Anti-Racism Turns to Racism in Minneapolis Schools

BUCK: So Minneapolis public schools defending the policy that the teachers unions tried — Clay, I know you saw this.

CLAY: Yeah, we talked about it on Hannity this week. It’s crazy.

BUCK: Defending the policy to prioritize retaining educators of color when determining layoffs. So this is a straight-up, fire the white people first policy. That is what they were discussing here.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Let’s describe what it is. It is, hey, we’re going to fire white teachers before we fire other teachers. And also there’s so many other fascinating components you have to think about. So if you are, you know, people often talk about, like, a “white Hispanic,” how does that factor into this? Or if you’re of, you know, two different heritages, how does that factor into this policy, they’re getting a lot of heat over this, but I do think it’s an important reminder that eventually anti-racism policy just turns into racism. It’s just a question of how far they push it. Anti-racism turns into what I believe Justice Alito referred to in a Supreme Court decision as the racial spoils system.

CLAY: Well, and this is why I believe this Supreme Court case this fall has the potential to be so transformative in so many different ways. Because what used to be sort of the affirmative action policies that only impacted white people, now Asians are getting wildly discriminated against when it comes to, based on the data that’s out there, applying to Ivy League schools, trying to get into elite public high schools, for instance. All over New York City that has been a major battle where you live. It’s been a major battle I know in northern Virginia where they have many different elite schools.

And this idea that minorities should get a benefit but now they’re slicing and dicing the minority population. Wait a minute. Asians are too successful; so they should be put into the white camp. And Asian people are saying, wait a minute. Many of these kids when you look at who’s going to the New York City public schools, many of them are sons and daughters of immigrants. That is it’s not as if they’re wildly successful economically. They are just committing themselves to the education system and scoring at very high rates which Buck, you know, was the original reason why the SAT and the ACT and all these nationwide testing services began, was because Jewish people were being discriminated against at Ivy League institutions, and Ivy League schools were trying to have as many white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the WASP population, as possible, and they wanted to be able to consider all applicants on an even playing field.

Well, now, Asians are rising up and dunking all over everybody else when it comes to academic achievement. And so these lawsuits, which I believe are ultimately going to succeed, are going to do away in a large measure with what’s going on here, when really, let’s be honest, the easy solution for teachers is you get to keep your job, whether it’s fair or foul, based on seniority, which is how most of this goes, right?

BUCK: ‘Cause being a good teacher, it’s not like you’re a hedge fund manager and you look at the percentage you’re up. It’s subjective who the best teacher. So I do understand why seniority exists even though —

CLAY: Which is fair across the board.

BUCK: Sometimes it means better younger teachers —

CLAY: No doubt that happens.

BUCK: — sick. You know what’s so interesting, though, you bring up how Asian-Americans are at the forefront now and quite literally in the Supreme Court sense but more generally in the fight against — let’s be honest — affirmative action has just turned into racism. It’s racism by a different name.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And this is — and they expand it to certain groups and not other groups. And they decide that they’re going to be adding discriminate — groups that they say are marginalized. There’s no, like, referendum on this. It’s just left it, yeah, the left decides. On a per capita basis — percentage-wise, I should say, Asian-Americans are actually the poorest ethnic demographically in New York City, which is a shock to people. But Asian — and that encompasses south Asia as well as what we think of as east Asia and this country. There are a lot of Asian immigrants who arrive in New York penniless, basically, with not a dollar to their names. And they own businesses over time, and they send their children to first maybe city or community college, and then within a generation or two their kids are going to state college or even Harvard, right?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: There’s a very rapid ascent that occurs. And I know it. I’m familiar with it in these communities. I applied to, got into a school called Stuyvesant which is —

CLAY: One of the most famous schools for the elite in the entire country.

BUCK: I didn’t go ’cause I got a full scholarship to go to a Jesuit school so it was zero dollars or zero dollars, but the point is, this really harms the narrative of everything in this country is racist and white supremacy determines how the school system, particularly elite schools function because Asians are arriving here, Asian-Americans are sending their children to schools that are at the very top including Harvard, and it just doesn’t add up based on what the left says.

So this is what we’re up against, Clay. They don’t really pay attention to what the reality. Oh and at Harvard they were saying specifically that — this was in the documents that are in the Students for Fair Admission lawsuit. They kept saying that Asians — this is Harvard University — Asians lacked leadership qualities, which that kept coming up in the analysis in the admissions, to which a lot of people said, what the heck does that mean?

CLAY: Sounded like it was super racist, Buck.

BUCK: Sounds kind of racist, Harvard.

CLAY: And I think that this is going to be one of the most transformative cases that we have heard in a very long time when you contemplate what’s going to be happening in this case before all is said and done.