Does the Race of a Teacher Impact Student Outcomes? Is Supporting Black Teaching Candidates Discriminatory?

The NY Daily News reports, 

The Trump administration is investigating the City University of New York over allegations of racial discrimination, the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday.

The agency’s civil rights arm said it received reports alleging CUNY’s Black Male Initiative gives preference to some students over others on the basis of race.

“Race can never play a role when deciding how to distribute educational resources or opportunities,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. “This Justice Department will not tolerate universities directing educational benefits to certain students over others based on their race.”

CUNY spokespeople did not immediately return a request for comment.

If the race of a teacher positively impacts student achievement do teacher training institutions and school districts have an obligation to recruit more  prospective teachers of color? 

The US Department of Justice disagrees,  “This Justice Department will not tolerate universities directing educational benefits to certain students over others based on their race.”

The question of the impact of the race of the teacher on student outcomes has been the subject of substantial research.

In the Winter, 2024 issue of Education Next takes a deep dive into the question,

These efforts are rooted in the widely accepted idea that students of color benefit academically when they are taught by a same-race teacher, known variously as race-matching, racial pairing, same-race assignment, ethnoracial matching, and racial congruence. The evidence base supporting initiatives to diversify the teacher workforce stems from a 2004 study of elementary-school students in Tennessee (see “The Race Connection,” research, Spring 2004). It found that when students were randomly assigned to classrooms led by a same-race teacher, their math and reading achievement improved by 3 to 4 percentile points. In the years since, a significant body of research has accumulated on the effects of race-matching, particularly for Black students.

The research has shown consistent results,

Black students who were randomly matched to Black teachers did, in fact, have better long-run outcomes. Black students who were exposed to Black teachers by third grade were 13% more likely to enroll in college. If kids had two Black teachers by third grade, Hart said, the likelihood of college enrollment jumped to 32%. Hart and her colleagues call this the role-model effect.

The National Center for Teacher Quality, a highly regarded and frequent critic of teacher education programs concludes,Black male teachers significantly improve academic, behavioral, and long-term life outcomes for Black students. While Black men make up less than 2% of the total U.S. teaching workforce, their presence provides vital role modeling, dispels negative stereotypes, and directly increases graduation and college enrollment rates. [1, 2, 3, 4]Academic and Long-Term Impacts

• Higher Graduation Rates: Black male students from low-income backgrounds who have just one Black teacher in elementary school are 39% less likely to drop out of high school. [1, 2]
• Increased College Aspirations: Having at least one Black teacher in elementary school increases a Black student’s likelihood of enrolling in college by 13% to 19%. [1, 2]
• Greater Exposure to Advanced Classes: Black students assigned to Black teachers are more likely to be identified for gifted programs and take advanced coursework in later grades. [1, 2]

The CUNY Black Male Initiative, the program under attack sets as its credo, 

As a CUNY-wide initiative, CUNY BMI’s mission is to increase, encourage, and support the inclusion and educational success of students from groups that are severely underrepresented in higher education, in particular African, African American/Black, Caribbean and Latino/Hispanic males.

The CUNY Black Male Initiative was result of a detailed report, and among recommendations,

Upon examining the research of those who attend and succeed in college, we found that there were very few programs nationwide that address the recruitment, retention and performance of black males. Of the programs that have been designed to impact the retention and success of black males, it is evident that black male recruitment, retention, and performance are linked to the creation of campus programs that are specifically targeted to meet the personal, academic social, and financial needs of the black male.

At the bottom of the BMI website is the caveat,

All programs and activities of the CUNY Black Male Initiative Program are open to all academically eligible students, faculty and staff, without regard to race, gender, national origin or other characteristic.

Can a college program which effectively responds to a need, i. e., lower school achievement among students of color also be violating the rights of non minorities?

The Trump administration has already sharply curtailed funding for research at the CUNY, as well as many, many colleges and universities.  Whether the current “disagreement” escalates only time will tell.

A SCOTUS Moot Court discussion?

The US DOJ has announced that “disparate impact,” an unintended discriminatory  act, would not longer be considered by the DOJ  read here 

The Department of Justice has issued an opinion to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) that its guidelines about disparate-impact liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act are unconstitutional.  The Office of Legal Counsel found that EEOC’s guidelines pressured employers to engage in racial discrimination.  Under those guidelines, employers could be held liable for unequal hiring and promotion outcomes among different groups, without regard to the employer’s likely intent.

Does the Duke Power Company (1970) SCOTUS decision  apply?

 “Congress has not commanded that the less qualified be preferred over the better qualified simply because of minority origins. Far from disparaging job qualifications as such, Congress has made such qualifications the controlling factor, so that race, religion, nationality, and sex become irrelevant. What Congress has commanded is that any tests used must measure the person for the job, and not the person in the abstract”

My own view: race, gender and class are the subtext of every conversation.

Harris lost, in my view due to racism and misogyny and Trump’s victory “legitimized”  what had been bubbling beneath the surface.

For a few years I was an adjunct at the New School, they had a small teacher education program. At the first meeting of a class I used an icebreaker, asked the class, “What’s your philosophy of education, in a few words …?  

The first student I called on was Muhammad, who had been a biochemist in a large corporation who was a convert to Islam and sought a teaching license, his goal was to open a charter school based on Islamic values, he answered my query,  “All white people are racists, what matters is how they deal with their racism.” 

As an experienced teacher I asked the students to respond to Muhammad,

A student: “How can he say that, he doesn’t know me, he’s the racist.”

Another student: “I’m a white guy from the suburbs, I want to teach in an inner city school and make a difference, is it possible?”

It was an interesting term.