Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) were joined by 28 other senators on Friday in calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to explain why 570 needy children are being forced by the Justice Department to stay in failing public schools based solely on the color of their skin.
“It is a paradox of enormous irony that desegregation laws are being used to keep African-American students from taking advantage of a state scholarship program that allows them to attend a better school simply because their departure would lower the ratio of African-American students enrolled in a poorly performing public school,” Roberts said. “This is precisely the kind of clumsy, misguided federal intervention we do not need in the U.S. education system. I firmly believe all children, no matter who they are or where they live, should not be discouraged or prohibited from the opportunity to learn and achieve their dreams.”
New Orleans launched the Louisiana Scholarship Program in 2008, allowing poor students in failing schools to obtain scholarships to attend pre-approved private schools.
The program was expanded in 2012, with 91 percent of scholarships going to minority students – 86 percent of whom are African-American.
The average scholarship amounted to $4,500, or $3,000 less than the amount Louisiana’s public schools spend per child, saving the state approximately $18 million in 2012.
The Justice Department, however, argues that allowing students to leave failing schools will change the racial composition of their school districts and has sought to block six African-American students from leaving their school because it would change the racial make-up from 30.1 percent African-American to 29.2 percent.
In another case, the department said that desegregation orders could be violated if five white students left as the school would go from 29.6 percent white to 28.9 percent white.
“Congress is vested with oversight of the Justice Department in order to ensure political considerations do not trump the pursuit of justice and to verify that the Justice Department is making wise use of scarce taxpayer dollars,” the senators said in a letter to Holder. “In 2012, 5,766 needy children won the opportunity to escape a failing school through Louisiana’s Scholarship Program. The Justice Department’s petition seeks to block 570 of those children from obtaining a meaningful education, based solely on the color of their skin. Some children, the petition argued, should be trapped in failing schools because they are African-American; others because they are white. How is this consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection regardless of race?”