WATCHING THE NM SUPREME COURT'S PROTECTION RACKET AT WORK

[NOTE: This blog does not wait for a foregone conclusion to a complaint to the NM Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board in the not too-distant future.  The Court and Board are the highest levels in my long effort to expose the vertically integrated corruption of New Mexico’s legal system.  Whether the information which I have reported makes any difference remains to be seen.  I have done my part to effect reform.

The problem at this level in enchanted New Mexico is not unlike that in other states, including enlightened California.  One story among many may be found at https://ktla.com/news/california/audit-finds-california-bar-failed-to-efficiently-reform-its-system-to-investigate-and-discipline-bad-lawyers/.]

 

The New Mexico Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board will soon receive my complaint about a government lawyer’s multiple violations of the “Rules of Professional Conduct.”  Because Court and Board run a lawyers’ protection racket with neither transparency nor accountability, their secret operations will clear the lawyer.  The issues involved in these selected violations suggest the adroit gymnastics necessary to achieve their purposes.

 

The Court assures the public that the Board’s “procedures are designed to provide a thorough and objective review of the complaint of conduct and to resolve the matter in a way that is fair to those involved.”  Its assurance is lawyerly, lame, and devious; being “designed to provide” such a review is not the same as actually providing one.

 

One truth: the Court’s “Rules” serve collegiality among government lawyers; they apply to malfeasance almost entirely by lawyers in private practice, not by fellow government attorneys.  So the complaint form solicits information on private lawyers; for government lawyers, keep checking “other.”  Yet the Board’s procedures favor all professional colleagues.  They give any accused lawyer the right to rebut a citizen’s complaint, deny the citizen the right to rebut the lawyer’s response, and withhold a report on its decisions unless the citizen requests it.  The Board presumes that it divines truth despite built-in biases and pretends that it conducts trustworthy investigations despite operational secrecy.  As for resolving “the matter in a way that is fair to those involved”—how so?

 

No legislators, many of them lawyers, and no lawyers of distinction have shown concern about these “Rules”; for them, reform would mean too much pain, too little gain.

 

Another truth: the Supreme Court mostly omits government lawyers from the “Rules” to ensure high rates of convictions of minorities and the poor.  The “Rules” say nothing about District Attorneys who, knowing that they have little or no case, or even that the accused is innocent, victimize the accused by threatening serious charges with long sentences to secure plea deals, often with complicit public defenders, also government lawyers.  The “Rules” say nothing about District Attorneys who suborn perjured police testimony or withhold exonerating evidence, with the result that the accused do not get fair trials, then get convictions, penalties, and jail sentences.  The Court ignores these abusers of justice.  Lesser offenses by city attorneys—oh, well.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

Is there a rule when the City Attorney many months later contradicts two police investigators about major facts?  One wrote that the charges were a “possibility,” not an actuality.  The other wrote that the charging officer admitted seeing no violations, and concluded that “violations [were] marked to which there was no physical evidence or proof an actual violation had occurred.”  The City Attorney wrote, “The events as they occurred actually occurred.  They were properly documented.”

 

Is there a rule when the City Attorney’s claim of supporting documentation implies alternative actualities of misconduct.  The City Attorney either failed to comply with an IPRA request for all records related to the “violations” or “events,” or lied about their existence.

 

These two items confront the Board with three questions.  Does it resolve the conflict between the findings of two investigating police officers and the opinion of the City Attorney?  Does it address either the illegal withholding of records requested under IPRA or the lie that they exist?  And, if documentation exists, does it demand compliance with the law and its release?

 

Is there a rule when, many months later, the City Attorney denies the existence of a police file holding the warning notice?  The warning notice states that “a receipt will be kept on file,” and an Interim City Manager’s email to me confirmed that such a “receipt” is in an LCPD file.  The City Attorney wrote, “There is no way to ‘purge’ your file because there is no file to ‘purge’.”  If the “notice” or “receipt” does not exist, was it destroyed?

 

This item confronts the Board with one question.  Does it resolve the conflict between a printed text and a City Manager’s email, and the City Attorney’s assertion?

 

Finally, these three items raise one overarching question.  Does the Board accept the City Attorney’s excuse that these positive assertions were “inadvertent errors” or were necessary to defend (perceptions of) the city’s interests?

