Racism Is Alive and Well

In Mississippi, of course:

Mississippi student Jasmine Shepard (Photo: Facebook)

Jasmine Shepard was the top of her class and had the highest GPA, but her Mississippi high school forced her to “share” the title with students whose GPAs were lower. The school has never done something like this before, but they’ve also never had a black valedictorian before. She and her family think it’s because of her race.

“Prior to 2016, all of Cleveland High School’s valedictorians were white,” a lawsuit against the school says, according to The Washington Post. “As a result of the school official’s unprecedented action of making an African-American student share the valedictorian award with a white student, the defendants discriminated against [plaintiff].”

It seems the school district had to be dragged kicking and screaming into post-Civil War America:

In 2016, a federal judge ruled that the district failed to desegregate schools despite the 50-year-old Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision ordering them to.

“The delay in desegregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally-guaranteed right of an integrated education,” U.S. District Court Judge Debra M. Brown wrote last year. “Although no court order can right these wrongs, it is the duty of the district to ensure that not one more student suffers under this burden.”
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The school tried to fight the order but ultimately gave up.

Aside from the arrogance (and probable mendacity), this is just so damned petty.

But then, we're talking about small, petty people.

Sadly, this kind of crap is not limited to the Deep South.