Extraordinary Eh?
March 4, 2001
BOULDER, Colo., March 1 — A third-grade girl's science fair project dealing with race has sparked an intense debate here about how such a controversial subject should be taught in elementary school and whether her rights of free speech were violated when school officials pulled her project from the fair.
That action, which was applauded by the parents of minority students attending the school, Mesa Elementary, has drawn the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has threatened the Boulder Valley School District with a lawsuit if district policies relating to free speech are not changed to comply with federal standards.
"We think they violated her rights," Barry Satlow, chairman of the Boulder chapter of the A.C.L.U., said of the 8-year-old girl whose project, "Does Skin Color Make a Difference?" set off the debate. "They had her take down the project out of fear," Mr. Satlow said. "We believe that is offensive."
School district officials insisted they acted appropriately in removing the project a day before the fair opened last month, saying that the issues the girl raised might easily have hurt minority students and that the classroom was a more suitable setting.
For her project, the girl, who has not been identified by the school, showed a pair of Barbie dolls to two groups of 15 adults at her father's office, then to two groups of 15 fifth graders at the school. One doll was white, the other brown; one was dressed in a purple gown, the other, in a baby blue gown. After each group was shown the dolls a first time, the girl switched the gowns and presented the dolls again. Each time, she asked, "Which Barbie doll is prettier?"
The survey was not unlike a similar undertaking of decades ago by Kenneth Clark, the social scientist who found that the preference black children expressed for a white doll demonstrated the psychological damage of segregated schools. His work was cited in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, in which racial segregation in public schools and the education policy of "separate but equal" were ruled unconstitutional.
The girl's results showed that nearly all the adults picked whichever doll was wearing the purple dress but that most of the children, 24 of 30, picked the white doll, which is, perhaps, not so surprising at a school where 331 of 358 of the children are white. Of the other 27, there are 14 Asian-Pacific Islanders, 7 Latinos, 5 African-Americans and 1 American Indian. The hypothesis of the girl's project was that adults and children in a community of nearly 275,000 that was 95 percent white would prefer the white doll.
"We do not object to the project or the topic, and we are not afraid to talk about the issue," said Veronica Benavidez, executive director of elementary education for the county school district. "The question is, Are we being responsible to all our children when we put up something that is potentially hurtful to a limited number of them?"
As the science fair participants were setting up last month, school officials said they grew concerned over the wording of the girl's stated conclusion, that the children surveyed "liked" the white doll better. It was a message, Ms. Benavidez said, that might have prompted minority students to infer that classmates liked white children better and, therefore, the minority student was somehow inferior.
When the project was taken down the day before the fair, she said school officials told the girl's father, Dave Thielen, a software developer, that the issues it raised were too complex to present in such a simple manner.
Parents of minority students, like Michael Webster, an African-American aerospace researcher whose daughter is a classmate of the Thielen girl's, applauded the school's decision. Mr. Webster said, "For my kids or any elementary school kids of color who may not be strong enough to be comfortable with who they are or where they came from, it could quite possibly have a devastating effect on them somewhere down the line."
But in a letter to the school board and in an interview this week, Mr. Thielen said that by removing his daughter's project from the fair, school officials were avoiding an important subject even if it might have made some viewers uncomfortable. Even for elementary school children, he said, it is not enough to discuss racial issues only when the calendar demands it, like on Martin Luther King's Birthday or Cinco de Mayo.
"Race is a messy subject," Mr. Thielen said in the interview. "It could be that people's feelings get hurt. But if it is only discussed in a sterile manner, we cannot address all the aspects of race that the entire American culture is facing."
The school has apologized to the Thielen family, and the daughter was given credit for participating in the project. But Mr. Thielen and the A.C.L.U. said they are looking for a change in school policy that would allow children to express themselves freely so long as no one is physically endangered, a standard federal courts have recognized.
If not, Mr. Satlow said in a letter to the school board this week, the A.C.L.U. would not rule out a lawsuit to force the district to change.
March 6, 2001
BY CECIL ANGEL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Plymouth -- A Plymouth Salem High School student whose letter to the high school newspaper ignited protests and charges of racism apologized Monday to black parents and students at a special meeting.
"I'm deeply sorry for all the trouble I've put you through," said Chris Mackinder, 17, a senior.
Mackinder told the mostly black audience that the letter he wrote, which was published in the P-CEP Perspective last week, was not meant to be racist.
"I am deeply sympathetic to your feelings. Looking back on the article, I see how I could have worded things differently."
In the letter, Mackinder questioned the need to celebrate Black History Month. He ended the letter by saying, "If it's a race war that they want, keeping things the way they are will sure get them one. By creating a month to make a group of people happy, the battle of which color is supreme will be taken to the extreme."
That ending alarmed many black students and parents, who asked that Mackinder and the teacher assigned to oversee the publication be punished.