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

Is there a rule when the City Attorney addresses the foregoing statements, untruthful information, and mistaken advice not only to me, but also to an Assistant City Attorney, the Chief of Police, and other city and state officials?  Is there a rule when the City Attorney thereby provides an “on-the-advice-of-counsel” excuse to disregard formal and informal complaints from a citizen trying to resolve abuses of phony charges and their retention in police files?  Is there a rule when the City Attorney advises City Council members not to respond to an email from me lest it cause a “rolling quorum” and apparently persuaded the Attorney General to ignore my complaint.

 

Is there a rule when the City Attorney intervenes to prevent the resolution of the complaint with an apology and purging of the file?  The City Attorney intervened to prevent the City Manager from writing me a letter of apology which he and I agreed should address specifics and which he asked me to draft.  The City Attorney wrote a substitute letter which apologized for none of the specifics—that is, the phony charges—and for nothing of concern to me but characterized me as “confused” about the charges.

 

Are there rules which apply to obstructing justice or denying due process?

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

Is there a rule when the City Attorney writes me and copies an Assistant City Attorney and the Police Chief to falsely accuse me of sexism.  “I suggest you refrain from treating me different [sic] because I am a woman.  Do not refer to my undergarments.  I am sure that you would not make such a comment to a man.”  My comment, an old cliché about getting one’s knickers in a twist, suited a quibbling exchange about the meanings of legal terms.

 

Is there a rule when the City Attorney’s three allegations pretend to be factual yet intend to malign me?  Allegation one: I treat this City Attorney differently because she is a woman.  How does she know?  Does she have any evidence?  Allegation two: I discuss her undergarments.  She is culturally ignorant about knickers and this cliché.  In North America, they are loose-fitting trousers gathered at the knee or calf, worn mostly by men, and

fashionable in the 20s and 30s.  Athletes—golfers and baseball, football, and tennis players—wore and, in some sports, still wear, them.  (In Britain, they are short, full underpants worn by girls or women; in New Mexico, by a woman city attorney.)  The cliché arose in England and applied to women but came to America and applied to men.  (In The Thomas Crown Affair [1999], Catherine Banning [Rene Russo] tells Michael McCann [Denis Leary] to keep his “knickers” on.)  Allegation three: I would not address the cliché to a man.  How does she know?  Has she heard me address men?  Does she have any evidence?  When I replied with this information to rebut her allegations, I got no reply.  The City Attorney was, and remains, determined to smear me as a sexist.

 

Is there a rule against public malicious falsehood, otherwise known as libel?

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

At the age of 82, I expect the Board’s investigative process and administrative procedures to be on-going at the time of my death.  I expect the Board to eventually reject the major items—lies, obstruction, libel—, ignore the minor ones, and recommend no action.  I shall die and not know its reasons why.  But you will know that, under the Supreme Court and the Disciplinary Board, “truth” is a mirage and “justice” a one-word oxymoron.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

Four relevant standards in “Rules, 16-804. Misconduct,” state, not always clearly for application to government attorneys, that “It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

C. engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.

D. engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.

E. [possibly] state or imply an ability to influence improperly a government agency or official…. [clearly aimed at private-practice lawyers claiming influence but could apply to government lawyers exerting improper influence on other officials]

G. engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion … in conduct related to the practice of law….”

 

ANOTHER POLICE KILLING: LAS CRUCES NEEDS A GOVERNMENT DO-OVER

The most remarkable fact about the police killing of Sra. Baca is the week-long silence of government officials and city employees.  Neither the Mayor nor any City Councilor has said a word.  The City Manager has said nothing.  The Chief of Police first refused to give even the name and age of the victim; when he grudgingly gave out that information, he invoked the on-going investigation as a reason to say nothing else.  Then, today, the city and the police released a 5-minute presentation about the police killing.

 

Once again, the City and the LCPD lie, mostly by omission.  No soundtrack goes with the body-camera recordings, an edited mix of movie clips and stills.  The silence conceals the officer’s violent and vulgar language; it omits “fucking,” a term indicating the officer’s aggressive and disrespectful attitude toward an elderly Hispanic woman living downtown and suffering from dementia.  (Would he have behaved similarly toward an elderly White woman living in the Sonoma Ranch area and suffering from dementia?).  The editing does not show the movements of the woman or the officer throughout the encounter.  In short, the presentation misrepresents the totality of the situation in ways clearly intended to justify yet another police killing.

