Good Intentions, but . .

A majority of San Francisco school board members say they support a proposal to require that more than half of the books their high school students must read be written by nonwhite authors. They base their position on the fact that only 13% of the school district’s students are white. This plan may spring from noble motives, but it’s both unnecessary and unwise. It’s the kind of muddle-headed good intention that gives diversity a bad name.

California educators already have successfully lent ethnic and racial diversity to public school textbooks without mandates like the one proposed in San Francisco. California book policies, because of the state’s buying power and influence on publishers, tend to spread ethnic and cultural awareness to schools across the nation.

Diversity in the San Francisco district rivals that in Los Angeles, where only 11% of public school students are white. But success in school and in life lies in mastering broad, essential skills like reading and analysis, not in ticking off a list of authors read by race. And the best way to nurture those skills is to assign books based not on the color of authors but on the power of the prose. Great books tell us something about the human condition, and their appeal is never limited to a single group.

Students might best understand the grief of self-alienation and the redemptive power of family, for instance, through the works of (African American) novelist Toni Morrison. And they might best fathom the tragedy of South African racism by reading “Cry the Beloved Country” by (white) author Alan Paton.

It is true that reading books by authors who share students’ backgrounds--Asian, Latino, African American and others--can engage and inspire. But it is ludicrous to assert, as does San Francisco school board member Steve Phillips, that racially based reading lists are the best way of accomplishing this. And who would investigate the race or ethnicity of authors to determine their suitability for the list?

This is not to say that California educators couldn’t or shouldn’t do more to reach out to the state’s rich spectrum of races and ethnicities. School districts should frequently revise their reading lists to include the best new writing. But the classics should remain because they are.

Reading is crucial to success. So is understanding the diversity of a place like California. But to demand a numeric ratio of nonwhite to white authors goes about the task in exactly the wrong way.