Supreme Court rejects affirmative action at colleges as unconstitutional

[Kwak]

How am I for banning schools from showing examples of systemic racism, when have I ever said anything along those lines? There's no law in Florida or any red state that you like to shit on (because you get your news from Twitter) that says something like red-lining can't be taught in school. Just teach history and systemic racism will be taught because it's literally unavoidable.

Wrong again.

-

Some officials have made it clear they are on the lookout for transgressions. In a speech last year, Richard Corcoran, the Florida education commissioner, said it was important to “police” teachers to make sure they are not indoctrinating students with a liberal agenda.
“I’ve censored or fired or terminated numerous teachers,” he said. “There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter and we made sure she was terminated.”
...


Laws limiting the teaching of race, gender and related questions now exist in Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Executive actions, such as rules approved by a state board of education, are in place in Alabama, Florida, Utah and Virginia. In Georgia, the state board of education approved a resolution along these lines, but it was never codified into rules. In Montana, the attorney general issued an opinion on the issue. In Arizona, a law that imposed limits on teaching race was invalidated by the state supreme court.
...


In New Hampshire, Given said she used to teach students about racial disparities in economics partly by tying relative lack of Black wealth to Jim Crow laws and discriminatory mortgage policies known as redlining. Not anymore.
“We started avoiding modern parallels in order to avoid any question coming up that we were, by including this information, we were somehow suggesting one group is better than the other,” she said.
...


In August, about a month after Oklahoma’s new law passed, administrators in Edmond, Okla., sent a slide presentation to staff saying that teachers should avoid using the terms “diversity” and “White privilege” during classroom discussions, according to a screenshot obtained by The Washington Post. Regan Killackey, who teaches English at Edmond Memorial High School, was so disturbed that he contacted the ACLU in Oklahoma and is now a plaintiff in a suit challenging the law.

“I was watching what was happening around me and ethically I couldn’t remain silent,” said Killackey, who is White and has taught for 18 years. This year, he said, “I have taught differently. I’ve had to edit myself in a way that I’ve never had to think about in my entire career.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/02/14/critical-race-theory-teachers-fear-laws/

 

[Trunkage]

How are Australia's youth supposed to learn about sticking to your convictions when supposed community leaders won't?

We couldn't even get that couple that promised they would get divorced because 'SSM destroys the sanctity of all marriages'

Also, waiting for SSM to do any damage to marriage

 

[Hawki]

That wasn't a referendum, though. It was a non-binding shitshow of a glorified opinion poll.

Also, the anti-same-sex marriage clowns claimed it would lead to someone marrying a bridge which still hasn't happened much to my disappointment.

Marrying a bridge?

Well, I'm sure we'll cross that suspended structure when we come to it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

We couldn't even get that couple that promised they would get divorced because 'SSM destroys the sanctity of all marriages'

Also, waiting for SSM to do any damage to marriage

Who can you trust when even radical christian fundamentalists won't stick to their word?

 

[Schadrach]

it will likely alienate the party from younger voters even more, and over time those alienated younger voters will become a larger and larger proportion of the electorate.

A.k.a. society moves forwards one casket at a time.

There's no law in Florida or any red state that you like to shit on (because you get your news from Twitter) that says something like red-lining can't be taught in school.

There is one that says you can't teach white schoolkids that they hold responsibility for or should feel guilt over redlining on the basis of being white though.

It's not that the test is racist itself.

Of course it is! Now, there's very little you can say about what makes a test question racist, or how to determine if one is when you write it so instead you just have to test a bunch of people of different ethnicities and see if the "correct" number of each group get it right. If not, then either you need to decolonize the test question or just give people of groups that aren't getting it right often enough an extra bonus, using some of that explicit measurable racism to counter that unmeasurable implicit racism with no clear source.

That's why I say you have to handout school money evenly, that's by far the biggest issue in education for kids getting differing quality of education.

Even if not evenly at a national level this wouldn't be that hard to do at a state level, and state legislatures are easier to lobby than Congress. Like, most schools are funded by local property taxes, it wouldn't be that hard to pool all the property taxes and distribute in a mix of per student and per school (some costs are fixed regardless of student body).

Hell, I'd even be for school voucher programs with one caveat - any school that accepts vouchers must accept voucher students on a first-come, first-served basis until all slots available for voucher students are filled and may charge no additional costs beyond the voucher itself. Here's what the state spends to educate a student, take it or leave it but if you take it that's all you get for them and you don't get to be picky who they are - welcome to public education. This of course makes voucher programs much less enticing to the very people who want them.