 

The dishonesty of this presentation reflects the persistent dishonesty of government officials and city employees.  Start with government officials.  After a lapse of about 18 months, Council secured a police auditor.  Despite demands for police transparency and accountability, Council wanted to ensure a whitewash.  So, at the likely instigation of Mayor Miyagishima, perhaps with an assist by the City Attorney, Council, despite Gabe Vasquez’s professed desire for trends, unanimously set a deadline for reviewable cases which omitted all cases during the lapse, particularly mine.  In fact, those most vocal about police reform and most knowledgeable about my case—Councilors Johana Bencomo and Kasandra Gandara—spoke most notably to prevent my case from being part of the police audit.  Among other motives, the dominant one was that it exposed the LCPD as interchangeably corrupt and incompetent from its lowest to its highest officers.

 

When Miguel Dominguez succeeded Patrick Gallagher as Police Chief, he presented himself as “Mr. Transparency.”  He created a new web page dedicated to transparency—opaque as far as information relevant to actual LCPD police work—and displayed his picture prominently (since removed).  As Deputy Police Chief, Dominguez stated to Council that citizens did not trust the police and that the LCPD, when it makes mistakes, admits them.  The first statement is true, but no Councilor asked why or what the LCPD intended to do about establishing trust.  The second statement is false.  It has never admitted its many mistakes in my case, and, in this police killing, it now not only admits no mistakes, but also tries to cover them up and conceal the truth.

 

The Council’s dishonesty about seeking an honest assessment of the police department sets the tone for the LCPD’s dishonesty.  That moral congruence makes it complicit in the dishonesty of the department.  So it is not surprising that no Councilors still serving from the previous Council have said anything about this killing.  Their silence testifies to their guilt.

 

The technical questions involved in the investigation are innumerable, but the answers will establish serial corruption and incompetence, from recruitment through training through operations.  The call indicated violence resulting from a medical condition.  The officer arrived first and ensured that other family members were safe.  He did not wait for medical personnel or other people trained in dealing with disturbed citizens.  He intervened but did nothing to de-escalate the situation.  Instead, he escalated it with violent actions—drew a gun, not a taser—and vulgar language—shouted “fucking.”  He used a stand-your-ground approach instead of retreating when—if?—the woman, armed or not, moved toward him.  He could have backed up, even left the house, until those better prepared for such a situation arrived.

 

In the aftermath, lessons can be drawn that do not depend on a secret, corrupt investigation to extenuate, excuse, or elide as much officer misconduct as possible.  First, the LCPD has all sorts of fine policies—the police auditor commended the LCPD on this point—and no enforcement.  Even in my case, the veteran officer ignored policy to record calls; his citation was the least the department could do to look as if it had done its job (assuming it did not destroy the recording in its cover-up).  Second, the LCPD is so thoroughly corrupt and incompetent that it cannot be transparent and accountable.  But its dishonesty and corruption does not exist in a vacuum; it reflects that of leadership in the City Manager and his administration, and the Mayor and City Council.  And a silent media tolerates, thereby enables, their dishonesty and corruption.  In a week, not a word from The Sun-News, The Bulletin, and commentators like Walt Rubel and Peter Goodman.

 

 Police killings will continue with the tacit consent of those government officials and city employees trusted with public safety, but who may well reflect a citizenry which seems not to care.  Otherwise, Las Cruces is a city in need of a government do-over.

THE FLIP SIDE OF WHITE RACISM IS BLACK RACISM

Some antiracist talk about White racism is about “White Privilege.”  Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility or Ibram Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist discuss the idea.  I know about White privilege but not what to do about it in my life.  For instance, on several—a few, not many—occasions when I have been stopped for speeding, police officers of diverse hues have given me a warning instead of a ticket.  Without saying so, they gave me a pass because I am White and, for good measure, a Vietnam veteran.  I suppose that I could have asked for a ticket, but they would have asked why I wanted one.  Unless I explained the reason, I might have gotten myself in serious trouble.  Who lectures an officer on his or her racial biases and can expect to have a good day or do any good?

