by Rufus Jeffris
The ruling may be partially responsible for the diverse ethnic makeup at Menlo-Atherton High School, where I have worked for the past two years as an adviser for the yearbook and newspaper.
Enrollment figures show that about 60 percent of the school's students aren't white. That 28 percent come from Hispanic or Latino homes; 20 percent from African-American families; and 5 percent each from the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities.
An association of schools and colleges whose opinion counts among those in the academic world last year praised M-A for its ethnic diversity. And in a story about the school the Weekly ran last December, one top administrator likened M-A to a miniature United Nations.
Maybe so. The numbers certainly don't appear to lie. And a stroll across the bustling campus would seem to confirm all this.
But I worry that in celebrating the ethnic mosaic achieved at schools like Menlo-Atherton, the diversity which recently has been tagged "multiculturalism" is being confused with integration. They're not the same thing.
Which brings me to the conversation I had with Menlo-Atherton Dean Gerald Guess, in which he recalled a dance the school held recently for freshman students.
Generally, he said, the dance was a success. Plenty of students attended. There were no fights. A lot of students even danced. But Guess saw something else going on at that dance. Or rather, he noticed that there was something else not going on at that dance. It's something I too have seen.
Because while students of different races were taking the floor together, they weren't necessarily dancing with each other. And as soon as the music stopped, they retreated into very distinct groups that Guess observed were generally defined by race.
The phenomenon was not unfamiliar to him. He sees it every day on campus. It wasn't surprising to me to hear about it. When I was in high school I wrote an article for my newspaper describing the variety of social groups that congealed on campus.
The Supreme Court's desegregation ruling thankfully has helped bring different ethnic groups together on campus, giving each an equal opportunity to receive an education. It has also created multiculturalism, which for each ethnic group has spawned a healthy pride in their heritage.
But desegregation hasn't gone very far in prompting integration, in encouraging individual students to interact with one another at a familiar, unstructured level in which they are more likely to learn about each other.
The reason, according to Guess, is that integration involves a choice, a voluntary decision. Desegregation is an order. It eliminates individual discretion. And we know how well teen-age students respond to orders.
It's true there doesn't appear to be any outward sense of racial tension at M-A. No visible signs of intolerance or hatred mar the campus. It's a good bet there's nothing like that running under the surface, either. School officials have worked hard to eliminate the racial discord which resulted in violence there during the 1970s.
But the peace that pervades the campus could imply there is a comfort level among students from different ethnic groups who have accepted that they must all be together. They've sought the protection of their own groups, but have chosen not to explore further.
And for all the curiosity of youth, there is still an intractable, self-conscious reluctance among this age group to venture out of their cozy confines. With the Brown ruling fresh on their minds, school administrators and teachers should take this opportunity to find ways to challenge students to make another choice.
Rufus Jeffris is a Weekly staff writer.
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