Pennsylvania State University is being sued by former professor Zack De Piero, who previously taught English at Penn State Abington. He is alleging an extensive array of racist and retaliatory actions by the university. One of the allegations concerns grading students based on race.
The complaint is blunt to the point of badgering. The rhetoric may be problematic for some judges, but the real question is whether these allegations can be proven. If so, Penn State could find itself in a difficult position with statements and policies linked to administrators.
There are roughly 40 defendant trustees, professors, and administrators named in the complaint below. This includes Professor Liliana Naydan who was an Associate Professor of English and served as De Piero’s Supervisor and Chair of the English Department and Writing Program Coordinator.
De Piero alleges that he was “individually singled out for ridicule and humiliation” due to his race. He also alleges that he was expected to follow and support the view that “White supremacy exists in the language itself, and therefore, that the English language itself is ‘racist.”
De Piero also alleges that faculty were encouraged to participate in anti-racist workshops and trainings, including one titled “White Teachers are the Problem.”
What is most interesting about the complaint is that it alleges policies that would violate core academic freedom principles from the content of his classes to grading. He alleges that he was told to adopt a race-based grading system. Specifically, he alleges that the failure to grade minorities on par or better than whites would be treated as de facto racist:
“Defendants instructed De Piero that outcomes alone — regardless of the legitimacy of methods of evaluation, mastery of subject matter, or intentions — demonstrate whether a faculty member’s actions are racist or not. Defendants call this “social justice” and “antiracism.” At the core of their ideology, Defendants discriminate twofold on the basis of race. First, Defendants’ bigotry manifests itself in low expectations. They do not expect black or Hispanic students to achieve the same mastery of academic subject matters as other students and therefore insist that deficient performance must be excused. Accurate assessment of abilities, if it happens to show disparate performance among different racial groups, is therefore condemned as “racist.” econd[sic], Defendants’ bigotry manifests itself in overt discrimination against students and faculty who do apply consistent standards, especially white faculty.”
What was most notable is this added alleged statement:
Defendant Naydan expressed this corrosive race-based ideology on March 29, 2019, when she emailed Plaintiff and two other white faculty members that “racist structures are quite real in assessment and elsewhere regardless of the good intentions that teachers and scholars bring to the set-up of those structures. For me, the racism is in the results if the results draw a color line.”
If true, Penn State was stating that a racial differentiation in grading result would be treated as de facto discrimination. If such a differentiation existed for a faculty member, it would require elevating or lowering scores based on race. Some of the other allegations could be matters of interpretation and personality conflicts. However, the attributed comment on assuming discrimination from race-based results suggests a cognizable policy.
The threshold motion to dismiss will be key. If this case goes to discovery, Penn State could face potentially embarrassing inquiries, including emails and depositions.
De Piero is currently an assistant professor of English at Northampton Community College.
Here is the complaint.
The sad state that academia has been high jacked years ago and we did nothing to stop it from becoming a Marxist tool to educated our youth . Now it just falls in line with Hollywood , the media and now the democrat party .
spewing anti-white garbage is totally acceptable in academia and industry. How many times have we been forced to endure the phrase ” white supremacy” and the like ?
Dont forget that “white privilege” as well. You can have any color of the skin or soul or whatever pride , but god for id you say pink. A racist double standard as always from the prog lefto fascist cult.
enigma: Too bad you did not keep reading the article that you anxiously cited after your google search seeking validation. Near the end, please click on, “The #1 Predictor of Test-Prep Score Improvement.” To your surprise, you will see that the answer is “accountability,” not correction of “cultural bias.” Thanks.
Lin, great find! I hope people reading get benefit from understanding a bit more about accountability.
History is not binary; it is complex.
I would recommend beginning with John Higham, Strangers in the Lan,d: Patterns of American Racism, 1860-1925 (Rutgers UP), then perhaps the Oklahoma Report on the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921, and perhaps something on Woodrow Wilson and his opinion of “hyphenated Americans.” I would also strongly recommend a half hour of Tom Lehrer songs. . .
It is not at all clear what happened in Tulsa, nor how many on both sides died, in part because many of the whites who did were sent to their homes for burial because they weren’t from Tulsa. Read the report.
As for ‘whites,’ there was no such thing. Caucasians, yes, but not ‘whites.’ That’s a recent conceit. Through the 1930s, Poles were considered a race, as were Latins, and, other groups we would refer to as nationalities today. If I recall correctly, the Mexicans had a very complicated racial system with only peninsulares ‘pure’ Spanish; the rest were some sort of mongrel. The Nazis, of course, considered Slavs an inferior race and planned to eradicate them, along with the Jews, Gypsies, and other undesirables, but the Fascists thought in national, not racial terms, so a Slav could be an Italian. Ask the English about the Irish . . . . reality is complicated and understanding it takes a bit of effort, and an open mind.
