Why ‘Equity’ Is Evil
IT used to be obvious that merit is part of achieving the American dream. But like it’s doing to so many self-evident things, the left is attempting to destroy this idea as it pursues a Sovietesque system of “equity.”
Parents might not see merit’s decline as a more pressing concern than their children being told they can be any gender they choose from day to day. Most kids are academically average. Why fight over merit when there are so many other ideological fights to be had?
Parents have to see merit as part and parcel of the left’s push to impose its ridiculous concepts on our kids. The idea that everyone can have an equal outcome has been tried again and again in failed socialist countries. When the left succeeds in ending merit in a school, you can be sure the rest of the woke ideas parents abhor have already taken over the curriculum.
Our schools’ loss of rigor has dumbed down our country, and the retreat from pursuing merit has slowed success for so many kids. This isn’t theoretical, nor accidental.
Virginia mom Asra Nomani recently discovered that in September 2020, her son received National Merit recognition, a prestigious honor given to a handful of kids across the country — but her son’s school, Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology, hid it from the family.
The majority-Asian school is neck deep and drowning in leftist ideology, pursuing “equity,” equal outcomes for children based on the color of their skin. Asians are out, as TJ has simply too many successful ones. Nomani’s son was the wrong color, and the school’s racists decided he should not be presented with the award.
Learning this news two years too late, Nomani’s son was denied the ability to note the achievement on his college applications and seek scholarships that stem from this award. The school hurt his chances to succeed, and it did it on purpose.
Lest anyone think this is just one bad principal at one school, state officials are investigating more than a dozen schools in northern Virginia for doing the same thing.
In Sunday’s Post, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin wrote that he’s proposed a bill “to eliminate the withholding of any recognition, award, or postsecondary scholarship eligibility earned by Virginia students” — “parents and students will be notified immediately about these honors.” That’s a start.
But the schools that harmed so many kids’ futures because they put their political ideology ahead of student success need to be punished, and everyone involved must be fired. As Youngkin points out, Fairfax County has spent “$455,000 of taxpayer dollars to fund equity training in schools.” This is akin to setting nearly half a million of our tax dollars on fire. We can’t let it go on.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has launched an investigation into whether these schools violated the students’ civil rights. It seems obvious they have, and accountability is necessary. Any school found to have withheld merit awards from children, for any reason, should have the choice of a fully new administration or losing its federal funding.
Schools receive this money to support kids’ education and success, not to impose their twisted Communist-like social system. If public schools can’t or won’t do that, they don’t deserve to exist.
The behavior of everyone involved in this scandal is so far beyond the pale, there can be no second chances. They deserve to lose it all.
The left treats our public schools like its personal fiefdom. This has to stop now. Parents should fight for school choice and for a child’s education funding to follow the student, but (particularly in blue states where that’s an uphill battle) they have to simultaneously fight for our public schools.
Parents know how to do it. They successfully beat back criticalrace-theory and gender-ideology training in many public schools, even in blue areas. Fighting for merit is the next frontier and one that has to matter to all of us.