Well, I’ve googled Kymberly Wimberly’s name, just to see how big this story is. It’s all over the interwebs.
If she were lying about having the highest GPA, wouldn’t a smart journalist have already blown this out of the water? Wouldn’t the school have defended itself by saying that the co-valedictorian was chosen because there was a scholastic tie between the two students? So far there have been crickets from their side. Why?
My research uncovered the fact that this young woman is also a mother. She became pregnant during her junior year. So not only did she have fantastic grades, but she didn’t miss a beat through one of the biggest “oopsies!” of her life. Now why would this young woman, unless she was completely psycho, invite further scrunity into her life and that of her family after dealing with that?
I understand being a skeptic, but come on. Not only does this girl have to have her victory yanked from her, but no one will believe her because what happened is just too hard to believe? In Little Rock, AK, where the National Guard had to escort black kids to school a few decades ago because of angry mobs? Wish I could share your naivety.
The article is slightly contradictory—it says both that the school “won’t allow [a] black valedictorian” and “denied her the valedictorian status,” but also that the school had “decided to name a… co-valedictorian.” Which is it?
A zillion years ago, the principal of my high school appointed a co-valedictorian for me. Race wasn’t a factor (I was white, the co-val wasn’t), but there were certainly political factors. It was a Catholic school, and co-val was Catholic (I wasn’t) and had been there all four years (I hadn’t). It was clearly an attempt to keep one of their own as valedictorian instead of awarding it to an outsider. My GPA was higher but only by a tiny fraction.
I only bring that up to show that this sort of thing is probably fairly common, though still wrong.
If the other appointee had any honor, he / she would refuse. I’d love to see the principal met with refusal after refusal as he went down the list of high-GPA white kids.
Will you just fuckin’ spit it out already! You’re obviously slamming the woman’s credibility and linking it to where she works. I’ve already offered my opinion for why I think her employment makes her more believable rather than less. While you just sit there insinuating. Stop playing and actually post something meaningful, dude.
Some of ya’ll are pissing me off more than the story. I seriously doubt that if this were a white valedictorian who’d been paired up with a black valedictorian for alleged “PC” reasons, you would be as skeptical.
The school district might be in the middle of a white flight (which would be why, when whites are barely the majority race, they’re advertising themselves as “predominantly white”). The administrators are ostensibly mostly-white. Having a black valedictorian in a situation like that might draw more black people to move to the school district, and they don’t want that. They may have thought it was a worthy gamble to risk the wrath of one black woman to save their long-term property values. After all, insurance companies are the ones paying out for lawsuits like these, not the schools themselves. The school will pay in higher future premiums, but it’s amortized over time (and not coming out of the administrators’ own pockets, anyway). Higher district costs never result in slashed admin salaries, just in slashed education budgets that hurt the teachers and students.
BTW, I would have LOVED to be a fly on the wall at the meeting they had about this, hah. Racist cunts.
Anecdote time**!** My mom and dad and their siblings all grew up in Gary, Indiana. When my mom started at Wirt High School around 1975, Gary was just another poorish white suburb (iirc her class was 90+% white). By the time her younger brother graduated 10 years later, the school was 80+% black. Property values in Gary plummeted to nothing over that timespan. Over time, Gary has turned from a mostly-alright place for poor people to buy a starter home into a shitvortex.
I’m not saying that racist bullshit is right; nor am I saying that race was the only cause of Gary’s diminishing property values. I don’t even think white flight happens anymore nowadays. But fear of what happened in Gary might explain the whole situation. However, I am not a sociologist nor a geographer nor an economist, and most likely don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.
I think they are more worried about white parents fleeing than more blacks flocking. A black valedictorian might send a message that the school is too black (and thus not good enough…since if a black kid can be a valedictorian, how good can the curriculum be?)
I’m not sure when your parents were there, but Gary has always had a substantial black population. My mother grew up there and my grandmother still lives there. When my mother was growing up, her all-black neighborhood was solidly working class/middle class because everyone had good factory jobs. When the factories left, so did the people with the wherewithal. Leaving old people (like my grandmother) and the baddies to come in. Nana has bullet holes in her pre-fab house because she lives next to a crack den. Good luck making her move, though.
