Nettleton Middle School in northern Mississippi has some pretty standard requirements for nominees for class officers. Students must be passing their classes, maintaining a B average, have good attendance and good moral character. And, if they're an eighth grader running for class president, they'd better be white.
What!? Yes, at Nettleton Middle School only white kids can run to be class president. Don't worry, black kids can run to be vice president. However the seventh grade African-American students can only aspire to be secretary, as the top two slots are reserved for whites. And black sixth-graders better not set their sights above reporter, the lowest position.
Check your calendar, yes it is still 2010, but no one told Nettleton Middle School. They've been maintaining this practice for decades.
The national controversy surrounding the school started when one mixed-race child drew attention to the school's outlandish policy.
The 12-year-old daughter of Brandy Springer, a mother of four mixed-race children, was disappointed she couldn't run for class reporter this year. When her mother asked why, the student showed her a flyer outlining which positions white kids could seek and which positions black kids could seek. Brandy shared her story on a popular blog for mixed-race families and the buzz that blog post generated, combined with The Smoking Gun's release of the document, set off a national firestorm last Thursday.
Parents are livid, fellow educators are stunned, and supporters of civil rights nationwide are aghast.
Aside from the inability to neatly define many schoolchildren by only one race, there are also Hispanic and Asian students who are completely shut out of the experience of running for class office.
On Friday the Nettleton Middle School held an emergency session and repealed the policy, which apparently dates back to the era of desegregation. School officials noted their "hope and desire that these practices and procedures are no longer needed to help ensure minority representation and involvement." I believe we all share that hope.
While it is possible that the people behind the policy and those who maintained it until last week had good intentions about racial harmony, it is an absolutely misguided and hurtful policy in this millennium. This is institutionalized racism, hurting children of all races, and it teaches students a bad lesson. America recently celebrated the 47th anniversary of Dr. King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech in which he envisions a world where everyone will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. Perhaps the administrators of the school need to be reminded of those powerful words. One can only hope that teachers across the country will use this news story as a teaching opportunity.
In 2010, with a duly-elected African-American president in the White House, it shouldn't take a national firestorm of controversy to convince school administrators that African-American eighth graders should be allowed to run for student body president.
For more on the story:
ABC News, USA Today, Associated Press, Newsweek, TIME
Was the policy well-intentioned?
Are there other controversial policies that have outlived any usefulness they may have had?
Comment below.
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