Disrupting the Racialized Status Quo in Exam Schools?: Racial Equity and White Backlash in Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence v. The School Committee of the City of Boston

Fordham Urban Law Journal Volume 49 Number 5 Testing the Limits: Admissions Exams in Urban Public Schools Article 2 2022 Disrupting the Racialized Status Quo in Exam Schools?: Racial Equity and White Backlash in Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence v. The School Committee of the City of Boston Raquel Muñiz Lynch School of Education & Human Development Sergio Barragán Lynch School of Education & Human Development Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj Recommended Citation Raquel Muñiz and Sergio Barragán, Disrupting the Racialized Status Quo in Exam Schools?: Racial Equity and White Backlash in Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence v. The School Committee of the City of Boston, 49 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1043 (2022). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol49/iss5/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Urban Law Journal by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact . DISRUPTING THE RACIALIZED STATUS QUO IN EXAM SCHOOLS?: RACIAL EQUITY AND WHITE BACKLASH IN BOSTON PARENT COALITION FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE V. THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF THE CITY OF BOSTON Raquel Muñiz* & Sergio Barragán Introduction .................................................................................... 1044 I. Literature Review ........................................................................ 1049 A. White Backlash and White Victimhood ....................... 1050 B. Color-Evasiveness and the Burden of Silent Racism................................................................ 1054 C. Racialization of High-Stakes Testing ........................... 1056 II. The BPCAE v. Boston Controversy as a Case Study ............... 1061 A. Legal Precedent and Social Context Surrounding the Case ........................................................................ 1061 B. Conceptual Lens and Analytic Approach ..................... 1068 C. White Backlash Dynamics in BPCAE v. Boston: Countering Racial Equity ............................................. 1070 i. Reframing the Narrative of Racial Discrimination ........................................................ 1071 ii. Decoupling Race..................................................... 1076 iii. Using Covert/Coded Language............................... 1079 III. Discussion and Implications .................................................... 1082 A. White Backlash to Obstruct Racial Equity and Privilege Whiteness ............................................... 1082 * Assistant Professor, Lynch School of Education & Human Development, Department of Educational Leadership and Higher Education, and Assistant Professor (by courtesy), Law School, Boston College. I wish to thank advocates for their tireless effort to achieve long overdue racial justice in education. I also thank the Fordham Urban Law Journal editors for their superb support and editing expertise throughout the process. All errors remain my own.  M.Ed. Educational Leadership & Policy student, Boston College. I am deeply grateful to Marissa Vera for her love and support. I would also like to thank my family for their guidance and encouragement. 1043 1044 FORDHAM URB. L.J. [Vol. XLIX B. A Color-Evasive Framing of Diversity and Merit ...................................................................... 1085 C. Legal Doctrinal Developments Restrict Racial Equity Advocacy in K-12 ............................................. 1087 Conclusion ...................................................................................... 1090 INTRODUCTION Educational equity1 for racially minoritized students2 has been a topic of debate since the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education.3 Civil rights advocates have sought to advance educational rights for racially minoritized students since Brown, but white backlash4 has stalled and regressed progress where possible.5 White backlash in education is part of a larger phenomenon with a long-standing history in the United States.6 Each legal and other social gain for racially minoritized people was met with 1. We intentionally use the following terms throughout this Article: diversity, equity, racial equity and racial justice. We do not use these terms interchangeably. Rather, we use the terms to refer to the specific meanings described here. We define diversity broadly to encompass individuals’ distinct identities, experiences, and perspectives. By equity we mean attending to individuals’ unique needs to ensure meaningful access and outcomes. Racial equity is a type of equity where resources and power are allocated in a manner that accounts for and ameliorates the historical marginalization of ethnoracially minoritized communities. Racial justice goes beyond racial equity, focusing on the systemic fair treatment of individuals towards equitable opportunities and outcomes, accounting for historical marginalization of ethnoracially minoritized communities, and proactively addressing systemic racism. 2. We use the term “racially minoritized” to refer to students from racial backgrounds who are “minoritized” through a process of exclusion and oppression in society and are not necessarily numerically in the minority. See Michael Benitez, Jr., Resituating Culture Centers Within a Social Justice Framework, in CULTURE CENTERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: PERSPECTIVES ON IDENTITY, THEORY, AND PRACTICE 119, 119 n.1 (Lori P. Davis ed., 2010); Dafina-Lazarus Stewart, Racially Minoritized Students at U.S. Four-Year Institutions, 82 J. NEGRO EDUC. 184, 184 (2013); David M. Quinn & Ashley M. Stewart, Examining the Racial Attitudes of White Pre-K–12 Educators, 120 ELEMENTARY SCH. J. 272, 273–79 (2019). 3. See Gloria Ladson-Billings & William F. Tate IV, Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education, 97 TCHRS. COLL. REC. 47, 55–56 (1995); see also Ethan P. Fallon, The Lingering Battleground Between Race and Education, 60 LOY. L. REV. 727, 758 (2014) (“The significant difference between then and now is that past de jure segregation has been replaced by de facto segregation. And, as has been shown, this sort of segregation is significantly more difficult to ameliorate.”). 4. We define white backlash as a phenomenon that refers to the resistance and set of tactics a predominantly white majority has historically used to stall and regress social advancements towards racial equity. See Matthew W. Hughey, White Backlash in the ‘Postracial’ United States, 37 ETHNIC & RACIAL STUD. 721, 721–22 (2014). 5. See Hughey, supra note 4, at 722–24. 6. See Hughey, supra note 4, at 722–26 (explaining that white backlash was first identified and gained traction after the civil rights movement); Michael Omi, Shifting the Blame: Racial Ideology and Politics in the Post-civil Rights Era, 18 CRIT. SOC. 77, 78 (1991). (...truncated)