Parents in Beaverton, Oregon received a rather surprising district e-mail last week. The message announced that a local organization called the Beaverton Black Parent Union (BBPU), along with the Black Student Union was planning on offering a “black-only graduation ceremony” available to any student of color within the district. This graduation event was to “be open to any senior student within the district who is identifying as a black race, including African, Afro-Latino, African-American, or a Mixed-race black.”

This is all well and good, but one of the things that have these parents up in arms is that, unlike the regular graduation ceremony, this one will “allow for those who do not have credits to participate in the [mainstream] graduation, which is slated for later this summer.” So, this school district is basically kowtowing to minorities as much as they possibly can.

Several requests for comments were made when this story broke, but the school district representative who returned the comments said that the Beaverton School District is “not affiliated with the event” in any official type of capacity. Basically, they are washing their hands of this, but that didn’t stop parents from being concerned.

What of a race-based ideology? What about the fact that this is probably just a slippery slope toward a neo-segregationist ideology becoming the rule of the land? These are some of the things that could become a serious problem in the future.

Of course, proponents of these race-based ceremonies will point out that the colleges have been doing something like this for many years. For example, Harvard has a black-only ceremony and Stanford has had one for forty years as well. However, even in the college ranks, there are critics of this practice. Peter wood of the National Association of Scholars claims that this is a disturbing trend that will lead to a phenomenon called “Neo-Segregation” which he says is a damaging trend in education. Ultimately, when this new form of segregation is propagated, it teaches its members to be fearful of other groups, including caucasian individuals. Either way, it’s not a good ideology to have, and it’s one of the reasons why there continues to be a tremendous amount of violence throughout the country.

Do you agree that this ideology is problematic? Your comments would be appreciated!