MLK was on the right track. The current crop of race grifters are not only ignorant of history, they are pushing the country back into the dark ages of race.
It would be nice if history was a love fest, but it has more often been more like the two-minutes of hate in 1984 on a loop.
To reduce US race relations to white vs. black is simple minded and a sure way to assure that people never get along.
enigma: Yes, and you are very articulate in your comments, and good for you on the SAT and spelling.
Unfortunately, this does not speak to your acuity in logic or comprehension, or you might have noticed that I said “minority/foreign.”
Of course, you know that the words “minority” or “foreign” are inclusive of classifications other than race, n’est ce pas?
Something for you to think about when you “notice” differences based on race.
Well. Apologies to all. This was in response to Enigma’s comment to me @5:03 but it showed up in the general area. So I again hit “reply” under enigma’s comment, and my comment again appeared here. Don’t know why, truly sorry.
enigma: Yes, and you are very articulate in your comments, and good for you on the SAT and spelling.
Unfortunately, this does not speak to your acuity in logic or comprehension, or you might have noticed that I said “minority/foreign.”
Of course, you know that the words “minority” or “foreign” are inclusive of classifications other than race, n’est ce pas?
Something for you to think about when you “notice” differences based on race.
This horrible development in our culture has been going on for a while and is repeated by people at the highest levels of corporate media. Follow the link to listen to a racist rant from Joe Reid at MSNBC: https://youtu.be/e1nfnlqOfPE
Ranting “teacher” being cited by Mexican policeman, “You’ll never be white, you know that don’t you?”
Poor Joy, she’ll never get over it.
Of course, it’s all a gross and egregious aberration, and it’s all moot.
Not dissimilar to Roe v. Wade, now a long-term cold case awaiting resolution, the subject “illegal aliens” previously enjoying the legal status of “property” and not being free white person(s), and their similarly illegal corollary descendants, did not and do not have standing and may not have been admitted to become citizens, per extant contemporary law.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Naturalization Act of 1802 (in full force and effect on January 1, 1863)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
I read the entire complaint, Turley did misrepresent that there bwas a training called, White Teachers are the Problem,” when according to the complaint, a video of that name was included in the training but that’s minor. The complaint tells one, particularly whiny, side of the story. De Piero tells of how his Italian immigrant ancestors faced discrimination and how he labored teaching in Philadelphia’s inner-city schools and how he personally isn’t racist. He purports that any atteby the university to address racism is itself racist and must be stopped.
As an aside, I once worked for The Princeton Review, tutoring students on preparing tor the SAT, ACT, LSAT, etc. I learned, especially in the English portion that the testing is biased in terms of favoring people with a certain economic and cultural backgroung. If a word question involved croquet and you don’t have experience with it, the question suddenly became harder. Rich, white people have an edge. The English language may not in and of itself be racist but it’s usage certainly is.
De Piero alternately claims to have been individually singled out (which doesn’t sound like racism) and that other white faculty members had similar experiences. He was horrified that the school did something different after the reaction nationwide to the George Floyd videos, as if that was bad. De Piero worried about the poor Asians while singling out an Asian director in his complaint.
The complaint will be heard and as Turley stated, some judges may have a problem with it. He used all the right code words, CRT and DEI which would have played well in Florida but may not in Pennsylvania. He suggests the only honorable thing he could do was resign which to me means he wasn’t fired. It sounds like he disagreed with school policy which he sees as racist as will many of you.
Again, the complaint is but one side of the story, which is the only side many of you will need. Turley has kept you fired up about reverse racism and all the racism against white people. How will you ultimately deal with your rage?
enigma:
“Again, the complaint is but one side of the story, which is the only side many of you will need. Turley has kept you fired up about reverse racism and all the racism against white people. How will you ultimately deal with your rage?”
**********************************************
Nobody’s “raging.” That’s left to antifa and BLM who do it for pay. Immigrating Italians faced equally vociferous discrimination in many parts of the country with one incident resulting in the largest lynching in US history in New Orleans over a contived shooting. The simple fact is that discrimination is never ended by the discriminator. It’s ended by the discriminatee either thorugh violence or overcoming and succeeding in the culture. The Americans of Italian descent took the latter path. Here’s a pretty good synopsis of how it went down:
mespo,
Nobody’s “raging.”