 

Many Whites—I would like to use the phrase “people of no color” to balance the phrase “people of color,” but I think the jest would fall flat—want to think themselves untainted by the sin of racism but, out of ignorance or inexperience, worry that they are racist despite themselves.  Fear and guilt are prevalent among them.  So more assertive anti-racists, Whites and Blacks—I let “Blacks” stand in for “people of color”—use fear and guilt to deal with anyone perceived as racist.  Not surprisingly, antiracist Whites are often more strident or vigorous face-to-face than antiracist Blacks in using insinuations or accusations of racism to advance their views against any opponents, racist or not.

 

Yet Blacks have an advantage over Whites in using fear and guilt against perceived White racists.  Blacks have “Black privilege” to criticize Whites.  Whites have no similar White privilege allowing them to criticize Blacks and almost never do so, even, perhaps, for good reason, without risk of being accused of racism.  In an amicable discussion, some of my step-son’s Black friends argued that, because of the power disparity between Blacks and Whites, Blacks could not be racist.  I disagreed; my counter-argument—it won at least grudging respect as not unreasonable—was that racism is fundamentally a sense, conscious or not, by members of one race of their superiority by virtue of membership in their race over members of another race, with all that follows from it in the way of power disparity.  Indeed, that sense of superiority explains a traditional though gentler racism among Blacks, that lighter skin is better than darker skin.

 

On plantations, that racism within the slave population marked a divide between house help and field hands—“help” and “hands” being euphemisms for the taboo word.  Today, a similar division has occurred in a surprising place, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  I became a Life Member in October 1968.  I did not need the inducements or entitlements of membership, but I got a membership card, a lapel pin, a wall plaque, and a lifetime subscription to The Crisis.  I have never had occasion to use the card or wear the pin; I hang the plaque beside by desk; I read The Crisis when I receive it.  But in 1997, in financial difficulties because of mismanagement, the NAACP Executive Board voted to end lifetime subscriptions and substitute 10-year subscriptions, to go with lifetime memberships.  But it did something extraordinary; it did not grandfather in the previous lifetime subscriptions; it broke its contract with thousands of lifetime, mostly Black, members since before 1997.  They and I suddenly became “field hands.”  I protested this treatment and noted the legal violation.  Julian Bond, then the Executive Director, wrote me to request that I refrain from action and to promise that my subscription would be restored.  I accepted because, without saying more, I thought that I had done enough to prompt a reconsideration of the Board’s decision—wrong.  In my case, lapses, resumptions after promises to prevent them from NAACP lawyers, more lapses.  Another lapse is on-going.  The Board has not answered my letter, and Development has not returned my calls.  National must think that, after so many years, this old white man is not going to cause trouble except to cancel a five-figure bequest.

 

I would like to give it to honor the Black men who inspired my membership over half a century ago.  But organizations, like organisms, have a birth-to-death life-cycle.  The NAACP is past its maturity and has not grown in fulfillment of its opposition to bigotry.  Since its founding in 1909, with the support of a large majority of Whites, including Jews—W. E. B. Du Bois was the only African American among its first executives—, it has not only eliminated Whites and Jews from leadership positions, but also experienced a reduction in their memberships.  Worse, it has sometimes acted or supported action against non-Black people of color and Jews.  Black racism and antisemitism are not alien to it.  Worse, the NAACP has become more a self-perpetuating organization fundraising in the name of a good cause than a progressive one effecting the advancement of “Colored People” of all colors and none at all.

 

Chapters are not without fault.  Because the Las Cruces chapter did not meet during the pandemic, I emailed the president to ask about its police reform efforts.  I began by saying that I had had trouble zooming—I had thought that I could not attend because my monitor has no camera—and got a hostile response.  “It’s difficult to take your questions seriously when you lead with “for technical reasons, I am unable to zoom”.  So please tell me why you are asking?”  Nothing connects my inability to zoom and my interest in what the chapter was doing besides its president’s media talk on the issue.  But something may associate my email picture of me sitting with my cat, indifferent to my age, race, and sex, and this response.  Of all Las Cruces organizations, the local NAACP chapter should care most about police misconduct, with racial disparities in harassment, ticketing, violence, and killings.  But, like most of the community, it has short-term reactions, not long-term commitments to reform.  Such an organization, replicated in chapters across the country, may encourage Black pride or Black solidarity and effect local remedies in specific cases, but not strive to achieve comprehensive racial justice in America.

