posted January 20, 2008 05:40 PM            

60 percent quota for whites and 40 percent for other races

This is so funny, just a few months ago I was talking about this school with a friend who's wife is a school teacher. And I asked what does she think of Indian students? He replied there is no indian students there. I was shocked. Geez - so dark the con of man.

quote:

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January 14, 2008 -- A year after the city's racial quotas kept their daughter out of an elite public school, an Indian couple from Brooklyn is filing a class-action lawsuit to make sure it doesn't happen again to her or any child.

Read How The Post First Broke This Story

"Children should be judged on the content of their character, not on the color of their skin," said Dr. Anjan Rau, the girl's dad, about the quotas at Mark Twain School in Coney Island.

"The selection process should be colorblind," Rau said.

For decades, the school has enforced racial double standards on its tests to maintain a 6-4 white-to-minority ratio to comply with a 1974 federal court desegregation order.

The order now prevents minority students from becoming more numerous than whites.

Last May, Rau's daughter, Nikita, 11, was rejected by Mark Twain, which caters to gifted students, after she scored 79 on a music admission test.

Officials said Nikita, who is considered a member of a minority group, had to score at least 84.4 score to be accepted. But white students needed to score only 77.

After The Post revealed Nikita's case in June, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein called the quotas "unnecessary" and an "anachronism."

But Klein has not sought to end the quotas - even after the US Supreme Court weeks later ruled in two other cities' cases that race could not be used to decide which public schools kids attend.

So the Raus today are suing Klein and the Department of Education in Brooklyn federal court.

The quotas are "telling high-achieving minority students, 'You can't go to this program solely because of your race,' " said Terrence Pell, president of the Washington-based Center for Individual Rights, which represents the Rau family.

"It's preposterous that the Raus have to sue to fix this problem, to remove a quota that the school itself says serves no purpose."

Rosemarie Arnold, another lawyer for the family, said: "We gave the city every opportunity to do the right thing on behalf of Nikita Rau. And they left us no choice but to sue."

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Indian girl denied admission:http://www.nypost.com/seven/06252007/news/regionalnews/color_ barred_student_regionalnews_dan_mangan.htm

Whoa....

Is this the school?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain_I.S._239

posted January 20, 2008 05:53 PM            

Politicians, schools, priesthood, gays, etc...you name it

I still love the world with all its flaws

posted January 20, 2008 05:57 PM              

What seems really absurd, is that because this court order hasn't been revisited in 34 years, the same group (non-whites and the advocates of their cause) that brought about the court order in 1974, are now complaining about the court order here in 2008.

I'll have to go with Jw's usual take on this which is that it's a matter of going through the correct legal channels to change the quotas or abolish them if appropriate. The system SHOULD be able to facilitate that.

If the school becomes too "white" later on, another law suit can be filed until they get tired of fighting them. Who knows? They might already be tired of fighting Civil Rights lawsuits. Give it a chance.

Thanks for putting it out there though, for sure. People need to see it if anything is going to get done. Good stuff.

posted January 20, 2008 06:44 PM              

According to wiki:
In 1972, the NAACP brought suit in Hart V. Community School Board 21 in the United States District Court, charging that Mark Twain Junior High School 239 was unconstitutionally segregated. The school is located in Coney Island, a predominantly African American and Hispanic section of the school district and in fact had about an 85% percent minority enrollment.

The school board plan was make Mark Twain a magnet school for the gifted and talented and thus attract sufficient white pupils on a voluntary basis to integrate the school...
Rather than busing in students from all other districs and causing even more discriminatory and financial issues.
A judge so ordered in July of 1974 the intregation
Over a three year period and was integrated to the ratio of white pupils to minority pupils in the district which was 7 to 3 at that time. Discriminatory policies are used to maintain this ratio.

So Essentially it was 85% minority students and caucasion students had to be intregated in.
By court order the school was required to maintain a ratio of 7:3, I'm assumeing through the years this ratio has changed a bit to better reflect residents of said state in question....
But, remember because of Segregation Laws, there is still a ratio to meet.

I do not condone this behavior one ounce, I do however feel the original intent was based on fairness and justice. If there were no ratio set we would be right back we were with White schools - Black schools - Indian Schools- Hispanic Schools....
Not a very pretty picture!

As for the student mentioned above, I do not know enough information to make a fair assesment of the situation. It seems as if she's clearly been discriminated against based solely on her race. But- It is possible that there is more to the story...
Example:
Although the standard for enrollment says a score of 77 is needed to attend...
Perhaps there is just one slot left to fill for enrollment and the standard is the highest scored minority fills the slot. In this case she scored a 79 while another student scored a 84.4, therfor she would have to have had a higher score than that...
(You see where I'm going...?)