I always find it funny how religious people can ban certain medical treatments on employees' healthcare and pretend that doesn't break the 1st Amendment, but as soon as it can be twisted like your quote here into the religious being attacked so you HAVE to ban everything

See, I was opposed to that, because it's not really a 1A issue - if you are hiring a health insurance company to provide a plan for your employees, nothing about that requires you to express your support of any particular treatment covered by that plan. The insurance company is not performing a religious function for you, and you are not required to speak on any given service they cover, you can always forward those questions you find uncomfortable to the insurance company. No 1A violation, should have gone the other way.

Also, the anti-same-sex marriage clowns claimed it would lead to someone marrying a bridge which still hasn't happened much to my disappointment.

How would the bridge sign the paperwork? That's my biggest question there.

The majority never supported teaching middle schoolers how to give good handjobs,

I feel like I would have enjoyed the 90s a lot more if we were teaching middle schoolers how to give good hand jobs back then. But then, in the 90s I was a horny teenage boy, so of course I would have. Also, holy fuck 90s Cosmopolitan magazine sex tips had a bad habit of being things that could cause serious injury - sometimes I wonder if the goal was to present the most creative way of injuring male genitalia they could think of.

We couldn't even get that couple that promised they would get divorced because 'SSM destroys the sanctity of all marriages'

I feel like no-fault divorce beat SSM to that one. Being able to back out of a lifetime oath for any reason or no reason at all feels much more damaging to the sanctity of said oath than gay people being allowed to do the same.

 

[Ag3ma]

There is one that says you can't teach white schoolkids that they hold responsibility for or should feel guilt over redlining on the basis of being white though.

It doesn't just do that though, does it?

For instance, it effectively bans the teaching of concepts which are defensible theories which are accepted in academic discourse. One of the paragraphs could be interpreted as ban on teaching the concept of affirmative action, another explicitly makes it hard to discuss concepts of "privilege" which is a reasonably well established theory. An interesting bit demands that American history must be taught as "factual" rather than "constructed" which many historians might find alarming.

And now remember, this was also supposed to apply to universities. Even if we give them a pass on schools because you agree the delicate little brains of children can't handle complexity, you should be very worried about the legal restrictions they were putting on higher level discourse.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I feel like I would have enjoyed the 90s a lot more if we were teaching middle schoolers how to give good hand jobs back then. But then, in the 90s I was a horny teenage boy, so of course I would have. Also, holy fuck 90s Cosmopolitan magazine sex tips had a bad habit of being things that could cause serious injury - sometimes I wonder if the goal was to present the most creative way of injuring male genitalia they could think of.

I mean, as a jokey answer, "reminding conservatives how bad they are at sex through basic instruction" might not be that far off for why they hate this stuff. Like, I hate to say "grade level sex education", but a lot of this is very basic "so you don't end up in the emergency room" knowledge.

Part two, and I can relate to this on a very minor level, I think a lot of conservatives don't like this stuff because of it's emphasis on affirmative consent, and the sneaking, dreadful realization that maybe not all of their previous encounters were consensual. "And wouldn't that make me a bad person"? they fear. Then again, a decent portion of conservatives don't think marital rape is possible, so...

 

[Trunkage]

There is one that says you can't teach white schoolkids that they hold responsibility for or should feel guilt over redlining on the basis of being white though.

You also shouldn't punish everyone else because of racist parents

Of course it is! Now, there's very little you can say about what makes a test question racist, or how to determine if one is when you write it so instead you just have to test a bunch of people of different ethnicities and see if the "correct" number of each group get it right. If not, then either you need to decolonize the test question or just give people of groups that aren't getting it right often enough an extra bonus, using some of that explicit measurable racism to counter that unmeasurable implicit racism with no clear source.

I'll note that while the SAT was created by a racist Eugenicist, there has been a lot changes to the SAT to try and rectify it over the last 50 years. As you say, its hard to quantify the problem. And if you 'fix it', you might unintentionally disadvantage another group

Also, there is an inherent problem with relying on a single test for university entrance. And how this can be studied for which benefits rich people greatly as they can pay for the SAT tutors

Even if not evenly at a national level this wouldn't be that hard to do at a state level, and state legislatures are easier to lobby than Congress. Like, most schools are funded by local property taxes, it wouldn't be that hard to pool all the property taxes and distribute in a mix of per student and per school (some costs are fixed regardless of student body).

Hell, I'd even be for school voucher programs with one caveat - any school that accepts vouchers must accept voucher students on a first-come, first-served basis until all slots available for voucher students are filled and may charge no additional costs beyond the voucher itself. Here's what the state spends to educate a student, take it or leave it but if you take it that's all you get for them and you don't get to be picky who they are - welcome to public education. This of course makes voucher programs much less enticing to the very people who want them.

