"Blacks-only" school ok'd in Ontario

Segregation and Education: from USA's "Brown v. Board of Education to Canada"

The ideas raised in this post apply not just to "blacks and whites," but to all ethnic groups, and their right to appropriate education and group social interaction.

[caption id="attachment_15117" align="alignleft" width="300"]"The black-focused school is a go." -- TheStar.com, Wed Jan 30 2008[/caption]
After a heated but civil debate, Canada's largest school board voted 11-9 last night to open an alternative Africentric school to help fight a 40 per cent dropout rate among Toronto's black teens."

I came across an interesting footnote in a French article by a law professor at the University of Montreal. The footnote leads me to observations concerning segregated blacks-only schools, as opposed to de-segregated schools which force the races together for apparently "social" reasons which may be detrimental to all concerned.

I will give you a quick translation of the footnote, and the French original will follow below.

“[118] In this respect, the interesting question arises in particular of the precedential value of a legal conclusion with regard to a social fact. One will remember that in the famous case of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.SW. 483 (1954), the Supreme Court of the United States pronounced separate schools unconstitutional, because of harmful effect of this system for the development of black children. Did the effect of separate schools, thus decided by the Court, become A POINT OF LAW? It seems that in certain connections one must answer in the affirmative, since the courts later rejected a challenge to this conclusion, made with proof in support, on the basis that the point OF LAW had been definitively decided. On this question, see G.S. PERRY and C.B. MELTON, loc. cit., note 12.667, who writes, in particular:

«When a LEGAL conclusion seems to rest on empirical assumptions (e.g., the psychological harm of school segregation), then those assumptions may become de facto CONCLUSIONS OF LAW which are NOT DISPUTABLE, regardless of the social reality.»
– «Precedential Value of Judicial Notice of Social Facts: Parham as an Example», (1983) 33 J. Fam. L. 633, 636 et 637.

/ Original French quote:

^{" [118] À cet égard, se pose notamment l'intéressante question de la valeur de précédent d'une conclusion judiciaire à l’égard d’un fait social. On se souviendra que dans la célébre affaire Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.SW. 483 (1954), la Cour suprême des États Unis a prononcé l’inconstitutionnalité des écoles séparés, à cause du caractère néfaste de ce système pour le dévéloppement des enfants noirs. L’effet des écoles séparés, ainsi décidé par la Cour, deveait-il une question de droit ? Il semble qu’à certains égards on doive répondre par l’affirmative, puisque l’on a rejeté une contestation ultérieure de cette conclusion, menée avec preuve à l’appui, au motif que la question DE DROIT avait été définitivement décidée. Voir sur cette question, G. S. PERRY et C. B. MELTON, loc. cit., note 12, 667, qui écrivent notamment :
«When a LEGAL conclusion seems to rest on empirical assumptions (e.g., the psychological harm of school segregation), then those assumptions may become de facto CONCLUSIONS OF LAW which are NOT DISPUTABLE, regardless of the social reality.»
– «Precedential Value of Judicial Notice of Social Facts: Parham as an Example», (1983) 33 J. Fam. L. 633, 636 et 637.}

The extract that I've given you above is from: "La connaissance d'office des faits sociaux en contexte constitutionnel", 1997 31 R.J.T. 315, by Danielle PINARD.

This is Pinard's web page at her University:

Danielle Pinard, Professeure titulaire, Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal

This is the page to her article that I've quoted for you:

"La connaissance d'office des faits sociaux en contexte constitutionnel", 1997 31 R.J.T. 315, by Danielle PINARD.

Elsewhere in her French law journal article, author Pinard cites the same source on "Precedential Value ...".

“Social facts [... Pinard means in the course of a law suit, i.e., involving constitutional questions – KM] may be "found" through judicial assumption, commonsense inference, or individual subconscious values; through empirical research or the tales of old wives (or husbands). But whether the PROCESS of their identification is subjective assumption or empirical proof, these FACTS about SOCIETAL conditions and operation ENTER the system to GUIDE judicial decisions on social issues.“

(Caps are mine for emphasis.)

What Pinard was after in providing this quote seems to me to have been to demonstrate to lawyers and judges that the judicial use of "social facts" in a peremptory way, applied so as to draw unalterable conclusions as if they were drawing conclusions of LAW, then binds the system to those "social" facts as deductions of constitutional LAW. By constitutionalising inferences about societal dynamics, this makes it hard to change the system to deal with reality.

In her French article, Pinard seems to caution judges against using their courts to convert "social facts" into law. This would tend to prevent society from altering its system in order make it work better for all.

A couple of years ago, I had heard that somewhere in Ontario, a blacks-only school had been set up, staffed with black teachers. I don't remember the name of that school, but today there are links online on the same subject -- blacks-only schools.

In interviews, the teachers I had read about 2+ years ago, declared that black students were doing better or would do better in a blacks-only school.

