Obama’s Jim Crow Education System
In his speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington, President Obama hypocritically bemoaned the current state of education, saying that many Americans face a “fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects.” He claimed that such schools were “underfunded” and that every child has a “right … to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit and prepares them for the world that awaits them.” However, it is the Obama administration that has been instrumental in depriving poor, especially minority, children from the “right” to a quality education with its campaign to eradicate school vouchers. Just recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit in New Orleans federal court to prevent Louisiana from implementing a voucher program at public schools that remains under federal desegregation orders.According to the DOJ, the 570 students who received the vouchers for the 2012-2013 school year “impeded the desegregation process,” and therefore vouchers for 2014-15 school year must be blocked. The great irony here is that 90 percent of the children who used the vouchers to get themselves a better education are black Americans. Yet the DOJ remains concerned that 10 percent