Here's a positive thing about rich people - they are very good at gaming the system. They will find a different way to make it enticing

See, I was opposed to that, because it's not really a 1A issue - if you are hiring a health insurance company to provide a plan for your employees, nothing about that requires you to express your support of any particular treatment covered by that plan. The insurance company is not performing a religious function for you, and you are not required to speak on any given service they cover, you can always forward those questions you find uncomfortable to the insurance company. No 1A violation, should have gone the other way.

I mean, I really dislike the idea of health insurance being tied to an employer. I don't know why giving that power to an employer benefits anyone other than the employer

I feel like no-fault divorce beat SSM to that one. Being able to back out of a lifetime oath for any reason or no reason at all feels much more damaging to the sanctity of said oath than gay people being allowed to do the same.

This was from an Australian agrument, but an international context, I understand that's what is seen as THE destroyer of the sanctity of marriage

Now, I do find this a bit ridiculous and post hoc reasoning. For example, one of the reasons why no-fault divorce came about was allowing women to have autonomy in the relationship. If the basis of marriage is forcing someone to be marriage, its not really a marriage IMO. I.e. it had no real sanctity.

Also, my grandparents were ostracized because one was protestant and one was Catholic. And they were forced to adopt out kids from such a union. This wasn't that long ago. I don't feel like sanctity of marriage was preserved by my grandparents congregations

Sanctity of marriage was well destroyed before no fault divorce. Sanctity here just means purity.... as in, keeping it the way Christian like it. It's not about tradition or the Bible or even marriage. It's about power and forcing people

 

[Hawki]

Wrong again.

-

Some officials have made it clear they are on the lookout for transgressions. In a speech last year, Richard Corcoran, the Florida education commissioner, said it was important to “police” teachers to make sure they are not indoctrinating students with a liberal agenda.
“I’ve censored or fired or terminated numerous teachers,” he said. “There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter and we made sure she was terminated.”
...

Firing seems a bit overboard, but I have to ask why a BLM flag (or similar object) is being hung in the classroom. BLM is a political organization, and however you feel about it, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that teachers should be able to hang up, unless there's explicit permission to.

“I was watching what was happening around me and ethically I couldn’t remain silent,” said Killackey, who is White and has taught for 18 years. This year, he said, “I have taught differently. I’ve had to edit myself in a way that I’ve never had to think about in my entire career.”

So...basically like tertiary education then?

Again, this sucks, but none of it is new, the fear's just from a different source.

 

[Kwak]

Again, this sucks, but none of it is new, the fear's just from a different source.

How is it 'not new' if it is causing them to change the way they USED to do something?
That means it's 'new', because of the way time works.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Marrying a bridge?

Well, I'm sure we'll cross that suspended structure when we come to it.

It'll never happen. That would mean tolling bridges is prostitution, and would therefore be illegal.

 

[Ag3ma]

BLM is a political organization

Is it? It doesn't stand people for office or explicitly endorse political parties. This is what I generally expect of a political organisation.

I think here you're running into the age-old issue that "everything is political". If BLM is political, so are Greenpeace, LGBTQ+ organisations, and a surprisingly large number of other organisations, because their views on social topics will also be relevant to current political debate. It is questionable whether classrooms should be shutting them all down.

 

[Hawki]

Is it? It doesn't stand people for office or explicitly endorse political parties. This is what I generally expect of a political organisation.

BLM has leaders, however decentralized, and has views that would be regarded as political in most circumstances (anti-capitalist, Marxist, the defund/abolish police push, dedicated to "black liberation," etc.) Also, while this is hearsay, in one of the councils I work at, an employee was forbidden from hanging up BLM memorabilia as it had a strict rule against employees having political displays at their work stations, not to mention that Wikipedia itself describes it as a political organization.

I think here you're running into the age-old issue that "everything is political". If BLM is political, so are Greenpeace, LGBTQ+ organisations, and a surprisingly large number of other organisations,

I don't think everything is political, but I would say that Greenpeace is, in that among other things, it's engaged in lobbying. Not every environmental organization is a political one ipso facto, but Greenpeace is definitely in the political sphere.

It is questionable whether classrooms should be shutting them all down.

Classrooms should absolutely engage in debate, what is debatable is whether teachers should be allowed to bring in political memorabilia, or similar things.

 

[Ag3ma]

BLM has leaders, however decentralized, and has views that would be regarded as political in most circumstances (anti-capitalist, Marxist, the defund/abolish police push, dedicated to "black liberation," etc.)