Continue reading the comments. BTW, are you still claiming the lynching of I believe 11 Italian-Americans was the most in American History? No offense but that’s ridiculous. Native Americans and Blacks beg to differ. I would direct you to the Ocoee Massacre, Black Wall Street (Greenwood District), Rosewood, German Coast Uprising, the lynchings after the planned Gabriel Prosser revolt, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner. We discussed this before and you seemed to acknowledge this but here you are with the same claim. This is why teaching accurate history means something.
You cited race riots or slave uprisings not lynchings. Those were primarly attacks between angry mobs some initated by balcks and some by whites.
You apparently aren’t willing to consider the events. In Ocoee, two Black men tried to vote and when a mob came to the home of one man, they stood their ground and two white men got killed. A white mob killed hundreds of people in the town and burned out the rest. Not a race riot. In Tulsa, one elevator operator was falsely accused of assault and hundreds of Black people were killed, thousands sent to an internment camp and 35 city blocks destroyed. After Nat Turner for example, hundreds of people in neighboring North Carolina were lynched that had no involvement in the revolt. In the German Coast Uprising, hundreds of others were lynched, some had their heads placed on spikes as a warning to others. There was no correlation to participation in the revolt, just random killing. You can go on saying that the largest lynching in America was 11 Italian-Americans but it just isn’t true. I’d suggest attending a history class but that might make white people feel bad and isn’t allowed,
https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/2009/08/01/this_month_aug_1831/
Mespo: Thank you, good response. (Moreover, Enigma states, “As an aside, I once worked for…Rich, white people have an edge. The English language may not in and of itself be racist but it’s usage certainly is.”
To that, I say, I once worked defending a corporation against a complaint filed by poor, white people. Their correct use of the English language (based on my depositions of them) far exceeded that of the Black counsel who represented them…)
Mespo,
With the exception of HullBobby and one of the anny getting into it, most of the comments are mostly logical, or making good points.
Forcing these kind of anti-race training or required essays of how one supports DEI does nothing but leads to division, fuels emotion and hate.
DEI produces rage.
BTW, I am not white.
Excuse me Upstate? Where was I illogical? I have to say that I am quite offended/confused being attacked by someone that I agree with almost daily and someone who almost always has a positive response to my comments.
If I said something that you found illogical I would be very happy to hear what it was and to be given a chance to either defend my comment or to explain my comment.
HullBobby,
Sorry, just saw this.
I was not clear. I only meant it seemed a bit on the personal side vs observations.
My apologies.
” If a word question involved croquet and you don’t have experience with it, the question suddenly became harder. Rich, white people have an edge. The English language may not in and of itself be racist but it’s usage certainly is” In Africa who would be in charge? In America who would be in charge? As to dealing with it, the Supreme Court should rule now to eliminate, affirmative action, tokenism, reducing standards, etc. If white man is eliminated, will have South Africa rules of no laws and no structure. With all the Democrat control of most of US large cities already reached that dystopian stage. US already in final swirls into the drain. Be like Cassius Clay AKA Muhammed Ali; he said, thank God his great great Granddaddy got on that boat. Selah
What you are talking about is vocabulary. Our family plays word games with each other. Going into the 3rd generation. We come across words and use them on each other, trying to stump them. We learn the deffinitions, usage, etc.
The point is, vocabulary comes from your environment. Both our kids entered kindergarten, with 5th grade vocabularies. Because we never talked down to their age. This has nothing to do with race. It is the difference between having children, and Rearing children to be productive adults.
iowan2: Nice comment.
(p.s., after we were bloated from eating Thanksgiving meal every year, our family would play “Password” for hours afterward. Same/similar result.
I had wondered for some time if there was a measurable advantage in talking with children as if they were adults insofar as development of vocabulary and communication style is concerned, that is posing the question of whether or not teachers and others having influence over the child will themselves subconsciously presume the child to be of greater ability and intellect, due to their language usage, and thus steer the child into a higher level of expectation thus opening doors to them at a younger age than others.
And also, if such a child was then able to command a great vocabulary and use would there be a possible cost in that other children would view them as being precocious and ridicule them into becoming more shy and reserved. If so, would this cost be an acceptable trade off toward the greater good for the child?
Darren: Nice thought-provoking addition. Speaking of “expectation,” I am reminded of, I think it was Erich Fromm, who said something to the effect of (this is NOT verbatim), ‘you become not of your own self-image, but rather, the reflection of yourself in others eyes…’
If there is truth in this, then both of your contemplations carry weight.
Darren Smith — I never talked down to any of my 6 children and all did quite well at school.
