Getting an F in Racial Politics at Hamilton High

There’s no feudin’ like high school feudin’ in Southern California. A garden-variety campus conflict here can reach heights of nastiness unparalleled in ordinary society. Some faculty lounge split spills into the classroom and, before long, stops you wouldn’t dream of have been pulled out: Race. Demonstrations. Race. Investigations. Race.

The current arena is stately Hamilton High School, which for months now has hosted the feud that ate West L.A. From a slew of gripes so typical that they’d put anyone but a participant into a state of trance-like boredom, a kind of evil cloud has arisen. Kids picketing, parents plotting. This week, a screaming match is said to have erupted between a black teacher and a white teacher at nutrition, culminating with the words, “Oh, yeah? Wanna make me?” Talk about your tax dollars at work.

The details seem petty, but they speak volumes about how our racially bruised community hemorrhages whenever too many good people fall too short at once. For some months, a group of about 10 African American parents has been trying to get rid of a couple of white male teachers. There are broader issues of equal access, but that’s the gist.

In one corner are Greg Beytin and Alan Kaplan, who teach at Hamilton’s excellent humanities magnet, and who have, over the years, ticked off some in the school’s administration. Beytin--one of those baby- boom teachers (you know the type) who is said to be magnificent at engaging kids, but intent on seeing himself as a rebel--recently drew fire for losing his temper. (He caught a kid on a bad day playing a computer game in class, called him a vulgar name, and ended up screaming at--and later apologizing to--every kid in the room.)

Kaplan, who teaches U.S. history in the magnet and social studies at Hamilton’s larger main school, has irked black parents for years. Among other things, he believes you can’t understand America unless you talk race, which is ticklish. More broadly, parents of various races say, he’s blunt, and wounds kids with such maxims as, “Five sentences is not an ‘essay.’ ” Still, he is widely revered.

“Alan Kaplan is responsible for putting me in the mind-set to attend a university of this caliber,” a black student, now at UC Berkeley, wrote in one of hundreds of testimonials. Another said: “‘He helped me realize that I did not have to face life as a ‘victim’ of society.” A third thanked him for helping her “see how many things in life are connected.” (She noted, however, that he’d first reduced her to tears.)

For this style, some say, Kaplan has clashed with Evelyn Mahmud, a black assistant principal who once taught in the humanities magnet and who, over the years, is said to have concluded--not without reason--that magnets are elitist and divisive. “Original Hamilton,” as kids call the main school, is overwhelmingly minority, while its two on-campus magnets, by law, must maintain an ethnic balance that keeps the white population at 40%. The upshot is a dual system: two perfectly mixed magnet campuses, filled with smart kids doing nicely, and a main school with lots of nonwhite kids wondering why they’re so far behind.

This was the backdrop this year when the now-notorious opening volley occurred--a report that the school’s improvement committee wanted to cut funds for the highly regarded gospel choir, a source of main-school pride. The handful of black parents, led by a magnet school parent named Wil Wade, reportedly announced that anyone who opposed the choir was a racist, and beat back the budget cut.

Mahmud, a friend of the choir director, was said to have backed the choir. Kaplan, perhaps pushing it, used the incident as a class lesson in politics. Mahmud (who couldn’t be reached for comment) complained, and soon Wade’s group had fired off a list of grievances that prompted two--count ‘em--district investigations of Kaplan for allegedly being a racist. Kaplan was exonerated. The parents called it a “whitewash” and then went after Beytin, who’d stood up for his colleague.

When Beytin blew up in class, he too was labeled, even though the kid he yelled at was Jewish and white. (“C’mon, he called them ‘idiots,’ and you know he meant the black kids,” Wade later insisted to me.) The district yanked Beytin out of his classroom; he is due back next week.

So it has gone. The race baiting and investigating continue. Principal David Winter calls it “heartbreaking,” but you have to wonder: How does a mess like this get to the heartbreak stage if the people in charge actually take charge? How hard can it be to hear some complaints, render a verdict and then tell everyone to shut up and get back to work? How many tax dollars does this feud get to waste?

In a district where managers can manage, there might be answers. But this is L.A. Unified. And there’s no duckin’ like LAUSD duckin’ when it comes to the way this city’s genuine race questions continue to get trivialized.

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Shawn Hubler’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com.