Like many Angelenos, I rolled my eyes last month when I learned that a conservative group, the 1776 Project, had filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) claiming that the district’s polices hurt white children and that they are engaging in reverse racism. It’s a dumb lawsuit — another example of the new grievance-based politics of the right. And it’s unlikely to lead to any positive changes in how the district distributes funds to schools. But, more importantly, the legal claims just don’t pass the sniff test. Earlier this year, my organization Available to All analyzed LA’s elementary schools. What we found was astounding: If you’re a white student at an LAUSD elementary school, you have a 40% chance of being in a school where two-thirds of the kids are reading at grade level. But a Black child only has a 6% chance of being in one of those high-performing schools, and Hispanic kids only have a 5% chance. That certainly doesn’t look like anti-white racism. Maybe even the opposite. If the 1776 Project really believed in equal protection, then they would have challenged not only the district’s financial arrangements but also the district policies that prevent middle-class and lower-income families from enrolling their children in the highest-performing schools. When I learned of the lawsuit, my curiosity was piqued, and I went down a rabbit hole of newspaper articles and legal documents that took me way back to the 1960s. I was surprised to learn that,…