Darren, what happens is normal instinctual judgement. We all make thousands of judgements instantly. Of course the only thing available is our 5 senses. sight, sound, touch, smell, taste. Meeting people, what we see and hear, are the first to come into play. Then we have sorted out thru evolution, and life experience, what proxies we choose to use. What did they look like, what do they sound like. That all depends on our lived experience. Like dad explained to me…you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
People that insist they shouldn’t be judged so quickly, ignore thousands of years of evolution.
So yes, if you sound smart, that is the impression people start with.
I’m reminded of Rush Limbaugh always advising the poor, if they wanted to be thought of as smart, start by sounding smart. know your language. I often work with people have multiple doctorates. In my field I can hold my own with those much smarter, and better educated. But knowing the topic lexicon and learning how to ask intelligent questions, most never figure out I don’t have a degree.
“If a word question involved croquet …”
Come on, was there that word recently on an SAT? How many presumably “upper white-culture” words have you noted on the tests? I’d even bet that most if not all High School graduate blac𝜅s attempting a prestigious university admission know the word “croquet”, which I even doubt is on any tests. This is an old phony
complaint that test designers have long been aware of.
Let’s keep the SAT tests and stop encouraging blac𝜅s to be a excuse for lowering of standards. There’s been too much of that.
End PC: To your point, have you and others noticed how many MINORITY/FOREIGN students of immigrants in this country excel on SAT and spelling competitions?
Right, esp East Asians, so lets have an end to calling all these standardized testing “racist”, keep standards high to encourage hard work, and definitely do away with the anti-white & anti-Asian discrimination called “Affirmative Action” that is a violation of the ’64 Civil Rights Law anyway.
lin,
I happened to score well on the SAT, finishing in the 95th percentile in both English and Math. Thinking back, it may be related to my participation in my elementary school’s spelling bee, where I finished 2nd in 5th Grade and 1st in 6th Grade. I didn’t happen to be a good speller. It came directly from the several evenings a week my mother and I spent working on my spelling, drinking 16oz Pepsi’s and eating Old Dutch potato chips. Success in spelling bees and most endeavors comes from hard work. The ability to put in the time for that work is affected by many factors, some having much more to do with class than race but don’t all class advantages also have racial ones? Something for you to think about when you “notice” differences based on race.
“Croquet” was put on the test to favor Asians and Jews as they seem to do significantly better than Waspy white folk on all portions of the SAT.
So why do the children of immigrants from Asia have fewer problems than whites on all portions of the SAT. Was there a conspiracy to design the tests to favor Asians over whites? Of course not. They favor cultures that value education and mastering the lingua franca of whatever culture you live in. If I fail to learn standardized Mandarin, I’ll fail in most tests in Mandarin speaking China. A black kid not knowing “croquet” is biased against those who fail to get a comprehensive education in the standard English used throughout English speaking society. SAT/ACT cater to the dominant not the minority culture. That is the only way thn can predict one’s ability to perform not in an isolated minority situation but in the most comprehensive one. Imagine if we used hood slang as the standard in the SAT. It’d predict success in a most narrow cultural circumstance rather than a more universal one.
https://www.ivyscholars.com/2022/07/27/are-the-sats-biased/
https://www.clearchoiceprep.com/sat-act-prep-blog/the-most-infamous-example-of-cultural-bias-on-the-sat
Salid Salabim: The dominant “lingua franca” of the entire world/globe is English, virtually in all spheres of human culture.
There are certain forces wishing to change this, but for now, every student has equal opportunity to make use of this language to further his career/lot in life. At least until we land on Mars.
Whiney, and small can be applied to other complaints of discrimination, it all depends on perspective. Leftist ideology is incapable with free speech, good will debate, and treating dissent with tolerance and respect. Democrats are the problem with the US, and Leftism is destroying the West. There is no systemic racism in the United States. There are Democrat run cities that governed much like plantations were when Democrats ruled the South. Democrats are the party of the KKK, Jim Crow, Urban Ghettos and run-away black on black crime.
Sam.
“There is no systemic racism in the United States.”
That right there is the barrier, refusal to acknowledge or address the obvious prevents change.
“testing is biased in terms of favoring people with a certain economic and cultural backgroung. If a word question involved croquet and you don’t have experience with it, the question suddenly became harder. Rich, white people have an edge. The English language may not in and of itself be racist but it’s usage certainly is.”
Then people should be as broadly educated as they reasonably can be. Regarding the word cricket, I know it means more than a kind of hopping insect, that it is a baseball-ish game (sort of) played primarily in Britain or other related countries. I have never played cricket but I have seen pictures of it being played. Yes, I would struggle if a test had any depth about cricket (or croquet for that matter), but I could attach it some to countries where either is popular, where they are played, and at least some of the equipment that is associated with either (and, no, croquet does not use hedgehogs or flamingos). I grew up poor but my schools and my family made sure I learned about the wider world. You can get a pretty darn good education if you seek out knowledge at school or for “a $1.50 in late charges at the public library”.
