Sacramento District Insists on closing public schools
The Sacramento City school district is closing seven elementary schools, disproportionately hurting students in low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods.
In response, twelve students and their parents filed a civil rights lawsuit, asking a federal court to block the closures. The suit claims that the Sacramento City Unified District’s decision “was motivated by an intent to discriminate against the minority populations” and will result in “a disastrous discriminatory effect on the poor, disadvantaged population which is served by these neighborhood schools slated for closure."
A lawsuit filed by parents with the help of Sacramento attorney Mark Merin on the bases of the racial and class discrimination in the decisions as to which schools to close was dismissed by the federal judge Kim Mueller.
Jonathan Tran of Hmong Innovating Politics, the group that organized the rally, told the June 12 rally , “The district applied an arbitrary and illegitimate standard to target schools that are predominantly high in low-income and minority populations … At the end of the day, that is unacceptable.”
According to the Sacramento Bee [3], “about 93 percent of students attending the seven closure schools are minorities, compared with 81 percent districtwide.” The schools being closed are over represented in Mexican American and Hmong students and parents.
The lawsuit argued that the closures were in context of Sacramento’s history of,