Obama’s director of education says that he is going to examine for disparate impact in education and punish systems where it occurs.  It could be that he is going to withhold federal funds from school districts in which more boys are punished for misbehaving than girls, but I doubt it.  I strongly suspect that he means in which more blacks are punished or receive lower grades than whites.  (Obama doesn’t appear worried about the fact that more whites are punished and receive lower grades than Asians.)

At first I thought this was unfair.  All evidence is that children from two parent families, regardless of race, who support education, making certain their children do their homework and spend time reading, do better on all standardized tests of achievement and receive higher grades in their classes than those children of one parent families who spend their spare time wandering the streets.  If more blacks and Hispanics than white or Asians prefer to enjoy the fruits of taxpayer money by having one parent families and permit their children to roam the streets, why shouldn’t their children receive lower grades in reading and arithmetic?  

While teaching counseling in Alberta a student asked me to talk with a teenager who was receiving poor grades in school.  I met with him and his mother.  His mother was disheartened by failing grades but proud of the fact that he was the regional pool champion.  Chatting with him about his success in pool, I asked when he played.  He said he played for an hour or two each day after school and on Saturdays.  I suggested to him and his mother that if he spent an hour or two each evening studying his school subjects instead of practicing pool, his grades might improve.  People get better at what they practice.  If they practice running the streets and playing basketball, they get better at those activities, if they go to the library and read, they get better at reading.

Perhaps the Federal government should consider reducing relief payments to parents who don’t encourage their children in school.  Or would that be a disparate impact?

Anyone who has taught school knows that boys are punished more frequently in schools than girls.  This is an adverse impact resulting from the enforcement of rules.  Just because boys break the rules more frequently than girls doesn’t mean that they should be punished more frequently than girls does it?  How does this differ from children receiving lower grades in school because they don’t study than children getting higher grades because they do?

(As a side note, receiving a complaint from a woman at the cardiac club when I said that girls were sneakier than boys, I replied that as a parent of eight, five boys and three girls, I could testify that boys were more blatant in their misbehavior while girls, perhaps just as frequently misbehaving, were sneakier about it and hid their sins better.  Her husband spoke up and said that, also as the parent of eight – three boys and five girls – he agreed with me.)

Remember, however, that this idea of disparate impact is nothing new for the Obama administration.  Just because all recent – last ten or fifteen years – terrorist attacks on American citizens have been committed by Islamic terrorists is no reason why Muslims should be singled out at airports for security checks.  That is a disparate impact based on religion.  Body searches must be randomly assigned to all people: elderly women, business men, and, according to Ann Coulter, women in short skirts.  There should be no disparate impact on Muslims because of their behavior.  Thus, the idea of punishing for disparate impact in schools is nothing new, just a logical extension of Obama wisdom.

But, back to disparate impact, consider the ways in which this Obama idea could be exploited.  Permit your imagination to soar.  What about the disparate impact of failure to sell alcoholic beverages or drivers’ licenses to children?  

We have a continuing invasion of undocumented people coming across our undefended border with Mexico.  Law enforcement statistics indicate that most of the people being stopped and checked are Mexican.  This is disparate.  They should check equal numbers of other peoples such as Swedes, Germans and Canadians.

The Obama administration is ignoring the most grievous disparate impact of all.  Haven’t they noticed that most, if not all, abortions are performed on women?  That most if not all babies are born to women?  A first step would be to restrict funding to Planned Parenthood clinics that serve a disproportionate number of women.  The other is a more difficult problem.  I don’t know how we can sue God for misbehaving in permitting women to bear all children.  Perhaps Obama’s attorney general can begin by suing Christian churches; they appear to be responsible for all other evils under this administration.