Prairie Rose: Your last sentence is a humdinger of a good ending/for a good ending!
(p.s. I was anemic as a kid. Doctor told my mom to get me to eat “organ meats (liver, kidney, etc.) I was not allowed to leave the table and go outside until I did so. I protested and crawled under the table. Months later, when my parents opened up the table to insert a leaf for Thanksgiving dinner, a dried-up, petrified rock-like piece of liver fell out, along with a long-overdue library book that my parents had to purchase from the library, as it was never returned.
lin, my mother used to put a leather belt on the dinner table as a reminder that if we did not eat all of our food, she would whip us. I learned to eat all of my food. Dinner was often fried eggs, white rice and a banana. I came to love that dish as an adult because of the fond memories. The darkest day of my life was seeing my mother’s coffin descend into the ground. My father died the previous year, and I was in my 30s. Not a day goes by today that I fail to talk about my parents to anyone, everyone. They are my heroes. They never finished grammar school in Cuba, and consequently never learned Spanish well nor English because they had no grammatical foundation. They busted their backs working 6 days per week, 12 hours a day, in menial jobs, to make sure their children were not like them: uneducated. My parents could not tutor me nor help with my homework. I just had to burn the candle at both ends. How did I do?
My father used to drive in Miami and stare at blacks. He would ask in Spanish, “why are they standing on the corners at midday, doing nothing?” I tell people that story often in Richmond where blacks do the same thing. Richmond is 50% black. Hispanics like my parents do the jobs that blacks refuse to do because it is “beneath them”.
I used to relish correcting the English utilization of Americans, but particularly blacks like Enigma. Unlike Hispanics like me, blacks have been in this country for hundreds of years, receiving a free public school education at least since the 1960s. As Thomas Sowell has noted, blacks were far better off in America prior to LBJ / Democrats “helping” them. Behold blacks today. Their English is pathetic, going as far, as ignorance and an ethos of grievance dictate, to justify creating “ebonics”. Talk about shooting for the gutter. No wonder the black grievance industry despises Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, et al
When I was a kid Americans used to mock my English. It just made me work harder to perfect it. When they continued mocking me because of my skin color, strange long last name, my cultural traditions, my accent, I would think to myself: “one day you will be working for me”. Guess what I do in clinic? give orders to others: nurses, pharmacists, staff, patients and I often have to educate other physicians who have forgotten their basic medical sciences.
You can not help people who refuse to help themselves. Heck, blacks are their worst enemies, given how they treat their wives/girlfriends, their children, their neighbors in housing projects. The highest violent crime rate in Richmond is in housing projects where blacks live. Wait a few generations. Natural selection will rid them of the gene pool, and that is on them.
Stop helping blacks. I made it in America without a dime of welfare. Not one red cent of welfare entered our family home. If I can make it, literally anybody else can.
Estoy muy agradecido por todo lo que este país me ha dado pero especialmente oportunidad.
(I am very thankful for everything this country has given me but especially opportunity)
America is a great country.
Estovir: Thanks for the inspiring read. Notwithstanding, my perception of you, based entirely on your comments that I have read over the last year or so, is that you are much more multi-faceted than that of your Miami Hispanic upbringing. I see a complex being of ethnicity, religiousity, academic curiosity, professional footprint (with a dash of humor for spice). Not as religious as you might be, but dare I venture to say that God put you where you are for a reason…Thanks for continuing on this blog.
(p.s. I got mocked too, but for “toothpick legs.”
(I took up bicycling.)
Esto es hermoso. Gracias por compartir aquí tus inspiradoras palabras.
Sí, Estados Unidos es un gran país. Y personas como tú y tu familia lo hacen aún mejor.
“America is a great country.”
🙂
“I never dreamt of success. I worked for it.” — Estée Lauder
Estovir,
“I used to relish correcting the English utilization of Americans, but particularly blacks like Enigma. Unlike Hispanics like me, blacks have been in this country for hundreds of years, receiving a free public school education at least since the 1960s.”
You have managed in two sentences to demonstrate how you lump all Black people together and how little you know of American history. I invite you to explore that “free public school education since at least the 1960s.” You probably aren’t aware that in many jurisdictions, school boards didn’t begin to desegregate schools until forced to do so under federal consent decrees, some of which are only going out of effect because the Trump administration would no longer enforce them. I won’t even get into the difference between the segregated schools and their limited resources.
