t know how to fix this, but I do know as an upper-middle white guy, it’s somehow all my fault.
December 31, 2009, 1:33 pmBizzyBlog says:
[...] South Carolina (HT Volokh, whose title follows) — “$150,000 Settlement for Black Public School Students Harassed [...]
December 31, 2009, 1:34 pm“If the KKK were in charge they could come up with no better way to keep black America from economic success.” « The Lyssa says:
[...] from economic success.” Posted on January 1, 2010 by Lyssa Commenter Duke says, of a Volokh post about a $150,000 settlement against a school for failing to stop black students from harassing other [...]
December 31, 2009, 5:16 pmChrisTS says:
Laura:
You are quite correct about the ‘acting white’ thing. The slacker white kids have different insults: being a nerd/dork/geek, being a teacher’s pet, etc.
Happy New Year!
December 31, 2009, 5:19 pmRyan Waxx says:
Isn’t assuming (without evidence) that whites will be racist… itself a racist attitude? And quite a nasty one, at that.
December 31, 2009, 8:41 pmshevrae says:
Thanks for posting today’s article about government schools that makes me very happy I’ve chosen to homeschool my own children.
It really is sad that I can find one almost every day . . .
December 31, 2009, 10:58 pmChem_geek says:
Perhaps so, but then why is it still so difficult to get into advanced studies? Even after 13 years in industry, I’m still given the runaround…
January 1, 2010, 3:05 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Ryan, I grew up in Mississippi. I have seen racist white people, and I’ve seen nonracist white people. I’ve seen enough to refrain from assuming either way. You can call that racist if you want, I don’t care. I’ve given many years’ thought to being a righteous person. I’ve been lectured more than once for being white and therefore clueless, heartless, and racist by people who didn’t know me. I got over it then, and will now.
January 1, 2010, 11:55 amChrisTS says:
Of course, I cannot answer your question. I can observe that entrance into graduate programs is increasingly difficult in almost all fields. I would have thought chemistry programs would be happy to have qualified folks, but I really do not know.
January 2, 2010, 1:52 pm