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Attorney: Admissions, Hiring Policies Perpetuate Racial Segregation

By Jim Brown
December 20, 2002

(AgapePress) - A conservative attorney says the outcome of two University of Michigan affirmative action cases may have a substantial impact on pre-collegiate schools.

In a few months, the high court will begin hearing two lawsuits challenging the university's use of race in admissions. The court will consider if white applicants were unconstitutionally denied because of their race.

Gary Kreep is executive director of the U.S. Justice Foundation, which is involved in several cases dealing with quota systems and racist policies in K-12 schools.

"Although this case involves a college-level school, not a secondary or elementary school, the decision will impact all education because it will set a precedent as to the issue of quota systems, affirmative action programs, and similar types of programs by which individuals are given seats in classes on the basis of their race rather than on the basis of their ability," Kreep says.

The National School Boards Association intends to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the much anticipated affirmative action case. The NSBA's senior staff lawyer says the statement will emphasize that racial diversity is an even more compelling goal for K-12 schools because of the age and impressionability of the students.

But Kreep says there are some real problems with the ideas the NSBA is fomenting.

"If we're going to have diversity and tolerance, how do you effect that by having black students taught by black teachers? Don't you want white, black, and Hispanic students taught by white, black, and Hispanic teachers?" he asks.

"The policies of many school districts, in effect, are perpetuating the indirect segregation of the races by saying that we have to have minority teachers teaching minorities -- which is obviously ludicrous."

The U.S. Justice Foundation is currently representing a teacher who wanted to work at a Los Angeles school, but was denied the opportunity to even apply for the job because she was white.

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