JCPS continues to discriminate vs. individuals based on race

For now, the collective triumphs over the individual. Not content to prevent children from attending schools because they're African-American, the Jefferson County (Louisville) Public Schools (JCPS), so-called "liberals", and the C-J editorialists continue to work to sacrifice individuals at the altar of their preferred vision of society.

Here's Theresa Camoriano on the Lorraine Hill case in the most recent edition of the Jefferson Review...

Lorraine Hill is a fifth-grade teacher who works for the Louisville public schools. She recently has filed a lawsuit against the school system, which refused to allow her to apply to transfer from Laukhuf Elementary to Cane Run Elementary, which is closer to her home, due to her race. It seems that, if Ms. Hill transferred to Cane Run Elementary, she would upset the “Singleton Ratio”, which requires that 11.9-21.9% of the teachers in the Louisville elementary schools be African Americans. If Ms. Hill were Caucasian or Asian, there would not have been a problem. The reason Lorraine Hill was not even considered for the transfer is that she is black.

You would think the so-called “civil rights advocates” would support Lorraine Hill’s position. After all, this situation is very similar to that of George Wallace blocking the schoolhouse door to prevent students from entering based on their race, which was strongly opposed by the civil rights advocates in those days.

You would think the so-called “civil rights advocates” would be picketing the Louisville public schools, demanding that Lorraine Hill be given the opportunity to apply to teach at any school, regardless of her race.

You would think the so-called “civil rights advocates” would want every single person of any race or of mixed race, including Lorraine Hill, to have an equal opportunity to study or teach at any school.

But you would be wrong.

The reason you would be wrong is that the so-called “civil rights advocates” do not care about real individual people like Lorraine Hill. They don’t even claim to care about any real, individual people. They only care about groups or collectives of people.

The so-called “civil rights advocates” claim to care about groups like “blacks”, “the poor”, “the rich”, “the children”, and “society as a whole”, but they clearly do not care one whit about real, flesh and blood people within those groups, like Lorraine Hill, and they are perfectly willing to sacrifice the hopes, dreams, and even the lives of real people like Lorraine Hill in order to advance what they perceive to be the interests of the theoretical group or collective.

Those with even a slight grasp of history will recognize that this is nothing new. There have been many collectivists in the past who cared about groups rather than individuals. For example, Stalin described his collectivist view by saying it was acceptable to “break a few eggs” in order to make an omelet. In other words, collectivists are perfectly willing to sacrifice individuals (the eggs) for the benefit of the group or the collective (the omelet). For today’s collectivists who call themselves “civil rights advocates”, Ms. Hill just happens to be one of those eggs to be broken for the good of the omelet.

Of course, there are some basic problems with the collectivist view. First, since groups are made up of individuals, how can you respect the civil rights of the group if you fail to respect the civil rights of its individual members? Second, once you take the position that it is acceptable to run roughshod over individuals for the benefit of the group, there is no limit to the vicious, evil, destructive things you can do to individual people, as long as you say you are doing it for the benefit of the group. As victims of collectivism go, Ms. Hill can be thankful that she only has been deprived of the opportunity for a job transfer -- other victims of collectivism have been deprived of much more, including their lives.

The attorney who has taken Ms. Hill’s case is Teddy Gordon, the same attorney who handled the recent case in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Louisville’s racially-based school assignment plan. In that case, Justice Clarence Thomas, who is black, expressed his displeasure at people being treated as an herb or spice, with the planners (the collectivists) wanting to sprinkle just the right amount of spice in each school, and with no caring about or respect for the individuals involved. In Thomas’ analogy, the individuals were spices rather than eggs, but the result is the same. The collectivist cooks are perfectly happy to harm or even destroy real, live, flesh-and-blood people in the process of preparing their delectable entrée.

No wonder the collectivists hate Clarence Thomas so much and frequently depict this learned, thoughtful man as being a stupid Uncle Tom lackey! Other blacks who dare to champion individual rights, such as Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Ward Connerly, also have been treated with disdain, and even death threats, by the so-called champions of “civil rights”! No doubt they have similar thoughts about Lorraine Hill, who has the audacity to want to pursue her own dreams without regard for their collectivist goals. How dare she be so selfish!

When we moved to Louisville over twenty years ago and were looking into the policies of the public schools, because we did not want our children to be forced to be bused across town to meet racial quotas, we asked how our children would be treated in terms of race. My ancestors are mainly from Italy and Germany. My husband is from Honduras, so he is Hispanic; his ancestors include Italians, Spaniards, and native Central Americans. We were told that we could count our children as being Hispanics, so they would not have to be bused. I was relieved, but even back then, before I really understood the collectivist mind-set and its evils, I understood there was something very wrong with that whole race hustling business.

These days, I refuse to say what my race is unless I am forced. Recently, when I applied to buy a gun, I was required to enter my race on the form. I told the gun shop salesman I didn’t want to do it, but he said he couldn’t sell me the gun unless I complied, so I did. I figured that, given this creeping collectivism, I really needed to buy a gun for self-defense!

It will be interesting to see what the racial collectivists will do in the future as there is more mixing of the races. For example, Tiger Woods is a mixture of Caucasian, Black, and Asian. Does that mean that, if he were a teacher in Louisville, he would be able to apply to work anywhere he wanted, just as our children did not have to worry about being bused? And who gets to say what race a person is? Could Lorraine Hill chose to label herself as Caucasian, or Asian, or Hispanic and then be able to apply for the job, or is there some committee that would evaluate her to decide what she is? In the old Soviet Union, races were indicated on the internal passport documents. Will our upcoming national ID cards include our race – “Your papers, please!!!!”

Of course, if race hustling ever finally loses its appeal, there always will be other groups of people to be championed or victimized by the collectivists – homosexuals, Christians, business people, poor people, smokers, non-smokers, fat people, skinny people, old people, left-handed people, etc.

It is a shame that the Louisville school system is putting up roadblocks preventing Lorraine Hill from chasing her dreams, but I hope she will rise above those roadblocks. Maybe she even will come to understand that the same destructive collectivist mind-set that is holding her down also is harming all the children in the public school system, which is, after all, just another form of collectivism, where the elites use the force of government to take control of children’s minds.

Best of luck to you, Lorraine Hill, both with your lawsuit and with your life!