Your suggestion that Hispanics are recent arrivals to America is based on a very narrow view given that a huge chunk of America used to be Mexico. America’s expansion into Mexico might have been greater but for racists like John C. Calhoun who advocated against it because there were “too many Mexicans.” You seem to be missing the point that affirmative action benefited Hispanics as well as Black people (and women). Hispanic people lost out with the elimination of affirmative action which has also been a cap on minority admissions. You have been brainwashed and are actively brainwashing others.
Excellent post!
“Helping people” in times other than a temporary crisis demeans them, and hinders their natural desire to achieve through the tyranny of low expectations.. This is the structure of the plantation.
Lin,
“Your last sentence is a humdinger of a good ending/for a good ending!”
A great line from Good Will Hunting. I was being a tad unoriginal, though, by stealing his line. 🙂
“a dried-up, petrified rock-like piece of liver fell out, along with a long-overdue library book that my parents had to purchase from the library, as it was never returned.”
Interesting…
Haha! Great image! Liver can be as challenging to cook as its taste is to mask. Perhaps the poor liver was already cooked beyond the shoe leather stage to the petrified rock stage before it made its way into the hidey hole?
Reading at the table was at least sometimes allowed, which is a sign you sought out learning nigh on whenever and wherever you could.
Lin,
I say interesting because it’s funny how the world lines up sometimes.
Prairie Rose, I started to say I have no general complaints about my education from my schools whether Black or white, public or private. Then I remembered taking the city bus across town from 7th to 12th grade to avoid the poorer quality school in my neighborhood. That public school had less books, poorer facilities and many of the teachers didn’t want to be there. My neighbor was an Asst. Principal there and suggested to my parents I stay exactly where I was, though I might have been an asset to their basketball team. There are factors besides hard work and will that affect the quality of education you receive. Some of them are systemic though that’s a word people are trying to erase. Minneapolis entered into a federal consent decree because of their failure to provide equal education and eliminate discrimination. This was happening all over the country despite Brown v Board having happened twenty years before my time in high school. There are segregated schools today in Mississippi, New York, and elsewhere.
I learned a lot in school but virtually nothing about history that wasn’t slanted and distorted. We weren’t teaching that George Washington never told a lie, but but never heard about him hunting down an escaped slave of his or Thomas Jefferson having teen boys beaten in the nailery at Monticello. Questions related to that never appear on the SAT earlier.
I scored very well on standardized tests and never understood why others didn’t, until I tutored students who signed up for The Princeton Review, a resource available to those who could afford it. The tests are skewed to those familiar with the environmemts described on the test. Just saying.
Our Founders were flawed but what they built is timeless and for all people. George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington both proudly bore the same name as that Mr. President, George Washington. What legacy did they leave behind that we could consider as inspiration for our own endeavors?
Enigma, you are confusing race and class.
I taught lots of lower- and working-class white kids who hadn’t a clue as to what croquet might be, who Bach might have been, how to structure an argument, how to study for an essay exam, or how to suck up to the professor.
The problem with seeing racism as the cause of all ills suffered by lower and working-class blacks (or Hispanics, or Indians, or Asians, or Irish) is that it is monocausal argument, and monocausal argument are never true when it comes to human interaction.
You might want to expand your search for causes and adopt the other shoe strategem, e.g., how would you react if you were forced to declare to be true assertions which you considered to be both false and harmful to your students?
Name an example where priority is granted based on class that has no impact due to race? I do believe class is the main reason for supporting racism whether it was slavery, the Black Codes. Jim Crow, voter suppression, and ending affirmative action. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t disproportionately affect several races, not just Black people. As for the lower and working class kids you taught, they weren’t really desired either.
I have no problem identifying other causes, however, some segments of America start with the premise that systemic racism doesn’t exist, there’s no such thing as voter suppression, white supremacy somehow ended and the Nazis waving flags and swaztikas in my state are really Democrats hoping to embarass DeSantis or Trump.
“however, some segments of America start with the premise that systemic racism doesn’t exist, there’s no such thing as voter suppression, white supremacy somehow ended and the Nazis waving flags and swaztikas in my state are really Democrats hoping to embarass DeSantis or Trump.”
The question is the significance of the things you mention.
Take voter suppression. Define it. Are voters stopped from going to the polls? No. Are voters with proper registration and ID prevented from voting? No.
Your entire argument falls apart and I only dealt with one of the arguments. To you voter suppression is not having a cab pick you up at your home to take you to and back from the polls.
