Commentary - Ward Connerly: Beware of elites with racial theories

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The first commandment in the bible of racial theories is the view that “diversity equals excellence.” Until recently, this theory has been described in the elementary and secondary education settings as “racial integration.” For more than 50 years, public school districts throughout the nation have been engaged in efforts to racially integrate their schools. They have been subjected to mandatory court desegregation orders and they have implemented “voluntary desegregation plans.” The overall impetus for these activities has been the premise that a racially integrated America is socially desirable and that the process of racial integration should begin in the earliest years of education.

It has been conventional wisdom since Brown v. Board of Education — handed down in 1954 — that a correlation exists between racially integrated schools and the educational quality that is provided to students attending such schools. More specifically, there seems to be an unspoken view that black schools are, by definition, inferior institutions, and that black students can only learn if they are sitting next to whites in school.

At the higher education level, the United States Supreme Court ruled on June 23, 2003, that racial and ethnic “diversity” was so compelling that the use of race by universities was constitutional, despite the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and notwithstanding the command of the 1964 Civil Rights Act against discrimination on the basis of race. Underlying the court’s decision in the Gratz and Grutter cases of 2003 was the view that “diversity” — the twin policy sister of “racial integration” — improved the quality of education for all concerned.

In the face of inadequate evidence to support the contention that “diversity equals excellence,” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has often commented on the lack of “diversity” at historically black colleges and universities, for example, despite the fact that many such institutions continue to produce some of our nation’s most celebrated leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr.

You can read the rest of this article on the Manhattan Web site at: www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2007/07/beware_of_elites_bearing_racia.html.

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