 

All of which is to say that members of all races can be racist and that race exempts no one from criticism.  A question to ponder is why many people need, unconsciously or not, to presume their superiority to other people on the basis of race (likewise, gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, etc.)  After you are done pondering about others, you might wonder about yourself.  The question which I ask is how inferior do you have to be to need to presume yourself superior?

AMERICAN POLITICS: NOT MUCH BETTER BACK THEN, BUT MUCH WORSE NOW AND WORSENING

I was raised on politics, but it has never been an obsession with me.  At the dinner table, my family talked about two of the three subjects jokingly said to be unfit for polite conversation: politics, religion, and sex.  (Do families still gather together for dinner?)  Every political topic, local, state, or national, had two perspectives because my mother was a liberal Democrat, a now-endangered species attacked from Left and Right, and my father a moderate Republican, a now-extinct species.  The discussions became more complicated when dinners included more family members or close family friends.

 

Such dinner-table discussions are one of my fondest memories as a child and teenager.  Hearing more than one side of two sides of a controversial issue taught me to understand that there were arguments on both sides and to respect those who advanced those arguments, however different they were.  Participating taught me to think carefully or risk embarrassment; today, one talks first, walks-back later.  It may be that an interest in ideas and a joy in argument led me to become a teacher, a scholar, and a consultant.  I am open to discussing divergent opinions, no matter how much I disagree with some.  But I can find almost no one capable of arguing issues without getting ugly.  Most people think arguments are shouting matches (profanities) or pitching contests (pots and pans).

 

Times have not changed that much in public discourse about American politics.  Strong beliefs and strong feelings are nothing new to politics.  Newspapers in colonial days were scurrilous in ways which we do not imagine of our sainted Founding Fathers.  And crazy relatives at the Thanksgiving dinner table are no recent invention.  But political talk seems to have become increasingly vulgar and violent.  In the past, such talk was news to a few and came to them slowly and quietly by the newspaper, quickly and quietly by telegraph.  Talk accelerated from the radio to television to the Internet and iPhones.  No doubt, social media distributing vulgar language and violent behavior to millions models and normalizes them.

 

Such theorizing aside, insults and threats to those with different opinions have become norms not only at the dinner table, but also in legislatures at all government levels, not to mention political rallies.  I am repeatedly stunned by the incivility of members of Congress, mostly Republicans, toward others, mostly Democrats.  The big exception is shabby Republican treatment of Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheyney.  The only word to describe the behavior—words and deeds—of Congressional extremists mostly on the Right—Cotton, Cruz, Hawley, Gaetz, Greene, etc.—is barbaric.

 

How in the world did Americans get to this place not only in Congress, but also in communities?  We have not been little angels until some recent date; we have quarreled and, indeed, fought over many issues.  But the widespread and systematic behavior intimidating or attacking ordinary adults and children, volunteers at school or election boards, and teachers and health care professionals is, or should be, alarming to everyone but the perpetrators.  The random violence of insults hurled at or from passing cars, of irate airplane passengers, of mass shootings in shopping malls and movie theaters—suggest an unprecedented psycho-political derangement throughout the populace.

 

What makes the vulgarity and violence so alarming today is the targets, not policies, but peoples.  Old issues like slavery, expansion, monopolies and trusts, gold standard, and evolution, gave way to new issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception, inter-racial marriage, race, immigration, terrorism, and climate change.  The answers to the first set of issues were clear cut: civil war, the Pacific Ocean, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and the Scopes Trial—which is not to say that slavery did not metastasize into Jim-Crow laws and segregation.  The answers to the second set of issues are far from clear because several of them concern private, not public, behavior associated with gender or race.

 

For Republicans, these issues are the perfect ones for demagoguery in the pursuit of power.  They arouse populist fear and hate, avoid public issues in the public interest, and divert attention from their support of moguls and mega-corporations.  Their attacks on women, LGBTQ people, and minorities (Hispanics, Muslims, Asian-Americans, Jews) will never cease.  Soon to reverse a woman’s right to abortion, they are widening their attacks on other rights long regarded as “settled law”: contraception, same-sex marriage, and inter-racial marriage.  They will return to flag-burning; school prayer; private rights in businesses, including accommodations and transportation; and, above all others, states’ rights to regulate citizenship, voting rights, and qualifications to hold office.  Republican vilification of Democrats—name-calling, motive-mongering, and paranoid fictions—prepares for restrictions on and prosecutions of political opponents (how many will they lock up or execute for what crimes?).  A Supreme Court of and for Republicans will continue to approve their abuses and erode democratic rights by ignoring the plain (“original”) language of the Constitution.  Eventually, Republican super-majorities in the House and Senate, and in governorships in the states will convene a Constitutional convention to replace the present one, which has enabled the expansion of civil rights and liberties.  Such is the grand strategy and the grim tactics of Republican fascism.

