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Want to Run for 8th Grade President? Well, What Race Are You?
I'm still shaking my head in disbelief over this memo from Nettleton Middle School in Nettleton, Miss. that specifies which race you must belong to in order to run for certain school offices. What's that? You are a black kid interested in running for 8th grade president? Ha!! Try vice president or reporter instead.
According to the Popehat blog, where I first learned of this, the story was first broken here on Aug. 25 by the Mixed and Happy blog. Mixed and Happy reports that it received a Facebook message from the mother of a white NMS student whose "daughter came home from school telling me that she wanted to try out for the school reporter, but it is only open to black students...They told her “she should run for class president, that was open to only white students.”
MSNBC reports that after a furor erupted last week about the race-based elections, school Superintendent Russell Taylor posted a statement
on the school's Web site:
saying the policy had been in place for 30
years, dating back to a time when school districts across Mississippi
came under close scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department over
desegregation.
"It is the belief of the current administration that these procedures
were implemented to help ensure minority representation and involvement
in the student body," the statement said. "It is our hope and desire
that these practices and procedures are no longer needed."
Popehat notes that the Nettleton School District has now formally changed the policy.
Posted by Bruce Carton on August 31, 2010 at 12:55 PM | Permalink
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