White flight still happens, by the way. But instead of running away from cities, whites are flying to them and driving up property values. Now you’re seeing blacks “flying” to the suburbs where living is cheaper. This is happening in places like D.C and Atlanta. Don’t think Gary will ever be on the list, though.
Well, this is just crazy paranoia, and IMHO the school would still deserve to be sued if this fear motivated them. I don’t know how much clout a school librarian has but I don’t think she’d have the ability to make her daughter have the highest GPA in the whole senior class. And if that speculation is the “big mess” the school was worried about? What kind of sheltered Mayberry place is this where the principal is afraid of that kind of talk?
Reading a little further, the student alleges that black students were systematically discouraged from taking AP courses. I still want to hear the other side of the story, but it sure sounds like discrimination was the rule rather than the exception.
Yeppers. This is what I was getting at. But I think the favoritism allegations (i.e., the “big mess”) could come not only in the girl’s grades, but in her selection as valedictorian. Based on the story, it appears that this school picks the valedictorian (i.e., it’s not just automatically the person with the highest grades).
Nope, I’m not doing that. How you could arrive at that conclusion is beyond me.
Right back atcha, duder. Your posts in this thread have been one meaningless RO-fest after another.
I definitely feel your pain there.
Right, because we are all racists. Poor little monstro, all alone in a world of racists, posting on a messageboard full of racists, with their racism. Monstro can’t get ahead because of the racists. Racey racist racism racists.
Are you suggesting that Valedictorians at this school are appointed rather than determined by GPA? This is contradicted in several of the news stories, many of them containing this: “The handbook says students will be given the same class rank only if their grades are the same, but in deciding class rank, students with lower GPAs who are taking more or harder classes will not be penalized. Gathen said the Wimberly’s co-valedictorian had half a credit more than Wimberly and the difference in the students’ GPAs was .03 or .05”—i.e., not the same.
And are you further suggesting that the selection of the co-valedictorian was because the school feared allegations of favoritism? If so, it seems odd that the leadership of an Arkansas school that’s nearly half-black / half-white would worry more about perceived favoritism than perceived racism, especially if neither was true.
I have to say, monstro’s racism argument is both stronger and more clearly laid out than your arguments. If you have an alternative case to make, it would be nice if you could do it clearly.
The only article I’ve read is the one linked in the OP. It says that (i) the school appointed a co-valedictorian with Wimberly and (ii) there were two students that some felt would be selected as val and sal. So, that led me to think that the school appoints those positions. The part you quoted above doesn’t negate that idea–“class rank” could very well be different than who is the val and sal.
I’m not suggesting a god-blessed thing. I’m saying that (i) we have one side of this story from someone who brought a lawsuit, meaning really that we have zero sides to the story and (ii) the big mess referred to could have been allegations of favoritism.
What argument? Monstro hasn’t made an argument. Monstro has only said “looky here, something bad happened to a black person, must be racism.” Monstro has very clearly failed to take into account any possible explanation other than racism and scoffed at people who brought any other possible explanation up.
Monstro, allow me to point out the factually inaccurate aspects of your summary:
Wrong. The story says she was told that she had earned the highest GPA out of the whole class, not that she was told she would be valedictorian.
Wrong. The mother of the girl in question overheard two unspecified school employees(i.e., not “school administrators” acting in their official capacity) discussing a big mess if Wimberly was valedictorian (i.e., not if “a black student” was valedictorian).
Having lived in south Arkansas, nothing about this surprises me. The racism there is extremely open and widespread. I worked with two white women who would regularly discuss which black people were considered “good ones” and didn’t act like “you-know-whats.” I can only assume the word “nigger” was avoided for my benefit. I’m white, but I didn’t grow up there. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the entire conversation was for my benefit to show how open-minded they were!
My mother lives there (south Arkansas, not McGehee), having moved after I was an adult. She excuses it by saying that it’s a vicious cycle, that the older black people are frequently illiterate and extremely uneducated, and that many of the white people have never known an educated black person. I suppose if she didn’t find some way to excuse it to herself she’d be very isolated there. The whole town she lives in sickens me.
What difference does that make? Why should a student be disqualified, or less qualified, because her mother works at the school? If the white student had the second-best GPA, he should have been salutatorian, not co-valedictorian.