This would seem to fly in the face of the U.S.A.'s Brown v. Board of Education.

It would seem that social or learning problems experienced by black students do not disappear even when they are integrated into the white or general school system. They continue to have issues.

To show you how the viewpoint seems to have changed, there is the observation at this next page that the objective is not presupposed "equality" but is more realistically based on mobilizing "the system to provide equity in student outcome."

http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/february23.shtml

Here's a link (there had been a video clip here from 2008, the clip seems to have vanished):

Headline: McGuinty against black school but won't stop it
Caption: "Toronto school trustees have given their approval for a black-focused public school - believed the first of its kind in the country. (Jan. 30, 2008)"

And here's another link (Black-focused school debate set
Published on Wednesday November 07, 2007).

Evidently, there are fundamental racial or ethnic differences at play which defy the concept that everyone is mathematically "equal" in an abstract sense, and that everyone should therefore be treated exactly alike, and that everyone has exactly the same capabilities.

Sometimes, obtaining justice and "equality of chances" (as the socialists like to call it) requires being treated differently, according to one's one capacities and one's own real needs.

Today, some black communities appear to view segregation in education as an essential step toward tailoring the curriculum and the teaching methods to help black students succeed.

It would be an odd sight indeed if white students lined up and banged on the doors of a blacks-only school demanding admission and claiming "psychological harm" and discrimination!

Perhaps, however, they might bang on the doors of de-segregated schools to claim it in their own behalf, since white citizens, including white Canadians, have been de facto stigmatized as "RACISTS" by the aura of the USA's Brown v. Board of Education.

I wonder if that case was really about giving advantages to black students, or about moralizing, and chastising and "correcting" "racist" white people for preferring to learn on their own in their own system.

The current claimed success of blacks-only schools also raises the question of whether white students have been and are being disadvantaged by educational de-segregation.

Does one group hold another back? i.e., is the "white" system altered on the fly to the detriment of one group in an effort to "help" another? Or in an effort to accomplish other agendas?

The white system has proven itself over generations to work well for white ethnic kids; there is no particular reason why it should also absolutely have to work for anyone else.

In the end, it seems that some black people believe school segregation is not "psychologically harmful" to their black children.

In fact, it seems odd to me that anyone -- let alone a court -- would decide that segregation of races in the school system is necessarily harmful.

It seems to me that it all comes down to the right to be who you are, both as a group, and as individuals. The fulfillment of this right necessitates being free from State-sponsored social engineering.

In Montreal, there have always been Jewish schools where non-Jews of any color are not accepted for enrollment. In contrast, in the mid-1960's, there was one Jewish student in our Catholic public school because she wanted to study in English, and her parents could not afford the private Jewish schools.

Back then, we had religious school boards under our Constitution of Canada; those have been changed now -- apparently to suit the infamous "multiculturalism" which is hosted under the banner of "secularism," which is apparently "humanism" which I think the United States Supreme Court has judicially recognized as a "religion," and thus not "secular" at all.

No Montreal Jews, as far as I know, have ever complained that they are "psychologically disadvantaged" by their own deliberately mostly segregated Jewish-only schools. They emerge upon graduation and work and socialize with the general population, all races, all colors.

However, I have observed that Jews tend to form majority-Jewish-owned-and-run businesses and professional service firms, and to hire mostly "white". This is something that non-Jewish "white" people apparently cannot "get away with" doing today, as it violates some kind of "multicultural" principle which is applicable only to depriving "white" (Christian?) Canadians of the right to freely associate. Obviously, if you cannot freely associate as a group, in education, and in the workplace, you cannot freely pursue the maintenance and development of your own views and culture.

I suspect that some people may have chosen to make an issue out of black-white school segregation at the time of "Brown" because the invention of victims in all walks of life is vested with power.

A victim clearly has no power; therefore, somebody who is not a victim is required to seize and exercise the victim's own suppressed power for him; and that suppressed and seized power then becomes a political force in other hands to fuel many agendas.

I have also read that much of the sociology and psychology of the Brown v. Board of Education era may have come from politically motivated Jews who saw it as a way to destabilize the white American system and culture to enhance their own power in USA, and by example, elsewhere. To deny the possibility would be to suggest that certain groups of people do not ever try to dominate other groups of people.

So as not to be naive, the prospect is worthy of investigation.

I'm no expert; these are just ideas you might like to file away.

Regards,
Kathleen Moore
Montreal, Canada

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Sources:

[1] "Board okays black-focused school," Ontario, Wed Jan 30 2008, thestar.com

[2] "Black-focused school debate set," Ontario, 2007-11-07, thestar.com

[3] "McGuinty against black school but won't stop it," Ontario, Thu Jan 31 2008, thestar.com

[4] "Successful Practices in the Education of Black Students, Webcast: February 23, 2006 with Dr. Asa Hilliard"