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TJ Discrimination Case
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Anonymous
What's racist about wanting to return to the old policy that conservatives pine for where the number of black students was so low that it couldn't be reported? Before politics got involved, the school didn't have to deal with any of these issues, hopefully Asra can win a seat on the school board and right the ship |
Anonymous
There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this. Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts. It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP. |
Anonymous
The problem with this framing is that it would allow any majority group in a particular context to challenge an effort to address racial discrimination as showing “animosity” to the majority racial group prohibiting a change in policy. Any time an organization changes its policies to address disparate treatment, it does so with the implicit understanding that it cannot increase the percentage representation of one group without reducing the percentage representation of another group. To take it out of this context, let’s imagine a fire department that requires as part of its hiring process at least one recommendation from an existing member of the department. If historically the department has been all white, that is very likely to continue to be the case in substantial part because people tend to give favor to those who are like them. To address this issue, the department wants to do away with the internal recommendation requirement because it has had to turn away a lot of highly qualified black candidates because they don’t have the recommendation. Doing away with the recommendation requirement is racially neutral, but can always be framed as motivated by racial animus because the intent is to make it easier for non-white candidates to apply and be hired, which necessarily will mean fewer white candidates can be hired. If the coalition were to prevail on its legal theory, it would effectively mean organizations would be locked into systemically racist policies and procedures because any effect to change them would be deemed racially discriminatory. |
Anonymous
Ha! Are they actually nominating him? He couldn’t even run the TJ PTSA for a few months before getting kicked out. Good luck trying to get him on the School Board. |
Anonymous
U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with. In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements. |
Anonymous
You just took their post trying to address specific claims and replied to it with the same claims they were trying to address. 
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Anonymous
It strains credulity to suggest the Board members would just exchange messages that the words and actions of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, unless they had something of a guilty conscience about what they were doing. And of course the current process was not crafted on a "blank slate," when Brabrand expressly stated that the key driver of the admissions change was the George Floyd incident. It's not like they objectively sat back and asked themselves how they could craft a more efficient process or one designed to identify more qualified kids. They rushed through a process that they convinced themselves would serve "equity" goals, with multiple Board members stating that they believed the process had been rushed and less than satisfactory. And then, once approved, some Board members admitted that they didn't even understand the details of what they'd just approved, such as whether the 1.5% middle school quotas would be based on the schools to which students were zoned or instead those which they were attending. Those who panned Judge Hilton's decision are, for the most part, far from "nonpartisan," but instead were drawn from the same stable of commentators on whom the liberal media regularly draws upon to comment on judicial cases. At this point, most believe that the Fourth Circuit, with its current composition, will overturn Hilton's decision, but that the Fourth Circuit's decision will also be appealed and may ultimately get reconsidered by the more conservative Supreme Court. And if you want to refer to Harry Jackson as a "goon," that is certainly your prerogative, although you might be kinder, given that he's one of the very few Black men ever to have run or considered a run for the FCPS School Board. But, in that case, let's also not forget that the current Board members include: * A dude without a college degree who found a way to waste over $35 million in county money on an unnecessary elementary school in Dunn Loring (Frisch); * A member repeatedly on the record as having used the r-word when frustrated or not getting her way (Keys Gamarra); * A wealthy hypocrite who ran as a Democrat, but since has done nothing but protect the interests of the county's wealthiest in Great Falls and narrowly escaped a recall (Tholen); * A member who got into an unnecessary and avoidable confrontation with police and then, once in office, made anti-Semitic statements and urged students to wage "jihad" (Omeish); * A cringe-inducing narcissist who has used her seat on the School Board to promote her son's musical career (Sizemore Heizer); * A member who has failed for years to address the severe overcrowding at a high school in her district (Pekarsky); and * A woman who claimed her appreciation for Asian culture stemmed from having eaten at a Benihana steak house as a child and kept FCPS closed for many months while enrolling her own kids in a learning pod (Meren); and * A host of other members who have brought little to the table for years, such as Corbett-Sanders and Derenak-Kaufax. |
Anonymous
Huh, when you put it that way... Harry Jackson got kicked from the TJ PTSA for using its email lists to promote his leadership seminars. Guess he'll fit right in. |
Anonymous
The glass house the current Democrats on the SB inhabit is plenty big. |
Anonymous
For sure. Seriously, though, my instinct is that if you put Jackson on there as well, he'll just bring a big bag of boulders into the glass house and start playing shot-put with them, and then you've got no house at all. We really need better candidates for school board around here. |
Anonymous
That's the reason coalition for TJ framed the issue the way they did |
Anonymous
No house is better than a toxic house. |
Anonymous
...unless 178,000 kids depend on the house. |
Anonymous
1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all. 2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again. |
Anonymous
There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian. Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns. To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues. |