OPINION:
I was dumbstruck after reading that a new contract allows Minneapolis public school teachers of color to keep their jobs during layoffs while white instructors with more seniority get the boot (“Minneapolis school district defends deal to lay off white teachers ahead of minority teachers,” Web, Aug. 16).
Since about 60% of the students are non-white compared to just 16% of the district’s tenured teachers and 27% of its probationary teachers, the contract’s intent is to protect “underrepresented populations” and keep the district’s predominantly white staff from becoming more homogenous.
According to the contract excerpt cited in the Times: Certain teachers “may be exempted from district-wide layoff outside of seniority order to remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination” that have “resulted in a lack of diversity of teachers.”
Although the teachers union and the school district “mutually agreed” on the deal, a representative of the Upper Midwest Law Center has called it “unconstitutional. This agreement is not a move forward, as presented, in the retention of teachers of color but, rather, government-sponsored racism that should be abandoned before becoming a national model for other states to emulate.”
Affirmative action is nothing more than quota reparation.
RICK KNIGHT
Henrico, Virginia
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