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Race Ruling Strikes Blow for Harmonius Future

by Marie Gryphon

April 23, 2002

Ms. Gryphon is a policy analyst with the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. She is also a former practicing attorney with the Seattle law firm of Sirianni & Youtz.

Seattle parent Kathleen Brose thought her teenage daughter's generation would be safe from the ill-effects of racial discrimination experienced by older Americans. She realized she was wrong, though, when she found herself forced to explain to her daughter Catherine that she had been denied admission to Ballard high school because of her race. Of course Catherine found the experience shocking. Her lucky generation has grown up largely innocent of discrimination. Why would the Seattle School District mess with such a good thing?

Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this past Tuesday that the Seattle school district must stop using students' race as the deciding factor when assigning thousands of teenagers to the city's public high schools. The court based its decision on I-200, the Washington law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race in public employment, contracting or school admissions.

By affirming that I-200 means what it says, the federal court has helped Washingtonians to promote an opportunity unique to the newest generation of young people - a chance at a largely colorblind future.

Shamed by centuries of racial discrimination, 20th century America embarked on a mission to root out vestiges of the old evil in schools and workplaces. The civil rights revolution was more than just a public sector event. It was a national change of heart, permeating the recesses of private clubs, exclusive preparatory academies, professional enclaves, and personal friendships. This cultural shift has been one of the great accomplishments of our age.

Recently it has become increasingly clear that our cultural obsession with race will not go easily. Thankfully, racial animus is now a cultural artifact in all but the most backward recesses of American cultural life. Yet, the racial consciousness once necessary to the civil rights struggle now finds a neurotic outlet in the current insistent focus on racial differences, and on scant remaining evidence of "cultural oppression." Though decently intended, this latest manifestation of our shared psychological baggage may doom a new generation to a lifetime of division and struggle.

As Heather MacDonald recently reported in the City Journal, the PC overkill born on the nation's college campuses has found its way into the nation's high schools, with outstanding private academies leading the way. High school curricula in some schools now include generous servings of identity politics: courses such as "Issues in Gender Relations" and textbooks such as "Teaching and Learning for Diversity and Social Justice."

But boosters of recent efforts to educate adolescents in the politics of oppression are shaking their heads. The kids just don't get it. One educator complains that students of all races possess a "combination of optimism and naiveté" leading them to "attribute the race issue to an older generation." Another multicultural guru complains that students think, "Adults don't get it: we're post civil rights; we're moving onto something else."

Fortunately, the Seattle schools have not succumbed to the worst excesses of recent efforts to make teenagers intensely conscious of racial distinctions. Why then, must the District use race to determine school assignment? For many students, the Seattle school assignment process has been their first real experience of racial discrimination.

Brose, who "values the diversity in public schools," says her daughter Catherine was hurt to learn she had been denied admission to Ballard high school because of her race. How do you tell today's adolescent, who may have never seen discrimination in her life, that her school district is treating her differently based on her skin color, and why would you ever want to?

The Seattle school district should recognize that it has a precious resource in this generation: these are the first Americans with no experience of racism as a culturally sanctioned attitude. Lacking personal ties to troubled history, they are delightfully baggage free. Seeing themselves as "post race," these teens are more likely than prior generations to date interracially, and to have friends of other races. It would be foolish to convince these kids that race is a present, pervasive source of division in their generation, and more foolish still to allow authority figures to reduce them to racial statistics when making important decisions about their lives.

By supporting I-200, Washingtonians sensibly decided that racial harmony flourishes best in an environment of no-fuss equal opportunities. By upholding the initiative's principles, a federal court has helped Seattlites stay the course to a discrimination free future.

This article originally appeared in the Seattle Times on April 23rd, 2002.