A high school in Pennsylvania that separates students by race and gender, for just a few minutes each day, in an effort to boost test scores, is practicing racism – plain and simple, a civil rights activist Friday told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
“Here’s the news flash: We do not have seats assigned to people based on their skin color on a bus, on a train or in a public school. We don’t do it anymore,” Michael Meyers, of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, said on “Hannity.”
“We do not believe skin color is a basis for stereotyping, segregating, separating children from other children,” Meyers said, adding the school “should be ashamed of themselves.”
At MacCaskey East High School, for 6 minutes each day, the African American students are divided by gender into separate home rooms, arguing that it gives advisers a chance to counsel them on challenges believed to be unique to them. The program was first implemented in December based on research “that shows grouping black students by gender with a strong role model can help boost their academic achievement and self esteem,” according to a school statement.
And the junior class is voluntarily segregated by the students themselves, said Kelly Burkholder, a spokesman for the school, which is disappointed by the negative perception. But it doesn’t sit too well with a member of Project 21, Deneen Borelli, a conservative black leadership network, said although she was initially angry, her research shows that the school is trying to help these students. She says no one is being harmed by this, but Meyers disagrees. The blacks are separated from all other students, and even more so, they separate the the black students, black boys with black male teachers and the black girls with black female teachers in the guise of mentoring, meaning blacks can only have black role models.
“I don’t care about how temporary the racism is. Racism is racism,” he continued. “This is a dysfunction of the education system. It is an abuse of children and it is going to end because we are going to challenge it.”
