Voters Have Defeated a Texas School District's Plan To Punish Students for Microaggressions

Proponents of a plan to mandate new diversity and microaggression monitoring systems suffered crushing electoral losses in Southlake, Texas, on Saturday.

Mainstream reporting on the school board elections for Carroll Independent School District—a total rout for candidates who supported the plan—was extremely negative in tone, all but accusing Southlake voters of endorsing racism. But a quick perusal of the plan suggests that there were perfectly valid reasons to vote against it.


https://reason.com/2021/05/03/texas-antiracism-microaggressions-southlake-election/


Interesting story for a couple of reasons. Voters are pushing back against this overreach, and because one of our members has a daughter living here.

Maddog wrote:Voters are pushing back against this overreach...

Why do you call it an overreach?

Maddog wrote:...one of our members has a daughter living here.

Why is that relevant?

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:...one of our members has a daughter living here.

Why is that relevant?

I just thought you might be interested in your kids small town making a global publication.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:Voters are pushing back against this overreach...

Why do you call it an overreach?

I don't (and most voters in Southlake) think school districts should be tracking microaggressions that take place off campus

If Johnny calls Susan a fat bitch at party on Saturday night, the school district doesn't need to place that in Johnny's record.

Quite right MD!

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Why do you call it an overreach?

I don't (and most voters in Southlake) think school districts should be tracking microaggressions that take place off campus

If Johnny calls Susan a fat bitch at party on Saturday night, the school district doesn't need to place that in Johnny's record.

It does seem rather trite.  How about if Johnny calls the teacher a fat bitch?  On Saturday night?  In the classroom, on Monday morning?

I would agree with Professor Sue:  "No less than Derald Wing Sue, the Columbia University psychologist who invented the concept of microaggressions, has expressed concerned about education administrators taking his ideas "out of context" and using them in a "punitive way."

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I don't (and most voters in Southlake) think school districts should be tracking microaggressions that take place off campus

If Johnny calls Susan a fat bitch at party on Saturday night, the school district doesn't need to place that in Johnny's record.

It does seem rather trite.  How about if Johnny calls the teacher a fat bitch?  On Saturday night?  In the classroom, on Monday morning?

I would agree with Professor Sue:  "No less than Derald Wing Sue, the Columbia University psychologist who invented the concept of microaggressions, has expressed concerned about education administrators taking his ideas "out of context" and using them in a "punitive way."

I believe schools ability to judge conduct ends when a child is no longer under their control. Crimes would be a different category, but even then I have concerns.

When my middle child was about 16, she was at a house party where the cops showed up. A few years earlier, the school district changed policy about being able to participate in extra curricular activities with an alcohol citation. She was in student council and varsity soccer.

She told the owner of the home (he was at home) that she couldn't get one of those tickets the cops were handing out. Her and a few other kids demonstrated their running skills that night.

She didn't get a 6 week suspension from EC activities.

She also learned a little about how the world works that night.

I trust she learned that she should get the hell away, whenever alcohol was being served at a school party. As an Arizona AAG, I also had to be aware when drugs were being passed out at parties...and get the hell away. Association is an ambiguous thing.

Look at Gov. Newsom, facing recall for attending a luncheon at the exclusive 5-star French Laundry restaurant, while the rest of us were enduring the lockdown...and that's just insensitivity, not illegality.

But, really, that's the issue of mistaken association. In our hypothetical, Johnny actually called the teacher a bitch.

Original Quill wrote:I trust she learned that she should get the hell away, whenever alcohol was being served at a school party.  As an Arizona AAG, I also had to be aware when drugs were being passed out at parties...and get the hell away.  Association is an ambiguous thing.

Look at Gov. Newsom, facing recall for attending a luncheon at the exclusive 5-star French Laundry restaurant, while the rest of us were enduring the lockdown...and that's just insensitivity, not illegality.

But, really, that's the issue of mistaken association.  In our hypothetical, Johnny actually called the teacher a bitch.

It wasn't a "school" party.

Didn't you have parties in high school where alcohol was partaken in?

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:I trust she learned that she should get the hell away, whenever alcohol was being served at a school party.  As an Arizona AAG, I also had to be aware when drugs were being passed out at parties...and get the hell away.  Association is an ambiguous thing.

Look at Gov. Newsom, facing recall for attending a luncheon at the exclusive 5-star French Laundry restaurant, while the rest of us were enduring the lockdown...and that's just insensitivity, not illegality.

But, really, that's the issue of mistaken association.  In our hypothetical, Johnny actually called the teacher a bitch.

