Sorry, I didn’t see this earlier. We still haven’t heard the school’s side of the story. They could certainly come up with something that would convince me race wasn’t a significant factor in this case, even if it was a factor in some minor way. I don’t think there can be conclusive proof of a negative, but it doesn’t need that much to satisfy me. There are certainly conflicts between black and white people where racism is either not a factor at all or negligible background noise.
I have a counter-example. At my academically highly respected high school, the valedictorian was the giver of the valedictory address at graduation. That person or persons (I think there was usually more than one) was selected in a competition in which they wrote and presented a speech to a panel of judges, who then determined who would speak.
I’ve always had a hard time grasping the nuances of these valedictorian disputes, because it never meant anything to me other than giving a speech at graduation.
Of course it is. The valedictorian of my older brothers’ class had the title taken away after she and a bunch of other kids got busted by the cops at a house party where the kids were drinking.
This is another perfectly viable reason for the Co-Vals, but I highly doubt it since apparantly everyone in the south is racists, even the black superintendant is racist against black people.
Pointless Digression Division: We need to forget the two-letter state abbreviations altogether.
Why does it have to be on that level to be racist? Racism isn’t always malicious and evil. It usually isn’t when institutions are involved. Take a bunch of spineless bureaucrats, a school, and a population that is racially divided–with one faction used to getting its way (and has the power to do something when it doesn’t) and another faction getting fed up with not getting its way (but lacks the clout to get their way)–and you have the recipe for racial discrimination. Saw it happen all the time during my K-12 experiences in Georgia.
The allegation that this school has a history of pressuring black students out of AP–to keep those classes pure of hood elements, you see–is quite consistent with racial politics that regularly play out in racially and socioeconomically diverse schools. And yeah it’s racist when it leads to unfair discrimination.
Have you ever heard of or experienced a school having a rule or a policy that a child of an employee and/or educator was prohibited from either being valedictorian or receiving any of a myriad of special honors?
Yes.. Neither have I..
Please.. trotting out some Black dude hardly can clean this up. Maybe his job.. his source of income and his career??
If you have spare moment go to AJC.com and check out the testing cheating scandal.. plenty of Black professionals sold out black kids for their own butts.. Not exactly a new phenomenon.. (Atlanta Public School’s. Beverly Hall)
I have looked at the APS cheating scandal- my step kids go to school near Atlanta but are not in that district, thankfully! But I am not sure what you mean by black teachers selling out black kids. I thought it was various teachers of whatever race, short changing kids of whatever race. I dont remember a racial element at all. Did i miss that?
The “black dude” being “trotted out” is the superintendent of the school district, aka the Guy in Charge. Or is the presumption that he’s an ineffectual figurehead, dancing on the puppet-strings of his white underlings?
(And I also don’t understand the comparison to the Atlanta cheating scandal, in which I believe the majority of players, from Beverly Hall down to the students themselves, are black.)
The presumption would the same presumption that would apply to a white superintendent. Just as it would wrong to assume a white one would have to be the Grand Wizard Puba of the Neo-Nazi KKK, it’s wrong to assume that the “black dude” in this situation is Martin Luther King Jr. reborn.
To make any other assumption is…well, racist. Are white guys more spineless than black ones when comes to appeasing those who have power over their salaries? Because that’s what this “big mess” is presumably all about.
It wasn’t at the high school that I graduated from back in 1993. The valedictorian was elected by the students who had a 4.0 or higher out of the bunch. I remember that the person with the highest grade point average was not the valedictorian but she did give a speech.
Okay, I stand corrected. Very much surprised, but corrected. That also puts a spin on it—The dictionaries and the school’s handbook have one position, but the decision-maker’s experience might have led him to another where things like perceived moral turpitude or something would come into play.
You with the face–what specific facts could come to light that would lead you to believe that there was no racism involved in this incident?
Sorry, too lated to edit the above post–I wanted to address it to monstro, orcenio, and Dr. Drake as well.
I’m kind of surprised how many people are willing to be so absolutely and completely certain that the administration is racist, just because one party in the dispute said so. Yeah, there’s a long history in this country of people using race to justify treating people like shit. There’s also a long history of parents going absolutely batshit over perceived slights to their children. It wasn’t all that long ago that the mother of a teenaged girl hired a hitman to kill one of her classmates, so her daughter could get on the cheerleading squad. Obviously, that’s an exceptional case, but if someone’s willing to go that far to get their kid some sort of high school accolade, it’s not exactly unreasonable to consider the possibility that someone might make an unfounded accusation of racism.
And while I have no doubt that there’s plenty of racism at play in our educational system at various levels, the racism being alleged here is pretty over-the-top. Even the OP admits it, calling this “News of the Weird” in the thread title. Getting freaked out over the fact that a black kid could get a 4.0 GPA isn’t your garden variety racism. That’s straight up, “Proud member of the Ku Klux Klan” kind of racism. While possible, it seems unlikely to me that someone harboring that level of racial prejudice would be able to function in a an educational system (particularly one with such a high percentage of black students) without getting himself fired long before he could rise to the position of principal.
