Holy fvck this is disturbing.

Though I'm always skeptical when these kinds of stories from local school districts hit national media. There's usually some vital details missing for the sake of good story telling.

Wow. And they have a school vote on "Most Beautiful"

^Isn't that called Prom Queen?

No, in addition to assigning class political offices by race they have separate racial rules related to the homecoming king/queen position. Most Popular and Most Beautiful are separate votes.

I agree - they were trying to assure that overall 50% of the Class Presidents were black when blacks only represent about 1/3 of the population.

They were also guaranteeing that none of the class officers would be Asian, Latino, or Pacific Islander (I'm sure there probably aren't a lot there but you figure there must be some).

Actually 0% of the Class Presidents would be black.

What was I saying?

...


As it turns out, Kevy is right. The full policy states that the listed positions would alternate year-to-year. So while only whites could be president this year, only blacks next year. So yes, 50% guaranteed.

The policies were put in place 30 years ago to enforce integration. Now with this scrutiny, the district agrees that it is outdated, inappropriate, and (hopefully) unnecessary. They are dropping the policy.

ETA: still unsettling that it required national attention to get them to make the right decision. However, it's gotta be hard to see the forest for the trees when you're in the thick of it and know that, 30 years ago, there simply would have been no integration without such policies, so if it's been working for 30 years...

Are they the only school down there doing it?

What's odd to me is that they'd do that but not mandate equal representation. Why have 8 positions out of 12 be black or white in a given year; do they have parliamentary procedures requiring a 2/3 supermajority? How have they treated students who aren't white or black? Presumably that's happened at some point in the last 30 years.

Of course, this ignores the fact that having class political offices is stupid to begin with and really stupid in the sixth grade.

A different article on this (or maybe it's the same one - I didn't go back and read whole thing) said they, get this, go with if the Mom is black or white because minority Dad's were never around anyway (paraphrasing obviously - but it really was that outrageous).