Right. And so when Greenpeace wants divestment from fossil fuels, protected environmental zones, etc. that's not political? When a transexual group wants expanded rights for people to change gender, that's not political either? How do you get to that reasoning?

I don't think everything is political

Politics about the decision-making process in a society (/ community / organisation). Anything that involves a discussion about society and what do about something in society is political to some extent.

In fact, it is through politics that an organisation is officially deemed to be political in the first place!

 

[Hawki]

Right. And so when Greenpeace wants divestment from fossil fuels, protected environmental zones, etc. that's not political?

What? Of course that's political. I literally said in the above post that I'd call Greenpeace a political organization.

When a transexual group wants expanded rights for people to change gender, that's not political either?

Um, yes? That would be political.

Politics about the decision-making process in a society (/ community / organisation). Anything that involves a discussion about society and what do about something in society is political to some extent.

In fact, it is through politics that an organisation is officially deemed to be political in the first place!

First, I'm not sure what any of that has to do with classrooms, or the question as to whether teachers should be able to display political slogans.

Second, you're ignoring organizations that don't engage in politics. It's not even inherently good or bad for an organization to do so, but it's silly to put something like Greenpeace on the same level as, say, Conservation Volunteers Australia (where I volunteered way back in the day) on the basis that "everything is political," or "both are environmental groups, so if one is political, the other must be."

 

[Ag3ma]

What? Of course that's political. I literally said in the above post that I'd call Greenpeace a political organization.

So, you'd say a Greenpeace flag in a classroom is verboten? What about Pride flags? Are they political slogans, too?

First, I'm not sure what any of that has to do with classrooms, or the question as to whether teachers should be able to display political slogans.

Okay, so politics should stay out of the classroom. Where's our boundary, here? For the purposes of official action, who is setting that boundary, and why?

To what extent are politicised committees determining curricula? What are we talking about when a teacher is sacked for displaying a flag, but the ruling political party has the liberty to rig the education boards and curriculum to present the view of the world that it wants?

 

[Absent]

. Not every environmental organization is a political one ipso facto, but Greenpeace is definitely in the political sphere.

As soon as you have a political party whose worldviews, values, policies and priorities conflict with environmentalism and ecological concern, an environmental organisation is political. It advocate for values and responsibilities that hinder a political model. You cannot defend the environment without being on a collision course with a political current who aims to sacrifice it for profit. This is a political impact.

Any advocacy that touches on public policies, social rules, legal rights, is political. And negociating the place of the environment within our spectrum of freedoms, concerns, priorities and imperatives, in particular, is a political action.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As soon as you have a political party whose worldviews, values, policies and priorities conflict with environmentalism and ecological concern, an environmental organisation is political. It advocate for values and responsibilities that hinder a political model. You cannot defend the environment without being on a collision course with a political current who aims to sacrifice it for profit. This is a political impact.

Any advocacy that touches on public policies, social rules, legal rights, is political. And negociating the place of the environment within our spectrum of freedoms, concerns, priorities and imperatives, in particular, is a political action.

Ok, going off on a tangent, but I'd argue that even if every party was in lockstep about environmental issues, they'd still be political, it just wouldn't be something that comes up in practice.

 

[Absent]

Ok, going off on a tangent, but I'd argue that even if every party was in lockstep about environmental issues, they'd still be political, it just wouldn't be something that comes up in practice.

It's one way to look at it, but it makes absolutely everything inherently political. Whereas I think thar things aren't inherently. They become so when they become a stake of collective policies.

For instance, laughing out loud in the street isn't political. It becomes so once it gets problematized and loaded with meanings supposedly or truly impacting the community. Either directly or indirectly (becoming the symbol of something impacting it).

Rainbows weren't always political.

 

[Gordon_4]

So, you'd say a Greenpeace flag in a classroom is verboten? What about Pride flags? Are they political slogans, too?



Okay, so politics should stay out of the classroom. Where's our boundary, here? For the purposes of official action, who is setting that boundary, and why?

To what extent are politicised committees determining curricula? What are we talking about when a teacher is sacked for displaying a flag, but the ruling political party has the liberty to rig the education boards and curriculum to present the view of the world that it wants?

I think where Hawki is driving this is, from our perspective, as teachers are largely employed as civil servants then it is expected that they discharge their duty in an as apolitical fashion as practicality demands.

Now obviously that’s probably really hard for teachers since their job is impart facts, nurture thinking and analytical skills and encourage curiosity. Doubly so for those in a country so politically fractured and adversarial as the United States.