Anthony Horton, principal of Stanton Middle School, introduced Layla Milton, an eighth grade student on the Titans Team at Stanton.  Layla has overcome many challenges despite her disabilities.  In addition to academic progress, she has improved in social skills and communication.  Layla loves to help others and is always offering to help.  She is an amazing young lady and has made a huge positive impact on every person she meets at Stanton.  Layla’s grandmother and teacher were present to see her receive her award.

 

David Dix introduced our speaker for today.  He is Brant Lee, a professor at the University of Akron School of Law.  His topic is critical race theory, which David said he wanted to have explained. 

Professor Lee said critical race theory is the name given by legal scholars to a set of ideas that explain the disparities between races in our society. Conventional thinking has focused on such reasons as overt racism, lack of education, poverty, poor motivation, and even intellectual capacity to explain why there is such a wide gap between racial groups in terms of wealth and health. This thinking, more often than not, suggests that social disparity is simply objectivity and meritocracy at work and the reasons lie in the nature of those who are at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Critical Race theorists look for other, less overt, often unconscious reasons that are unrelated to merit.

 

To explain this further, Dr. Lee offered this example: In a study that asked a variety of law professors to edit a supposed brief written by a law student, it was found that the professors were more negative about the writing and found more errors if the brief was associated with a student with a stereotypically African American name than a name that was not racially specific. Keep in mind that the professors were editing the same brief and often couldn’t identify that they associated the work with a specific race. In other words, their reactions were unconscious, not overt.

 

Dr. Lee spoke about the recent parental uproar around the teaching of history through stories and illustrations in books that may make white kids feel bad about their history. He pointed out that, by the time kids reach middle school, many black kids feel bad as they become aware of the cultural hurdles they face–hurdles that most white kids don’t face. He suggested that, as parents and educators, we need to find solutions that at once tell the truth about our history and don’t lead to bad feelings for anyone.

There wasn’t time for questions, but Professor Lee did remain to talk with those who had questions or comments.

 

George Joseph noted that time was limited on this important topic.  He thanked Professor Lee for his talk and appreciated that even law professors don’t agree on how to deal with this topic of race.

The meeting ended with the Four Way Test.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Sue Hetrick