 

Republicans are silent about their inconsistency when it comes to government tyranny.  They accuse of government of being tyrannical when it uses laws, regulations, or executive orders to achieve public goals in safety, health, education, the economy, or the environment.  But they acclaim government for being non-tyrannical when it seeks to intervene in the lifestyle decisions of private citizens, not by ordering what they must do, but by prohibiting what they can do.  Apparently, a government permitting private actions which affect no one but the parties involved is tyrannical; a government outlawing them is not.  Totalitarian power answers to no one.

 

Republican use these “issues” to establish the power of federal and state governments to do as they please, repress dissent about their policies and failures, and oppress opponents in a widening circle eventually including all state-defined “enemies of the people.”  There is no turning back.  Those who seek power and acquire it rarely, if ever, relinquish it.  In my day, neither Hitler, Stalin, nor Mao stepped down though their countries suffered the consequences of their rules.  In my day still, Putin is destroying his country as well as threatening to destroy, and perhaps will destroy, other countries.  Likewise, Republicans, who are using all possible means to effect the political transition from democracy to fascism, seek to establish know-nothing, White evangelical Christian, xenophobic nationalistic rule over most Americans, and abet the accumulation of power and wealth only for ruling oligarchs (Musk, Koch, Zuckerberg, and others).

 

Raised in a different time and place, and in a civilized society, I am stunned.  I am stunned that many Americans think that a totalitarian government can enhance the quality of their or any human lives.  Tucker Carlson is only one of many who support Putin and his dictatorial rule over a third-world country with nuclear weapons.  I refuse to be numbed by outrageous words or deeds of media fifth-columnists and their fellow travelers.  Indeed, outrage is my salvation.  Unlike anger, outrage expresses moral convictions, and I have no intention of diminishing or abandoning mine.  From this perspective, I deem anyone who turns away from the ugliness of the current political situation in disgust as merely self-indulgent, morally self-degrading, politically self-defeating, and socially destructive.  As an officer, I swore to protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.  No longer an officer and defender against foreign enemies, I do what I can to defend it from its domestic enemies.  Among them are police forces out of control and in sympathy with home-grown malcontents, terrorists, and insurgents who regard people like me as un-American and themselves, despite the American flags which they conspicuously fly in their front yards, as patriotic.  In Las Cruces, I know who is defending democracy and who is destroying it.

ANTI-RACIST SOCIAL ENGINEERING IN EDUCATION--A CAUTION

When my family moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio, it had, so I am told, the highest per-capita income of any city in the country.  In my K-12 years from 1945 through 1958, it had one of the nation’s leading public school systems.  For a decade or so thereafter, wherever I went, people had heard of Shaker because of its wealth and its school system.  Very few Blacks then went to its schools.

 

The year before I graduated, Shaker was one of the country’s first cites to resist blockbusting by realtors using race to frighten Whites into selling fast and cheap so that they could resell fast and costly to Blacks wanting a better life for their families and better schools for their children.  Its efforts, nationally touted, resulted in a win-win for everyone.  It protected housing values and, by preventing race-panic pricing, enabled middle-class Blacks to move into the city.  Shaker has become a roughly racially balanced community.  So far, so good, though inter-racial issues abide.

 

After my time, racial rebalancing in the schools has also involved inter-racial issues.  Disparities in socio-economic and educational backgrounds have conditioned persistent difficulties.  Some inner-city Blacks have resisted academic norms of a social, cultural, and educational environment defined by suburban Whites.  Some Black students trying hard to get a “Shaker education” as their parents desired have been taunted by other Black students for “acting White” and not being authentically Black.  Educational metrics continue to show racial disparities.  Shaker has tried to address these problems; despite its best efforts—some say and I agree that they have not been enough or good enough—, the District has failed.  In fairness, for 65 years, the Shaker Heights community and its public school system have opposed racist bigotry and supported racial justice.

