SPECIAL REPORT: Walkout by youths alleging racist teachers was latest uproar on a campus that, at ground zero of the diversity struggles, has been . . . : A Beacon of Integration, a Magnet for Controversy

When scores of Hamilton High School students protested in front of the campus April 16, accusing teachers of racism, it was only the latest turbulent chapter at a school struggling to succeed in a racial divide.

For decades, Hamilton has been a beacon of integration, bordered on the east by sizable minority populations and on the west by relatively affluent white communities committed to the school. At the same time, that commitment to coexistence has occasionally made the school a lightning rod for racial protests and fears.

Last week, some Hamilton parents of all races wrung their hands in frustration at the student protest. They worried that the notoriety would convince parents of younger children--especially whites--to shy away from the campus and upset the tenuous balance of its two well-regarded magnet programs.

Parents critical of the school, who tend to be African American, had a different focus. To them, the magnets, which account for about half of the Westside school’s 2,800 students, symbolize part of the problem. The non-magnet, general-population half of the school, which is about 90% black and Latino, is an unequal partner with a far weaker educational focus, these parents say.

Hamilton’s history is fraught with racial complexities, many of them older than the children who skipped class to picket.

Some say the roots of the tension lie in the mid-1960s, when the campus--then almost 90% white--underwent a racial transformation as African American parents seeking better schools for their children began moving west or seeking transfers from predominantly black high schools like Crenshaw and Dorsey.

By 1972, white enrollment was down to 57% and black enrollment was up to 34%. The Los Angeles Unified School District, under pressure from white parents and high school officials worried about white flight, reacted by allowing Hamilton to place a freeze on black transfers.

(That controversy was a prelude to Los Angeles’ most traumatic chapter in school integration, the court-ordered mandatory busing program that began in 1978 and triggered an exodus of whites, who today make up only 11% of students in the district.)

Officials rationalized that freezing transfers was the only way to retain Hamilton’s virtue as an integrated school, but they were clearly aware of the worried white community. For, as one white parent told a reporter then, “When the school goes all black, then the neighborhood goes all black.”

But the decrease in the white student population continued until the 1980s, when Hamilton’s two magnet schools--emphasizing music and humanities--were started. Today each has a 40% white enrollment.

The magnets--examples of the district’s effort to voluntarily integrate by offering specialized classes that attract students from throughout the city--are actually separate schools within Hamilton’s main, community-based school.

And therein lies the rub for many African American students.

The magnet schools, where most of the whites are enrolled, enjoy more educational incentives and resources than the largely minority community school.

The criticism from minority students and some parents that Hamilton’s teachers are insensitive to minorities is coupled with the equally touchy allegation that Hamilton has become a two-track school.

“We have a system of academic apartheid that has created two separate and unequal educational systems on one campus,” said Wil C. Wade, chairman of the African American Parent Coalition, which has accused the high school of maintaining racial disparities. “In one place you have the best of everything, and in the other you have the least of everything.”

Wade declined to make other parents who side with him available for interviews, maintaining that they had designated him the sole spokesman. He and his supporters have also refused to meet with school staff members who have been trying to mediate tensions in recent weeks.

Wade said he and other parents blame Hamilton for black students’ generally low standardized test scores--a vexing national problem for American educators, who have found that blacks score lower than whites on such tests even when socioeconomic factors are equal.

Wade--whose daughter is a senior in the music magnet--said the discrepancy can be seen in statistics showing that only 25% of last year’s graduating seniors from the main campus went on to four-year colleges, compared with 75% from the humanities magnet.

He noted that blacks in the community school have access to fewer Advanced Placement courses than magnet students. He questioned why black students are suspended more often than others. And he complained that the magnets have larger budgets and smaller class sizes.

All of this prompted more than 100 magnet parents to meet anxiously in the school library recently. They were angry at Wade and his supporters for what they described as exaggerations, and were strongly supportive of the teachers whom Wade’s group had singled out.

But they were also aware of the fragility of Hamilton’s system, and of its status as one of the last remaining symbols of white parents committing themselves to the district.

“I’m very angry,” said Judy Page, a parent of a humanities magnet student. The protesting parents “are opening the door to a lot of divisiveness.”

Poor test scores should not necessarily be all blamed on the school, she said. “If they feel there are inequities, sometimes they have to look at home. I work with my children to make sure they are studying.”

Hamilton Principal David Winter said the school has gone a long way toward addressing some historic inequities by offering more programs for students in the main community school--including special programs in global studies, communication arts and math and science.

Visits to colleges are planned and tutors are being brought in to work with students who need extra help, he said. The school also hired an outside educational consultant group to help determine ways of increasing opportunities for students.

But some school officials say there have been disparities between the magnets and the rest of the high school, giving an appearance of separate and unequal.

“That is exactly the case,” said Stuart Bernstein, the director of the office of intergroup relations. Although magnets have generally been a success, both academically and for integration, he said the disparity between the two groups at Hamilton “should concern everyone.”

Wade said the solution is not to destroy magnets, but to use them as a model for lifting achievement on the school’s community campus.

The most emotional action by Wade’s group has been its complaints to administrators about specific teachers who it says are insensitive to black students.

The recent student protest, which Wade helped coordinate, was initiated after a white Hamilton journalism teacher, Gregg Beytin, was accused of calling a student a vulgar name and referring to another group of his students as “a bunch of idiots.”

Beytin, who is on administrative leave pending an investigation, admitted that he yelled at some of the class--a mix of magnet and non-magnet students. But he said that he apologized and that the incident had nothing to do with race. He bitterly criticized Wade’s allies, accusing them of being “fundamentalist Christian [black] nationalist parents who believe that all problems fall back on white racism.”

Wade said he was outraged that one unidentified teacher sent black students to the zoo to photograph monkeys, which he said forced the students to make a demeaning comparison between themselves and the animals. Beytin identified himself as that instructor and said he asked all students to observe the primates as a lesson in social structure and to take a picture to prove they had been there.

Wade’s complaint “was ridiculous,” Beytin said. “All [the protesting parents] want us to do is teach the three Rs. They don’t have any understanding of what we are trying to do, what it takes to teach critical thinking skills. It doesn’t happen by doing spelling tests.”

In addition to mediation efforts, Hamilton last fall called in an educational analysis group to study differences in academic performance and find solutions. The head of the group said in an interview that part of the problem may be lower expectations of minority students.

Phyllis Hart, executive director of the Achievement Council, said some teachers fall victim to stereotypical notions that minorities will perform more weakly than whites and do not push them as hard. Some students and parents suffer from the same problem, she said, adding that “young people get messages too about their worth and they internalize them as well.”

Edward Negrete, executive director of L.A. Unified’s new Human Relations Educational Commission, agreed.

“When teachers work with children in situations where the expectations are higher, teachers teach differently and the children tend to rise to the level of those expectations regardless of race.”