Detroit Plan to Aid Blacks With All-Boy Schools Abandoned
The Board of Education has abandoned plans for all-male schools designed to keep black youths from dropping out, saying that the legal battles involved were too costly and probably could not be won.
“We could not justify the expenditure of between $500,000 and $1 million of taxpayers’ money on litigation we were . . . unlikely to win,” board President Lawrence C. Patrick Jr. said Wednesday.
The board voted 6 to 3 earlier in the day to give up legal efforts challenging a court ruling that the schools were unconstitutional.
The district had planned to open three all-male elementary schools in September designed to curb black male dropout rates by offering strong role models for students and a curriculum aimed at raising self-esteem.
About 90% of Detroit’s 160,000 public school students are black. The district’s dropout rate is 45% for males and 33% for females.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women sued the district, charging that all-male schools discriminated against girls. U.S. District Judge George Woods ruled in their favor on Aug. 15.
School officials then agreed to admit girls to the three campuses but pledged to appeal Woods’ order. Thirty-seven girls were among the 454 students who had enrolled.
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