In addition to that, there are other explanations for the situation that are just as likely, if not more likely, than racism. Right or wrong, a lot of schools take a very punitive view of teen pregnancy. Some schools go so far as to automatically expel students who get pregnant. It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine a school being leery about handing out their highest honor to a teenaged mother. You may think this is a bad policy, and if someone wants to beat up the school over it, I’m not all that invested in defending it. But in terms of outrage, I think it’s a far cry from racism.
Why does it have to be one reason to the exclusion of all others? Kimberly is a black unwed mother whose own mother works at the school and who took fewer credits than the student in the #2 position. I can certainly imagine a place where a student with that description earning the valedictorian position would be a “big mess”. But it would be the description in total. Some parents will be upset about her race, some about her kid and some about her mom. All together, those parents make a huge headache for the school.
Alternatively, the #2 student argued that s/he should be co-val and the principal and superintendent agreed. The other administrators got wind of this before Momma Wimberly and what she overheard was those admins talking about the “big mess” that would result when the Wimberly’s found out about the co-val.
I do believe that there is clear racism at the school, but I don’t believe that the co-valedicatorian is solely motivated by that issue. The biggest problem with that argument is that there is still a black girl standing on the stage as the best in the school. If they didn’t want a black valedictorian, why did they name her in the first place? Naming a co-valedictorian doesn’t make her disappear.
This presumes you know as much as the people actually filing the suit do. Which is very unlikely.
If you don’t have access to the evidence that they have and aren’t intimately familiar with the culture of that school or the patterns of favoritism that are being alleged, then you don’t know how likely other explanations are. If you didn’t overhear what the mother overheard and don’t know anything about the personalities of the administrators or the politics going on the superintendent’s office, then you don’t know enough to say that plaintiff is mistaken in her belief. Just admit that.
I mean, I understand being skeptical. But that’s not what you’re being. In the absence of very little evidence, you’ve actually decided that the plaintiff here is wrong and that other explanations–again, that you have little support for–are right. And obviously more right. It’s the arrogance in your own evidence-free opinion that stands out the most.
Imagine you describing an event in your life in which you were discriminated against on the basis of something (sexual orientation?), and some stranger, who was not even witness to what went down, declaring it was more likely due to something else. And you’re like, “…but I overheard them call me fag” and the naysayer is like “I don’t care! Things like this don’t happen to gay people in the year 2011. You’re too short, that’s why didn’t pick you to be on the team. And even though you can dunk that ball just as good as the tall kids, they’re justified in not picking you too! Now suck it up!”
Don’t be that guy.
“No racism” is a tough standard, but I would accept “racism is irrelevant in this case” in a lot of scenarios.
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Facts emerge that the administration was trying to cover up / compensate for mistakenly conferring valedictorian status on Kymberly Wimberly in the first place.
That would explain the events while disproving the allegation that they were attempting to avoid the scenario of a black valedictorian is disproven. -
Facts emerge that the percentage of black students in AP classes is broadly equivalent to white students in AP classes over the last decade. That would disprove the student’s allegation that the school gave preferential advanced education to white students.
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Facts emerge that K.W. or her mother had a history of filing frivolous lawsuits or otherwise demonstrated helicopter parent / excessive entitlement behavior. That wouldn’t disprove racism, but it would cast doubt on it.
I’m leaning more toward #1 with racism as a secondary motivator. Looking up the McGehee, Ark., newspaper, they explain things a lot more clearly:
"District Superintendent Thomas Gathen said Tuesday [that]. . . Wimberly and the white female student who was named co-valedictorian had ‘identical’ grades of all A’s and one B in core subjects.
‘But numerically, the one who ended up with the fewer number of credits ended up having the higher grade point. That was due to maybe one taking band that you only get a half unit of credit for each year. The other took other courses that get a full unit of credit. The board adopted this policy several years ago,’ Gathen explained.
Gathen said that the revised policy was adopted several years ago to prevent students who take a greater number of courses from being penalized.
‘That’s what ended up happening here. The student with the greater number of credits would have been penalized,’ Gathen explained. ‘It’s not a race issue. It’s an academic issue.’"
I also note that this article says the two top contenders were both female, which contradicts other news stories.
I feel that it’s wrong to assume a black person would need to be “Martin Luther King Jr., reborn” to speak out against an injustice done to one of the black students in his charge, if he were in a clear position of power to do so, and if he felt the situation deserved it. I don’t know thing one about the guy, but it seems he’s being pre-cast as some kind of glorified house negro, quaking in his boots at the thought of ruffling white feathers in the community over this relatively minor incident (and it is pretty minor, despite the spotlight it now has). And why? Not because there’s evidence to support this view, but because it’s the only way the “obvious racism” narrative continues to fit when you have a black guy at the top of the pyramid.
I agree. Racism might not even be a factor in this incident, but I could certainly understand how that perception could be there if the school has a history of shady tracking practices.
If what the superintendent says is true, then the only way I can see this case winning is if the lawyer can show that race was involved in the decision to enforce the revised policy. It sounds doubtful, but I can only go by the one or two articles I’ve read about this in the press.
The only thing that sounds too weird to be true to me is the fact that the two vals at this school had earned a B. Maybe this is a super duper hard school, though. But still. Just sayin’.