Attorney General Eric Holder is pushing black students into schools that are failing just so he can crow about diversity statistics, more than two dozen Republican senators charged Thursday.
Republican Sen. Pat Toomey was one GOP member who made the accusation, speaking about the fallout from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana when needy students in the state received scholarships for private schools. The students hailed from schools that were failing, more than 90 percent of them minorities, the Hill reported.
But the Justice Department asked that some of those students stay at their present schools — the failing ones — to ensure the ethnic population contains at least 30 percent blacks, the Hill reported.
Mr. Toomey was outraged, saying the number of students who was asked to trade a school transfer for a Justice Department diversity rate was 570.
“The fact that Attorney General Eric Holder would block any child from obtaining a good education is bad enough,” he said. “The fact that he is doing so based solely on the children’s race is inexcusable.”
He and a couple dozen of his Senate colleagues sent a letter to Mr. Holder requesting explanation.
“The Justice Department is targeting the children solely on the basis of their skin color: If the six African-American children were white, and the five white children were African-American, the Justice Department would not be trying to prevent them from receiving a good education. These children are not statistics,” the letter stated.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.