Must White Entitlement Be Preserved Even to the Deprivation of Equal Educational Opportunity for Black Students?

• In Event: 41.071 - Learning While Black: Addressing the Educational and Social Deprivation of Black Students in Schools

Abstract

General policies that are designed to protect citizens generally fail to provide the same level of protection for African Americans. Similarly, in schools these failures diminish and sometimes deprive Black students of an educational opportunity, even though the courts may not always recognize the deprivation. This paper examines the Williams v. Port Huron School District (2012),an appeals court case, to better explain this concept. These instances of leaving Blacks without protection stem from clashes between “White innocence” and “Black guilt”, even when blacks happen to be the victims.
According to African-American students attending Port Huron North High School from 2003-07, their White classmates subjected them to constant peer racial harassment that ran the gamut from name-calling, using the word “nigger,” and displaying of the Confederate flag, to engaging in several instances of vandalism on school grounds involving racial slurs as graffiti on African American student’s lockers. Cheryl Wojtas, then principal from 2003-05, did nothing to investigate these numerous allegations. Though there were clear efforts by students and parents to keep Wojtas and team informed of these incidents, no child was ever punished directly for these infractions. Under a new superintendent, the school hired a new Principal Dahlke in 2005, who immediately launched investigations into the incidents and offered protection for any students who reported the incidents. While reports of the episodes increased, the racial graffiti continued into 2006-07 and no one was ever really punished. Additionally, a hit list was found with the names of several black students and a black female administrator, resulting in some Black student staying home out of fear. Parents then filed a lawsuit against the school administrators stating that their inaction violated their students’ Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights. The leadership was accused of acting with deliberate indifference to the student-on-student racial harassment.
The Williams (2012) case raises two major issues in the current educational environment: What legal standards might guide the actions of educators when considering whether peer-to-peer racial harassment is occurring, thus denying Black students equal access to education? What policy constitutes a denial of Black rights, when juxtaposed against the deeply entrenched maintenance of White entitlement, which is a phenomenon found in law and history and one that has implications for policy? We used critical race theory (CRT) to explore these questions. One important goal of CRT is to reveal the effects of centuries of racial oppression on people of color and racism and racial subordination, which are formed by legal discourse (Brown & Jackson, 2013). We specifically used the concept of Whiteness as Property (Harris, 1993), which stems from CRT, as an analytic tool to examine this case, Williams v. Port Huron School District (2012). We therefore employ the techniques of chronicles, storytelling, and counter-narratives from the lens of CRT. We explore the ways in which contemporary school discipline and legal system affirm, legitimate, and protect Whiteness to maintain White supremacy (Mills, 1997) and subordinate racial others (Feagin, 2010).

Author

• Mark Anthony Gooden, Columbia University