U.S. Checking on Whether Schools Lower Curricula to Graduate More Minorities

The nation’s chief civil rights enforcer said Thursday that the Justice Department is investigating whether some schools are engaged in “the most sinister kind of discrimination” by intentionally downgrading their curricula so minorities can receive diplomas.

Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds said in an interview that inferior teaching deprives minority students of an effective education, leaving them ill-prepared to compete in the “real world.”

A “host of motives” could be behind the downgraded education, including efforts by school administrators to demonstrate that they are graduating “ ‘X’ amount of blacks and that they are getting A’s,” Reynolds said. This helps the educators avoid any charges of discrimination, he added.

‘No-Win Situation’

“It’s a no-win situation, especially from the standpoint of minorities,” Reynolds said. “Minority students, many born into single-parent homes, are put into a school system that doesn’t provide a meaningful education. They receive a diploma and go into a college system with the same problem.”

He contended that government has responded by “fixing the numbers at the end (through affirmative action programs) so that enough minorities get into the work force.” But it has paid “no attention to the core problems,” such as single-parent homes and teen-age pregnancies, he noted.

Reynolds said that the intentional downgrading of curricula by a single school or by different schools in a district is “under scrutiny in a couple of areas,” but he refused to name them.

Moreover, he said, such intentional downgrading cannot be proved legally by comparing students’ test scores. “You’ve got to look at the inputs to the educational process and show they are intentionally” manipulated for racial reasons, he added.

Drawback to Lawsuits

One major drawback to trying to attack the alleged discrimination through case-by-case lawsuits--the Justice Department’s standard approach--is whether courts are well equipped to pass judgment on curricula, “and the answer is probably not,” Reynolds said.

He said that the situation could be remedied only through joint action by the Justice and Education departments and state and local authorities.

Reynolds described the Justice Department’s role in attacking the problem as small but important. The major role must be played by state and local authorities, “those who have responsibility for education in this country,” he said.

However, he did not rule out a lawsuit by the department, if one could be developed that would “articulate the principle and make it a central public debate.” But the department wants to avoid bringing a suit “with a big splash and having it fizzle, because this would send all the wrong signals.”

Instead, Reynolds said, he sees his department as more useful in a cooperative effort with the Education Department. Both could obtain information through investigation “to expose what the real problems are” and deal with the legal problems of developing a response, he said.

Investigated L.A. District

Reynolds raised the issue of intentional downgrading of education for minority members when asked about the Justice Department’s investigation of allegedly unequal education being provided in predominantly black and other minority schools. That investigation was first announced in October, 1981, and it later developed that the Los Angeles School District was under investigation in such a case.

The problem of unequal facilities being provided to minority schools “turned out to be more complex than we thought when we started,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds, who now has served longer than any other assistant attorney general for civil rights, said that he has no plans to leave the Justice Department in the “foreseeable future.” Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III has expanded Reynolds’ responsibilities and has said he plans to continue relying on him for advice.

There had been speculation that Reynolds would leave the department after the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to recommend his confirmation as associate attorney general, the department’s No. 3 post.