Last week, Georgina Mendoza, daughter of Mexican immigrants, graduated Valedictorian in her Colonial Heights, Virginia high school, also graduated with an Associates Degree from her local community college, worked part-time at her local grocery store, and lives in a region that is 16% Black with a crime index of 4 (safer than 4% of U.S. neighborhoods.)
“It’s truly an honor to be Valedictorian for Petersburg High School Class of 2023,” Mendoza said. “I really wanted to get those credits and get the head start cause I always knew wanted to go to college. So I just thought it would be great to have those two years of general courses out of the way.
Mendoza’s success has of course made her family very proud. “She works very hard,” Georgina’s mother Emelia Mendoza said
https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/petersburg-valedictorian-georgina-mendoza-
What was Georgina Mendoza’s key to success?
What was Estovir’s key to success?
What was my wife’s key to success?
What is Enigma’s key to success?
All three had it tough; I can’t speak for Enigma. I know there were no food stamps, welfare, no money starting from scratch, and no English proficiency for my wife. Yours was similar. Georgina demonstrated an excellent work ethic.
Why has Enigma’s way not worked out for millions who have the advantages of being born in this country and thereby reasonably proficient in English, welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, etc.?
Why haven’t people written about the different methodologies, or have they and the Enigma just hasn’t read it?
I was taught not to complain about things, to do something to correct them, and not to focus on the negatives, but, to learn from them and do things better. If I had claimed victimhood, I would have been thrown out of the house.
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“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” Attributed to Einstein.
I think the issue is that you’re just unable to differentiate white individuals from a mass of “whypipo,” and no member of the “whypipo” deserves any rights of any kind, at least not as against claims by blacks. “Whypipo” are a force to be acted upon and against in your worldview, not people with lives and hopes and dreams and talents to be fulfilled. There is no abuse of “whypipo” that shocks your conscience, no indignity heaped upon “whypipo” beneath the minimum standard of a civil society in your view. If fates were different than they are, you would have made a terrific Kalashnikov-toting Premier of a post-colonial Central African nation, cursing the “whypipo” you drove out while increasingly unable to provide the population with potable water and basic sanitation.
One can hope that this case goes to discovery and if to a trial then the findings will be entered into the public record. A few hundred years from now, an historian will have the opportunity to dig through the transcripts and will discover a society that lost its bearings and went off the cliff. This will certainly be educational for future generations to study and consider.
@E.M.
You show great faith in the assumption that there will *be* a functional human race hundreds of years from now. I’m thinking between leftists and our dumpster fire of a younger generation, we’ll be lucky to clear another 80 years. 😂
Communists; Leftists, too, but Communists is certainly clearer.
James,
Yeah.
Read an article a week ago about a company had to hire someone to teach GenZ new hires how to function in the physical work place.
I have a good friend who is a teacher in a public school. She says those kids are even worse.
There’s a pattern here: If minorities aren’t doing well, it’s due to racism, and so we have to lower the bar for them to achieve “equity.” Same as in: If there are too many minorities in prison, it’s due to racism, so we have to discard bail and sentencing standards, or just close down the prisons. Too many minorities who are resisting arrest and shooting at cops, and getting themselves killed? Just get rid of the cops. On and on. Change the system, not the behaviors. No Democrat has the brains or the courage to look beyond their “equity” chant to get to the real problems with minorities: failure of the family and of accountability.
“There’s a pattern here: If minorities aren’t doing well, it’s due to racism, and so we have to lower the bar for them to achieve “equity.” Same as in: If there are too many minorities in prison, it’s due to racism, so we have to discard bail and sentencing standards, or just close down the prisons. Too many minorities who are resisting arrest and shooting at cops, and getting themselves killed? Just get rid of the cops. On and on. Change the system, not the behaviors. No Democrat has the brains or the courage to look beyond their “equity” chant to get to the real problems with minorities: failure of the family and of accountability.”
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This is a direct result of the SCOTUS’ ill-considered “disparate impact” test for discrimination. Throwing intent to the wind and removing any thought of personal responsibility for actions or inactions, the Court embarked upon a social engineering experiment to find discrimnation even when there wasn’t any. It trickled down to the masses who now feel any negative thing happening to any minority group is the result of “invidious” discrimination. The Court had a noble thought to cure human nature but as usual naivete is its own punishment.
A correction of Mr Anonymous’ comment of 6:46 am. Last I looked in the history section of my library (which is about half of it), I saw that every successful culture of Humanity has stolen or ripped off ideas from just about every other culture on the planet. The unsuccessful cultures sit on their little islands of isolation in a deep valley or on a real island and simply turn inward and go nowhere.
