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Richard Garcia

Dr. Joe Carrithers

ENGL 100 F - Spring

March 23, 2014

Essay 2

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Segregation In Education

Racial Segregation is a terrible plague that we have not been able to eliminate

from this nation. It is defined to be the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other people or things or being set apart. There is several different aspects in which segregation may hold a stand in but to me the biggest issue we have had continued to witness over the history of our past, is the isolation of minorities from those of the white decent. Minorities are and make up a big percentage of the student population.
These minorities tend to seclude themselves and study in racially isolated classrooms or areas. Through many studies and well derived research these minorities show a presence of less opportunity, discrimination and most importantly fall short of the potential education offered to them.

Many people feel that there is no issue regarding segregation in schools and that

every student has equal opportunity to be successful. As a matter of fact they believe race is not an issue at all and emphasize that talking about and supporting racial discrimination 


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is just words and that freedom of speech should allow these personal perspectives without any restriction. These are of those people that explain racial isolation to be natural and consistent in the world. Richard Rothstein, who is a research associate of the Economic
Policy Institute and senior fellow of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and
Social Policy explains, “Racial isolation of African American children in separate schools located in separate neighborhoods has become a permanent feature of our landscape.” In other words he is saying that the isolation of race has become so natural to mankind that we don't even think of separation of race anymore. We tend to choose what is most comfortable and affordable when it comes to making decisions.

Others believe that this racial segregation has always been an issue and will only

continue to get worst as minorities start to become the majority of the student population.
Minority groups tend to group together with people of their “own kind” or attend intensely segregated schools. Although it may be a blind decision to the individual in the first place and it may feel right, they may not realize the overall outcome. Placing themselves in a well segregated school can deprive them of opportunity and education due to lack of involvement with others. If the students choose to sit and study with the same friends over and over again that individual will never gain further knowledge or know what opportunity is out to reach for. In the reading “Community and Diversity,”

Written by an anthropology professor at North Arizona University, it clarifies that most students become close friends with people of their own ethnicity, “What makes diversity 


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a success in a state university, however, is not only that the University population reflects the diversity of the general population but also that students become more involved in the lives and issues of that diverse population.” (324). So not only having the numbers right to equalize the ratio but more so on the engagement and interaction between different ethnicities to gain knowledge from one another. Although we have seen a dramatic increase in minorities succession of completing high school we still struggle to see that increase at the college level. This only makes sense because as we get older and more independent for school we take it upon ourselves to get the work done rather than depending on peers or classmates around you as you would k-12th grade. "Class and poverty have largely superseded race as the cause of inequality today, particularly in education," says John Brittain, a University of the District of