Shep Melnick – The Crucible of Desegregation
My guest this week is the Boston College political scientist Shep Melnick. Shep is the author of many books on civil rights law, equality, education, and politics, most recently The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality. He’s keenly attuned to the contradictions inherent in legislative and judicial efforts to spur equality in the post-civil rights era, and parts of our conversation here serve as fascinating history mini-lessons.
We begin by discussing the DEI initiatives of the Obama and Biden presidencies, and how they sometimes do less than one might suppose. As an expert on the history of desegregation, he’s in a good position to judge. In fact, he points out some problems in the arguments of those who claim that schools are now “resegregating.” He offers segregation as a useful framework for thinking about how Title IX reforms have gone from addressing egregious sex discrimination in schools and the workplace to trying to address more complex changes in the way we talk about gender. And finally, Shep tells me that, while he’s no fan of CRT, he does not think it should be banned in schools.
Shep’s got a way of bringing a deeply informed, level-headed perspective to hot-button issues. I hope to have him on again soon.
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0:00 Biden’s new DEI initiatives
7:59 The disparate uses of disparate impact
13:59 Shep’s new book, The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality
23:15 The problem with claims that education is resegregating
29:56 Are we heading back to the bussing debates of the 1970s?
35:52 Shep’s book, The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education
44:20 Glenn’s “uncle” objects to analogies between trans people and African Americans
47:58 Shep: Banning Critical Race Theory is the wrong strategy
Recorded September 8, 2023
Links and Readings
Shep’s new book, The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality
Heather Mac Donald’s book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives
Gary Orfield’s book, The Reconstruction of Southern Education: The Schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act
James Fishkin’s book, Justice, Equal Opportunity, and the Family
Shep’s book, The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education
John Skrentny’s book, The Minority Rights Revolution
Robin DiAngelo’s book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism
Shep Melnick – The Crucible of Desegregation
As a school psychologist who has worked with many kids who have been "disciplined" by administrators, here's my take: Justice should be color blind, and based solely on the behavior. If that results in disparate discipline, so be it. The problem is that research suggests that children of color are disciplined more than white kids for the exact same behaviors (links 1 & 2). The bigger issue is the problem that "discipline" as practiced in the large majority of US schools means suspension or expulsion, which leads to children of color receiving fewer hours of education, exacerbating the achievement gap. Schools that rely on external means of controlling behavior (i.e., punishment and/or rewards) do not teach kids to have internal control over their own behavior, and they do not teach them the skills they need to learn to have such control. Based on my experience, a far more effective means of dealing with students' behavioral infractions, without harmful side effects, are the ones that promote internal control, such as the one in the third link, which I've used successfully. But most teachers are not trained in such methods, nor are most school psychologists, most of whom are too overwhelmed with other duties to help teachers even if they do know how.
https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2023-01-26/yale-study-shows-black-boys-are-more-likely-to-be-disciplined-than-their-white-classmates
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-why-really-are-so-many-black-kids-suspended/2021/08
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/schools-behavior-discipline-collaborative-proactive-solutions-ross-greene/
Glenn, unless I missed something in the past, why don't you do a show on CRT? How it was conceived, what Crenshaw really intended with it, and how it's been turned into the woke racist mess it is today?