Separate but equal lives in Colorado

In Col­orado appar­ently the after school tutor­ing pro­gram for kids is for chil­dren of color only:

A school prin­ci­pal said no white chil­dren were allowed at an after-​school tutor­ing pro­gram, and now some par­ents call it discrimination.

The prin­ci­pal at Mis­sion Viejo Ele­men­tary in Aurora sent a let­ter telling par­ents the pro­gram is only for stu­dents of color.

Not to worry the school says they will make accom­mo­da­tion for the rare white stu­dent who like stu­dents of color fail to reach the lev­els of accom­plish­ment that stu­dents of the school are expected to reach.

“This is Andre Pear­son. It’s focused for and designed for chil­dren of color, but cer­tainly, if we have space for other kids who have needs, we can def­i­nitely meet those needs,”

Now some might sug­gest such an arrange­ment sug­gests an inher­ent infe­ri­or­ity in non-​white stu­dents, par­tic­u­larly if they need help devoid of the pres­ence of a dif­fer­ent race, but the school dis­agrees:

If the civil and polit­i­cal rights of both races be equal, one can­not be infe­rior to the other civilly or politically.

and fur­ther

We con­sider the under­ly­ing fal­lacy of the plaintiff’s argu­ment to con­sist in the assump­tion that the enforced sep­a­ra­tion of the two races stamps the col­ored race with a badge of infe­ri­or­ity. If this be so, it is not by rea­son of any­thing found in the act, but solely because the col­ored race chooses to put that con­struc­tion upon it.

Oh sorry, my mis­take, that’s not the schools argu­ment that’s from the major­ity opin­ion of the Supreme Court Case Plessy v. Fer­gu­son of 1896.

Funny I seem to recall a court case in 1954 over­turn­ing that deci­sion say­ing in part:

We con­clude that in the field of pub­lic edu­ca­tion the doc­trine of “sep­a­rate but equal” has no place. Sep­a­rate edu­ca­tional facil­i­ties are inher­ently unequal.

One would think that a school prin­ci­pal would be famil­iar with this but per­haps Mr. Pear­son can be tutored on the sub­ject. The only ques­tion: Will he demand a seg­re­gated tutor­ing ses­sion.