An assault on diversity

An assault on diversity

Boston has three exam schools which offer a quality education equivalent to that available in the best private institutions. Boston Latin School, the oldest public school in the nation, is the jewel in the crown. Competition for admission is fierce because parents know that students who survive the rigorous academic program at Latin are assured of admission to a top-ranked college.

Sophisticated parents know that public primary education in Boston is of questionable quality. Therefore, many follow a strategy of sending their children to parochial or private school in preparation for admission to Boston Latin School in the seventh or ninth grade. Many students also are tutored and pretested to prepare them for the entrance examination.

Too few African American and Hispanic students are exposed to these advantages. Consequently, the School Committee set aside 35 percent of the openings at Boston Latin School for minorities. However, Michael McLaughlin, a Boston attorney, sued to win admission for his daughter Julia, and the courts ruled that the admission policy was unconstitutional.

The School Committee devised a new system to satisfy constitutional demands still providing opportunities for minorities who may have received less than adequate preparation because of the continuing racial insensitivity in the school system.

Every student who applies is given a ranking based in equal measure on his grade point average and his score on the entrance examination. Only those students who rank in the top half are considered qualified for Latin School, regardless of their race. Fifty percent of the students admitted to Latin School are selected in order from the ranking. There is no consideration of race.

The method for selecting the remaining fifty percent of the class does consider race. If 20 percent of the students remaining in the qualified group are African American, then 20 percent of the additional students admitted will be African American. If 40 percent are white, then 40 percent of the additional students admitted will be white. In each racial group admissions will be according to rank.

School officials assert that this system does not constitute a quota because there is no fixed number of any racial group. In fact, the system favored whites in admissions to the O'Bryant school when higher ranking Hispanics were passed over to admit more whites. Nonetheless, Sarah Wessman has charged that she was unlawfully denied admission to the ninth grade although 10 of the blacks, Asians and Hispanics among the 90 admitted had a lower rank than she.

According to school officials the difference in ranking between Wessman and nine of the minorities was not significantly different. They even scored higher than Wessman on either GPA, math or verbal although her average of the three placed her in a slightly higher ranking.

The racial breakdown for Latin's ninth grade is 44 percent white, 24 percent Asian, 21 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic. Admission solely on the basis of rank would have been 56 percent white, 23 percent Asian, 14 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic.

The question confronting Chief U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro is whether racial diversity is a valid educational value and whether the persistent racial discrimination in Boston's schools justifies a reasonable remedy for the deficient preparation of blacks and Hispanics.

It appears that whites will attack any plan helpful to African Americans. The only defense is for African Americans to dig in and become highly qualified.