Parents of the Plymouth Wildcats had a hard time watching their high school boys play baseball through the chain-link fence that obstructed their view. So they took the traditional American approach to the problem–they worked hard, earned the money to buy raised-deck seating, and then pulled together and installed the seats for all to enjoy.
These parents fully expected the time and sweat they invested in making their own lives a little better would also become an inheritance for future parents to enjoy for many years to come. In the past, that would have been right, good and honorable.
That is no longer the case in an era where the morality of the elite rules the day. It was “not fair” to the girls.
In the process of dismantling a high school cheering section, the U.S. Department of Education has taught Michigan a real life lesson in the new American brand of social Marxism, one that young parents need to learn and understand well. We now have a higher order of right and wrong that is sanctioned by the state.
This sad state of affairs began when one useful idiot person complained to the U.S. Department of Education that it wasn’t fair that the boys had better seating than the girls. Did I mention that the parents of the boys also bought a new scoreboard? Apparently, that wasn’t fair either–and so it was thus decreed:
“As a resolution to the district’s violation of longstanding Title IX requirements to offer equal athletic opportunities to both boys and girls, the Department’s office of Civil Rights (OCR) accepted the district’s voluntary agreement to address this inequality by constructing necessary improvements to the softball field, or demolishing the baseball structure, or some combination of both. The final decision on how best to comply with the law was made by the district. OCR’s preference from the beginning, was for the district to construct a similar structure for the girls’ softball team.” – U.S. Department of Education spokesperson
Since the school claimed it had no funds for improvements, the girls’ team obviously doesn’t have parents willing to work for it, and the one who “cares” only wanted to whine–the new raised-seating area was demolished under the guise of fairness and equality.
Fox 2 News, MyFoxDetroit.com further notes:
“The superintendent says the seats and materials will be stored until they can form a plan that complies with the rules and is fair to everyone.”
How nice, but it’s never going to happen. The damage is done. The bleachers are demolished. They gutted any hope for parent involvement.
In reality, what wasn’t “fair” was the fact that the girls didn’t have parents that cared about their seating enough to change it.
The lesson the U.S. Department of Education taught, and this Michigan school demonstrated so clearly, is what happens when government institutions, in this case the Department’s office of Civil Rights (OCR), attempt to assume a moral authority. The human experience is a rugged terrain of mountains and valleys, not to mention a daily dose of winning and losing–all of which should be childhood lessons learned on a baseball field.
No form of government can change that. What the power of government can do is punish. That’s what it did. The “haves” are duly punished, and now equal with the “have-nots.”
In an attempt to make everything fair and equal all it could do is bring everything down to the lowest level–in this case quite literally. The men and women that worked to rise above their circumstances, by building something better, were punished. Their work is completely destroyed.
The moral of the story for the everyone-goes-home-with-a-trophy generation: When you expect the government to make everything fair then everyone becomes equally impoverished.
As a parent, do you feel the need to level the playing field for your child, by making everything fair? Or do you teach them about good and evil?
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Photo Credits via Shutterstock: Lane V. Erickson, Kellie L. Folkerts, Danny E Hooks
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