“Two predominantly black school districts are suing over the breakup of a suburban Chicago athletic league, saying racism led more than two dozen high schools to pull out and create their own, predominantly white leagues.” But an “attorney for several of the school districts leaving [the South Inter-Conference Association] said any charge that the breakup was racially motivated is ‘utter nonsense.’ He said the move was based on geography and school rivalries and had been discussed for several years. … ‘We are being deprived the opportunity to compete against other children and other different ethnicities,’ said Thornwood High School student Constance Stanley, who said her suburban Chicago speech team won’t have the same breadth of competition now.” (Mike Colias, AP/Washington Post, Apr. 21).
“Chicago Schools Sue Over Breakup of League”
“Two predominantly black school districts are suing over the breakup of a suburban Chicago athletic league, saying racism led more than two dozen high schools to pull out and create their own, predominantly white leagues.” But an “attorney for several of the school districts leaving [the South Inter-Conference Association] said any charge that the breakup […]
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South of Boston here, a number of communities have withdrawn their football teams from a league that included some urban schools specifically because of the aggressive, racially charged nature of the urban teams’ “competitiveness” (e.g., “let’s go out there and kick some white a**”). Of course, the urban teams claimed they were the victims of racial bias — but the suburban parents wondered why their 10 years old children should have to withstand racial epithets in the course of losing to superior teams by 20-40 points.
Forced association, in my view, is one of the more absurd deviations from traditional notions of political freedom and individual rights. If you can’t make basic determinations about with whom you will live, work and play — even if those determinations are made for unpalatable reasons — the balance of your “freedom” starts to look pretty meaningless.