The Washington Free Beacon reports that several Minneapolis public schools prohibit white and Asian students from enrolling in classes dealing with black culture. Of the two course, both are similar, except "BLACK Culture – Building Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge” is only available for black males and "BLACK Culture – Building Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge (Queens)" is only available to black women.
These classes fill elective requirements as those public schools require their students to take one ethnic studies course in order to graduate. Prohibiting the courses as an option to white and Asian student gives them a narrower list of classes to choose to fill said requirements.
According to civil rights attorneys, they almost certainly violate civil rights law. The Free Beacon adds that requiring students to take ethnic studies courses is likely legal, but racially segregating those classes is likely illegal.
Sheila Qualls is the executive director of Washington Academy and ambassador of Project 21: Black Leadership Network. She states that this is blatant discrimination.
"I'm not sure how anyone could see this any other way, to be honest. I thought that Brown v. Board of Education sort of said ‘we're not going to discriminate or separate based on race.’ And that's exactly what they're doing," says Qualls.
She points out that this not only violates the law but upsets many parents of white and Asian students.
“If I were a parent of an Asian or a white kid and saw that there was something special, I wouldn't be happy about that. And I'm suspecting that other students — white, Asian, or any other ethnicity that are not allowed to enroll in these classes —wouldn't be happy about that at all," says Qualls.