Mackinder was given a standing ovation. The Rev. Gordon Steinke of the Farmington Hills Church of God spoke next. "He has a heart of reconciliation."
Debbie Mackinder, the teen's mother also spoke. She told the group that her son's letter was "a human error of a child" and said "We deeply do apologize."
Veronica Fox, who has three children in Plymouth-Community Schools, said she opposes discipline. "Chris is a student. He was in the learning process."
Kimberly Tucker, whose daughter is a freshman, wanted to know "what kinds of mechanisms are going to be put in place to combat this type of thing."
She defended Mackinder's right to write the letter. "Right or wrong that's his opinion and he's entitled to it," she said.
Black students should be given an opportunity to respond in the student newspaper, Tucker said.
Kathleen Booher, superintendent of Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, told the group that the teacher "received disciplinary action" but would not give details.
Contact CECIL ANGEL at 313-223-4531 or angel@freepress.com.
Black History Month is generally recognized as a time to reflect on the achievements and struggles of black Americans. Its origin goes back to 1926. It is the brainchild of historian Carter G. Woodson, who called it Negro History Week. The name was changed and the time extended in 1976. But according to historical accounts, Woodson never intended for the event to be permanent. Some day, the scholar and teacher envisioned, institutions of higher learning would get around to fully incorporating black American history into the curriculum. Whether this history should be separate and apart from the American mainstream today was addressed by Mackinder, the student.
This celebration makes “race an issue once again,” wrote Mackinder, who suggested that nationally elected leaders risk a race war by promoting such commemorations. Mackinder added: “If it’s a race war they want, keeping things the way they are will sure get them one.”
His point of view didn’t sit well with some students or their parents. School officials called Nagy, a staff adviser with final say on what appears in the paper, on the carpet. Although she made a public apology to the staff and those students who took issue with Mackinder’s essay, she was disciplined. Mackinder also apologized.
Specific disciplinary measure were not revealed. However, a statement released by the district said future columns penned by students with the potential to shock or upset others will be balanced by a different viewpoint in a second student’s column. Moreover, teachers with newspaper content oversight must exercise a greater degree of “sensitivity” and delete references that can be interpreted as threatening.
Mackinder was bold enough to say essentially what others may be thinking and lack the courage to say. Most notable is his point that no other racial or ethnic group is given its own month to celebrate its accomplishments. It’s also true that the thrust of the civil rights movement for blacks was the pursuit of equality under the law, not for separate and unequal treatment.
The overriding question is when does someone lose their First Amendment rights? Does Mackinder only have the right of free speech when he’s politically correct? The latter may have been answered in the court of public opinion.
A recent poll by the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center found that most Americans claim to value the Constitution’s First Amendment principles, but have second thoughts when it comes to the open expression of views they find objectionable. While nine in 10 respondents defended the right of people to express opinions outside the collective conventional wisdom, support for those views declined precipitously when the question became more specific. Two-thirds of those surveyed said public remarks that offend racial groups should not be tolerated.
It is not surprising that Americans are uncomfortable when someone speaks out in a manner that is perceived to be offensive. The black leadership has not welcomed much in the way of frank discussions about race issues that are different than the prevailing black orthodoxy. Since the 1960s, the mind set has been that black America is the perennial victim and that white America looms as the perennial oppressor. Thus, the larger community is reticent to express what it really feels about the seeming obsession with race among many — not all — blacks in this country.
The fear, as student Mackinder may have painfully discovered, is to ultimately be pegged a racist. So in this respect, Mackinder is correct: The forced imposition of political correctness or politeness tends to foster a resentment that can only widen the racial divide.
Blacks must learn to separate the emotional from what’s legal. There is no benefit in stifling or censoring speech simply because it is deemed incompatible with some social, political or ideological end. The First Amendment doesn’t discriminate against those who would communicate bigoted and reprehensible expressions. Enduring offensive speech is a small price to pay to preserve the larger body of freedoms that we all enjoy. Like what Mackinder said or not, his right to express unpopular opinions is the cornerstone of our democracy.
Whatever disciplinary action was taken against the teacher Mary Lou Nagy is regrettable. She correctly resisted the inclination toward suppression. Her punishment signals that the system of education is both paranoid and on track to become a bastion of intolerance.
Bill Johnson is a Detroit News editorial writer whose column is published on Friday. He can be reached at (313) 222-2299 or bjohnson@detnews.com. Write letters to letters@detnews.com.
I am just shocked, yes shocked at the notion that Government Workers would censor a Science Fair project or an opinion piece in a school newspaper, because the subject might make some one uncomfortable, yet Government Workers get righteous as all get out, defending taxpayer money used by National Endowment for the Arts to pay someone to cover themselves with feces and HIV tainted blood.