It wasn't a "school" party.

How do you mean 'school' party? I meant a party that happens when you are at an age where you are in school. You said she was on the student council; isn't that of school age?

Do you mean something more?

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

It wasn't a "school" party.

How do you mean 'school' party?  I meant a party that happens when you are at an age where you are in school.  You said she was on the student council; isn't that of school age?

Do you mean something more?

Oh, they were school age.

They were 16, maybe 17.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

How do you mean 'school' party?  I meant a party that happens when you are at an age where you are in school.  You said she was on the student council; isn't that of school age?

Do you mean something more?

Oh, they were school age.

They were 16, maybe 17.  

So, as I anticipated, they were at a school party, just not a school-sponsored function.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Oh, they were school age.

They were 16, maybe 17.  

So they were at a school party, just not a school-sponsored function.

That's a weird name for it. They were school aged, may have been kids from different schools.

This party had nothing to do with school. It was friends getting together and hanging out like teens tend to do. Some were drinking beer.

For all I know, there were kids who had already graduated there too.

In fact, one of the older brothers was out of high school. Maybe that makes it a college party?

Sounds like we are both on the right track.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:Voters are pushing back against this overreach...

Why do you call it an overreach?

I don't (and most voters in Southlake) think school districts should be tracking microaggressions that take place off campus

If Johnny calls Susan a fat bitch at party on Saturday night, the school district doesn't need to place that in Johnny's record.

I totally agree. Pretty soon we will have a bunch of robots afraid to say anything they think.

Bye bye free speech.

eddie wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I don't (and most voters in Southlake) think school districts should be tracking microaggressions that take place off campus

If Johnny calls Susan a fat bitch at party on Saturday night, the school district doesn't need to place that in Johnny's record.

I totally agree. Pretty soon we will have a bunch of robots afraid to say anything they think.

Bye bye free speech.

1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a "how to" manual.

What scares me is the fear that people now have about speaking freely.

Social media made a phenomenon called “Let me fit in”

It’s killing us all.

eddie wrote:What scares me is the fear that people now have about speaking freely.

Social media made a phenomenon called “Let me fit in”

It’s killing us all.

Social media is the road that we use to say things. It can be a problem, but as long as there are no legal ramifications for saying things, I'm not that worried about social media.

The problem is people's reactions to what they see on social media. They think everyone with a different opinion needs to be punished. Social media just amplifies speech.

As the article states, a big problem with proposals like this is that nobody really agrees on what is a microaggression and what is perfectly innocent.

One person might define a microaggression as a white student telling a black student to go eat some chicken, for example. Well, we have no idea whether this was said as a friendly jibe or because the white kid is racist, so that would prompt a resource-intensive investigation over somethng that probably isn't really worth it.

Another person might say it's a microaggression if a white or black student asks an Asian or Hispanic student where they're from. And most reasonable people would agree that question is without malice, so what then?

Obviously if a kid calls another kid a nigger in class, he should have a talk with the principal. But that was the policy well before anybody had heard of a microaggression.

Ben Reilly wrote:As the article states, a big problem with proposals like this is that nobody really agrees on what is a microaggression and what is perfectly innocent.

One person might define a microaggression as a white student telling a black student to go eat some chicken, for example. Well, we have no idea whether this was said as a friendly jibe or because the white kid is racist, so that would prompt a resource-intensive investigation over somethng that probably isn't really worth it.

Another person might say it's a microaggression if a white or black student asks an Asian or Hispanic student where they're from. And most reasonable people would agree that question is without malice, so what then?

Obviously if a kid calls another kid a nigger in class, he should have a talk with the principal. But that was the policy well before anybody had heard of a microaggression.

Precisely.

And it gets more intrusive when we are talking about microaggressions that could be happening off campus in someone's home.

Yeah, that goes into the idea of jurisdictions (in the loose sense of the term) and whether it's any business of your school, employer, etc. what you get up to in your own time.

Maddog wrote:

eddie wrote:What scares me is the fear that people now have about speaking freely.

Social media made a phenomenon called “Let me fit in”

It’s killing us all.

Social media is the road that we use to say things. It can be a problem, but as long as there are no legal ramifications for saying things, I'm not that worried about social media.

The problem is people's reactions to what they see on social media. They think everyone with a different opinion needs to be punished. Social media just amplifies speech.

“The problem is people's reactions to what they see on social media. They think everyone with a different opinion needs to be punished. Social media just amplifies speech”


Yep.