Racial segregation alive and well in Dallas public schools

In the face of the Dems' stunning election victories a few weeks ago, I wondered briefly if the need for civil rights work would diminish or dry up. On reflection, I still think the answer to that question is "no", because there will always be knuckleheads who do things that violate the Constitution and Bill of Rights, no matter who is in power in Washington, D.C.

Heck, Dallas alone could keep civil rights lawyers busy for years. At Preston Hollow Elementary School, a federal judge recently ruled, the white Principal ran the equivalent of a private, whites-only school within the public school she was charged with overseeing. Specifically, Judge Sam Lindsay found that the Principal channeled Latino students who had demonstrated the English proficiency necessary for general education classes to Bilingual or English as a Second Language programs. At the same time, white students with questionable English proficiency were steered to "neighborhood" classes held in different hallways than those with the ESL classes, to learn in classrooms that were--surprise!--disproportionately white. Strangely, African-American students who are American-born are also steered to ESL classes. The predominately white classes had a separate open house from the rest of the school and a private Kindergarten round-up as well. The mother of a Latino Kindergartner wept as she testified during the recent trial about how her daughter now worries she is not as smart as the Anglo children as a result of the racial segregation and asked to dye her hair blonde after being told by an Anglo student that her hair is "ugly."

Rather than denying that this occurred, the Dallas Independent School District defended itself with the tried and true, "Separate But Equal" approach rejected by the United States Supreme Court years ago. And despite the fact that the Court found Principal Parker, the culprit in this mess, to have engaged in unlawful discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as questionable conduct after the litigation was initiated (such as reshuffling classes to make them appear less segregated to the plaintiffs' expert witness, who was granted observation access by the Court), Ms. Parker remains employed as Principal today and the school does not anticipate any change in her employment status.

Although the Court spent nearly two weeks in trial hearing testimony from approximately fifteen witnesses, some parents from the school now say the naked emperor is wearing a gorgeous suit of clothes. What do the parents say, exactly? This:

Parents contacted Saturday said they were astounded the judge would make such a ruling. They did concede, however, that in the Preston Hollow area – where private school is the norm – many families look down on the neighborhood's public school, which is overwhelmingly Hispanic and black.

. . . . .

"The court is left with the distinct impression that the primary objective of fairly educating students was lost, and substituted in its place was an effort to prevent white flight from Preston Hollow," the judge wrote.

Parents say nothing is further from the truth, although they do acknowledge trying to bring more neighborhood families to the school.

"As a parent, of course we want more of a neighborhood school," said Joe Bittner, whose wife, Meg, is the school's PTA president. "My kids ride their bikes to school three days a week. It's a great neighborhood enhancement to have a school like that."

Mr. Bittner and others say they shouldn't have to apologize, or be sued, for wanting more of their neighbors to join them.

What we do not hear from the Dallas Morning News writer is that two of his primary sources are married to two of the defense's key trial witnesses, women whose testimony Judge Lindsay found was of questionable credibility. Specifically, Mr. Cranshaw, who is identified by the DMN only as "Joe Cranshaw, whose stepdaughter is Hispanic and is in the school's gifted program," is apparently also the husband of Ana Cranshaw, a trial witness whom Judge Lindsay found to be "biased in favor of Defendants", and in whose testimony the Judge accordingly chose not to "place as much weight." (Mem. Op. and Order, page 13, n. 15) Similarly, the DMN quotes liberally from the comments of "Joe Bittner, whose wife, Meg, is the school's PTA president." Surprisingly, though, the writer fails to mention (either in today's followup story or yesterday's original story) that Judge Lindsay found Mr. Bittner's wife, whose personal attorney sat at the table with defense counsel, often passing them notes during trial, to be "aligned with Defendants" and having "exhibited numerous convenient lapses in memory . . . reluctant to answer questions posed in a straightforward manner, and at times gave contradictory testimony." (Mem. Op. and Order, page 39) Judge Lindsay further found that Ms. Bittner insulted the Court's intelligence with her recalcitrant refusal to admit she wrote an email that bore her own signature and understood the meaning of phrases she used in that email.

At least we have a great journalistic watchdog ensuring that the reporting on this important matter is unbiased, transparent and accurate . . . not (as Borat's humor coach would say).

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If you need a laugh after reading this sad story, check out this hilarious effort by Stephen Colbert to determine "America's Top Jefferson":