A San Francisco middle school principal is withholding the results of a student-government election because she thinks the winners aren’t “diverse” enough.
Students, freely choosing among a diverse selection of candidates, apparently didn’t vote in any blacks or Hispanics. This upset Principal Lena Van Haren to the point that she wanted to stop the results from being made public until school administrators can find a solution.
Not kidding.
The San Francisco Chronicle showed great understanding and support for the principal:
Her concern for a representative student government, given the preponderance of students of color at Everett Middle School in the Mission District, may have been understandable. What she did about it, however, swiftly raised a different kind of alarm.
Van Haren decided to withhold the results of the Oct. 9 election for more than a week, saying the school community needed to figure out how to have a more representative government.
“This is complex, but as a parent and a principal, I truly believe it behooves us to be thoughtful about our next steps here so that we can have a diverse student council that is truly representative of all voices at Everett,” she told parents in an e-mail Thursday.
This is not “understandable” nor is it “complex.” Maybe they don’t teach basic math at that middle school so they can’t count correctly. The votes are in, the students have spoken — and the principal is wringing her hands that people of a specific race or ethnic group were shut out. How chilling is that?
“My criticism of the Everett administration is their good intention got in the way of their common sense,” said parent Todd David. “It’s really, really disturbing to me that withholding the results somehow equals social justice or equity. That is where I totally disconnect. I’m like, ‘Whoa.’”
This was the first time in several years that Everett had held a student election. Votes were cast in homeroom, ensuring that all students voted. There was never any intent to cancel the election or nullify the results, Van Haren said Monday.
“We paused to have a conversation,” she said in an interview. “I never, ever said we wouldn’t share the results or they weren’t good enough.
What would have been the problem with announcing the results of the election and then pausing to have a conversation? What does she want to do? Lecture the black and Hispanic students about supporting students of their own race and ethnic group? Why must “fairness” be based solely and exclusively on outcomes?
“This is middle school. It’s not a presidential election,” she said. “It was not about hurting democracy or putting diversity over democracy.”
She said she wanted to wait until there was a plan — created with student input — to increase diversity among student leaders, perhaps by adding positions.
Yet such a route collided with an election process that many see as sacred — in which you don’t fiddle with or try to fix a vote, be it presidential or at a public school.
“The thing that’s so frustrating to me, as a parent and an engaged citizen, is you release the results and then you form committees,” David said. “How can you say, ‘In the name of social justice, we’re going to withhold election results’?”
Why do radical leftists always deny they’re actually doing what they’re doing? Clearly and without a doubt, delaying the announcement of the election results is putting diversity over democracy. Is it possible she is so besotted with ideology that she fails to realize that?
I also note with astonishment that even the good little liberals of San Francisco have been taken aback by this incident. It would almost give me hope for the future, except I know that if we get to the point where this kind of crap is pulled at the national level, they will fall in line lockstep with their comrades.
And what other logical outcome down the road is there for these people except eschewing election results and apportioning political power on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation,…and on and on and on? There are some “democracies” that actually engage in this practice. Lebanon apportions political power via a system called “confessionalism” where the three major political offices — speaker of parliament, prime minister, and president — fall to a Shiite, a Sunni, and a Christian respectively. It is an extremely unstable form of government as you can imagine. But that won’t stop the SJW crowd from looking to impose it.
Adding positions to student government will only increase the problem. That principal should quit now and play her little diversity games after the winners — kids who have been on the edge of their seats for a week — are announced.
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