They then fall prey to the more advanced cultures due to advanced technology and disease (when you isolate yourself your immune systems are less and less challenged by diseases of the rest of the world and when it suddenly bursts upon you, you culture is crippled and technology pretty much does the rest).
Egypt stole war chariots from the Hittites, Macedonia stole the phalanx from Greece but lengthened the Sarissas (spears) and added cavalry.
The Romans stole from the Etruscans, the Greeks, and the Carthaginian’s. All the cultures from Egypt in the West to Indus Valley in the east stole from each other. It’s called trade, war, thievery, diplomacy, conquest.
United States acquired quite a bit from almost every culture in the world, because they literally all came here.
Why is American English so different from UK English? Because of Spanish, French, German, Indigenous tribes of North America, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Various African music and dialogue and on and on.
American designed electronics propel Russian missiles and drones, Chinese jets and ships are rip offs of American design and technology. Now the world steals from us. From the atomic bomb on down.
If no one steals from you then it likely mean’s you have little of worth to steal.
My Anonymous get real! This is basic history 101.
The Marxists in universities are really counter intuitive. If you want to steal or learn something, steal from the successful and not the castoff leavings along the road (which is what Marxism is). You study the failures to see why they failed but you don’t copy them.
Bingo!
My father graduated from Penn State College of Engineering in 1942 and is probably rolling in his grave seeing this. I guess this takes “grading on a curve” to new heights. Maybe grading on a rainbow ??? If Mr. Di Piero’s claims can be proven, Lenin’s teachings have gone deeper than we thought in today’s Amerika. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
Read ” When race trumps Merit” , by Heather Macdonald.
Charles: I hope others will take you up on this.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/105387593-when-race-trumps-merit
De Piero also alleges that faculty were encouraged to participate in anti-racist workshops and trainings, including one titled “White Teachers are the Problem.”
“Trainings”? That’s a joke. I had to take these “trainings” and “classes” when I worked for a large corporation. They are Orwellian gathering in which a left-wing instructor requires everyone to agree with his or her extremist propaganda, and you can’t leave the class – and neither can your classmates – until you express agreement.
@oldman
This is accurate. My mother in-law experienced the same as a psychiatrist working in a prison. The ‘class’ was led by someone a third of her age. My mother in-law is a first generation immigrant from Pakistan. None of the left’s juvenile, Marxist drivel is even remotely attached to her. Thankfully, she is extraordinarily well traveled and intelligent and saw right through it, but her job depended on attendance and compliance.
I blame nepotism for a lot of it, but putting idiot children (some of whom are now passing 40) in positions of authority, though certainly not the only mistake, was a big, big one.
Amerika!
“. . . the racism is in the results . . .”
That is an evil, racist grading policy called “race norming” (which has been around for years). It is the wicked deceit whereby graders concoct an outcome (in actual grades or percentages) to create the illusion that certain minorities performed better than they actually did.
It is a typical Leftist attempt to use race to alter reality.
The Left’s Propaganda Machine:
“White supremacy exists in the language itself, and therefore, that the English language itself is ‘racist.”
Use education to sell propaganda.
Use the media to peddle propaganda.
Use business to hawk propaganda.
Use art and entertainment to push propaganda.
Use the law to enforce propaganda.
I think the Left is trying to sell us something.
Discovery is not needed to put the March 29, 2019 e-mail from Naydan into evidence. I can 100% guarantee that said e-mail is already in the Plaintiff’s possession, both in digital and hard copy forms. The defense, of course, is “racial justice”, meaning that because of slavery and historical “racism”, the black students should be given a pass regardless of their academic work (or lack thereof). That perverted sense of “justice”, swallowed whole by the Democrat Party in order to stem the exodus of black voters from the Democrat Plantation, is the foundation of the entire DEI structure. Such a mass delusion can succeed for a short time, but at some point the masses will have a lucid moment and it will come crashing down.
disparate outcomes=racism.
I’m reminded of Ruth Bader Ginsberg SCOTUS nomination hearing. One of the Senators asked how many Blacks, women, minorities she had hired as law clerks. Zero is the exact number. She was unable to explain how SCOTUS could uphold employment law that required employers to hire a percentage of blacks, or be guilty of racist hiring practices. She said her situation was different, because shut up.
A sure sign of our judeo led country is their non-stopping penchant for blatant hypocrisy.
iowan2, she doesn’t appear to have been alone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/12/12/supreme-court-clerks-are-not-a-particularly-diverse-lot/
Well enigma. Are they all racist?…Or are they all guilty of hiring the very best applicants?
Its called meritocracy. In direct opposition to affirmative action.
iowan2, If all racism is excused and justified, what is the chance it will be eradicated?