 

In truth, in that time, as the racial proportion has shifted from a few Blacks in sixteen hundred students to a student body half Black/half White and Asian, the quality of Shaker’s public education has dramatically declined.  From being one of the top ten public school systems in the country, it is now not even in the top ten in Cuyahoga County.  Correlation is not causation, but, for whatever reason, growing numbers of Black students have contributed to the decline of a “Shaker education.”

 

That education uses a meritocratic approach structured with lower, middle, and upper tiers of programs and courses.  So Shaker assigns students according to academic performance but adjusts assignments if it changes.  Problem: differences in backgrounds fall along racial lines and reflect structural racism—disadvantages to Blacks, advantages to Whites—in employment, housing, health care, nutrition, and education.  The effects of structural racism appear when Black students from inner-city schools enroll in suburban schools.  Many Blacks have weak, a few have strong, academic backgrounds, which guide their assignments to programs and courses.  Racial disparities result: in remedial or special ed courses, more Blacks than Whites; in advanced or enriched courses, more Whites than Blacks.  These disparities, or gaps, reflect the effects of structural racism, but, since they reflect performance, not race, they are not racist—a crucial distinction.

 

However, in today’s center-to-left anti-racist opinion, many regard meritocratic gaps as proof of racism.  Among other proposed remedies to perceived racism, Shaker seeks to abolish one gap by ending advanced or enriched courses in the name of deceptively labeled “equitable outcomes.”  The proposal will fail not only to reduce racial inequality, but also to increase racial equity.  It will be unfair to Black and White students enrolled in these courses by depriving them of a better education and its long-term advantages.  It will be unfair by harming Black students who share classes—act White?—with White students and will harm White students who share classes with Black students.  It will harm these highly qualified Black and White students without offsetting help to other students—no greater good for the greater number.  An anti-racist remedy both unfair and harmful can achieve neither equality nor equity.

 

The perverse irony is that this proposal perceives students as members of racial groups—the basis of racism—, counts them, and determines that gaps in numbers or proportions reflect racism.  What the proposal does not do is perceive these students as individuals and educate them in courses appropriate to their aptitudes, abilities, and interests.  In short, the proposed remedy, opposing the philosophy of a Shaker education and discrediting Shaker’s efforts to address racism, is both anti-educational and racist.

 

Still, the question is why Shaker’s efforts have failed.  One answer: Shaker has not assigned better teachers or more resources to help students with weak backgrounds.  I doubt that Shaker, like most schools, whatever their racial make-up, has assigned its best teachers to lower-tier classes; I also doubt that it has skimped on resources.  Another answer: some Black parents and students have retained cultural and social inclinations which make them unreceptive, even hostile, to meritocratic education, and fault-finding of or blame-shifting to teachers and principals.  Perhaps the harder Shaker has tried, the more readily some Blacks have perceived its efforts as Whites-know-best patronizing.  I know of no Black leaders who have tried to help newly arrived Black parents recognize the need for them and their children to accept and adjust to Shaker’s academic norms to get the education for which they relocated to Shaker in the first place.

 

Its failure notwithstanding, Shaker deserves credit for past efforts.  But, to reverse its educational decline and restore educational quality, it must consider all options.  One is more of the same.  But its 65-year failure to improve the education of its weakest, often Black, students rightly makes this option dead on arrival.  Another is this anti-racist, social-engineering proposal to end tiers, build open classrooms, award high grades—and fake equality and feign equity.  It may fool parents, but not students; they know who is smart and held back, and who is not and helped not, though some may err in thinking Blacks previously poorly educated stupid, per stereotype.  This trendy woke proposal for equality will accelerate Shaker’s decline into worse than educational mediocrity.

 

I offer a third option, not only for Shaker, but also for other cities with similar problems: efforts based on curriculums and instructional methods which worked in Shaker’s heyday, with one difference: special emphasis on the educationally neediest students.  That is, Shaker must ensure an equitable education for all students, one matching their aptitudes, abilities, and interests.  My experience testifies that, with rigorous courses and stand-and-deliver teachers, students of any color can overcome their disadvantages and achieve satisfying academic success.