Using Critical Race Theory, researchers question the desegregation of American schools
A recent study explores the question of racial integration and finds that higher percentages of White students are ‘a potential threat’ to black student performance.
The study comes as an increasing number of universities host racial affinity spaces, housing, and graduation ceremonies.
A recent study examining whether racial integration has been helpful for black students has found that “higher percentages of White students represented a potential threat to the academic performance of Black students.”
The study aims to provide a data-backed test of W.E.B. DuBois’ 1935 concern that integration may place a burden on black students by perpetuating the idea that black schools are inferior. Within the first page, the team of scholars who co-authored the article state that the framework of Critical Race Theory was used to evaluate findings.
The question of integration explored in the study, titled “A critical race theory test of W.E.B. DuBois’ hypothesis: Do Black students need separate schools?,” is one universities are increasingly bringing back. With segregated social spaces, separate graduation ceremonies, and race-based student housing, higher education is re-segregating in the name of protecting minorities.
Though the scholars - Tara J. Yosso, William A. Smith, Daniel G. Solórzano, Man Hung - state that they do not argue for desegregation, their conclusions come close to that assertion.
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Using data from integrated schools in a U.S. Department of Education sponsored study that tracked students from the kindergarten class of 1998 through fifth grade, the researchers examined the math performance of Black students educated in schools with varying percentages of black student populations (BSP).
The paper results show an achievement gap between black and white peers when the BSP was lower. As the BSP rose, the gap disappeared.
“When Black students attended schools with more than 25% Black students, their math achievement scores were no different from their White peers,” the article states.
From this data, the researchers conclude that their results support DuBois’ argument that integration can “sideline the goal of equalizing schooling conditions and outcomes for Black and White students.“
But the data could also be used to show the exact opposite conclusion: integration works. The researchers acknowledge this as a limitation of their study.
“In fact, since our data category stops at ‘over 25%’’ Black student population, a person could argue that this is the perfect case to show [Brown v. Board of Education] was a success,” they write.
Still, after characterizing white students as a “threat” to black student achievement, the team concludes that “Black students do benefit from attending schools with higher percentages of Black students.”
Because Critical Race Theory denies objectivity in favor of “lived experiences,” the researchers are able to attribute the disparity to racial hostility and claim it can be counteracted by using the theoretical framework to “genuinely center the experiences of Black students.” According to the scholars, pointing to an achievement gap without even providing data for the raw test scores is enough.
Similar reasoning drives the increasingly popular creation of affinity groups and racially segregated spaces on college campuses.
At American University, the program manager of a required freshman course justified an all-Black section by saying being “together in community” would improve black students’ experiences in the course.
When Campus Reform reported on segregated housing at the University of Nevada, Reno in April 2021, Executive Director of Residential Life, Housing, and Food Services Dean Daniel Kennedy called it a “national best practice in university residential life and housing communities.”
The benefits of these “best practices” are assumed, not proven. But the harms are almost certain.
Ken Tashjy, an adjunct instructor at Suffolk University, recently wrote in a recent op-ed for Campus Reform, “segregating [students] based on their race overshadows the commonality of their shared college experiences with what universities present as perceived divisions and irreconcilable differences.”
Tashjy argues that universities can’t have it both ways.
“When it comes to diversity, schools’ purported ends to foster diversity and the means they employ – separate spaces that operate effectively as segregation – are in conflict with one another,” he says.
Researchers can’t have it both ways either. The goal of improving education for students is in conflict with the proposed means of equalizing outcomes.
Campus Reform reached out to the authors of this study but did not receive a response.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter @katesrichardson.
