Shown here is the very new Dublin Coffman Emerald Campus building. It is an incredible upgrade to the already large, up to date, and expensive campus Coffman boasts. I pass this building often on drives around I-270, and after many of our reading and systemic injustice assignments, and pondering on the idea of systemic injustices, this particular injustice hit me instantly. Integral to the fight for equal rights of whites and blacks in this country is the right to equal education, and this Emerald Campus, as compared to the insufficiently funded inner city schools, is a prime example of systemic injustice, on multiple levels, here in present day Columbus. The most apparent level being the income gap created by the system, and how this education gap only fans this flame. With the Civil Rights Act of 1964, blacks and whites were, for the most part, legally equal. But, white people had an 188 year advantage in education and ability to work and create generational wealth, meaning that though blacks and whites were legally equal and free, they were not on the same level of financial freedom. So, black people started to move to cities in order to find better jobs and education that whites had already taken advantage of. When this happened, the racist whites, and their wealth, who did not want to be associated with African Americans, fled to create the suburbs. With this greater wealth, as opposed to less in the cities, the suburbs were able to collect much more taxes and use that money to fund their schools, as is shown even today with the Emerald Campus.
This situation is a prime example and textbook definition of the term “white flight” in which white people view these outsiders as “Others” and flee the city so they didn’t have to associate with the new people moving into the cities. Attached below is an article from the Columbus Dispatch that explains the link between poverty and poor grades in Columbus Public Schools, a near direct result of the “white flight”.
https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190920/poverty-and-poor-performance-linked-in-school-report-cards
This education disparity over the years has caused people in the city to receive much worse education than those in the suburbs, providing much less of a chance to receive a well paying job and escape from generational poverty. Now I must say, “people in the city” does not necessarily refer to only African Americans, but, as a result of this white flight, they have been affected much more than any other race. In order for this to change, residents of the area need to allocate tax money for education equally, especially to the inner city, and not only to the suburbs leaving the city out to dry.
image citation: https://www.dublinschools.net/EmeraldCampus
I love this post because I love seeing how you picked up on this from a new building, instead of doing something that is low hanging fruit or realy easy to find for our systemic injustices, you went out and found a larger one. Most people might not think of these types of things when they see a new school building, I know I certainly don’t, but the explanation is there, the inequality is all too real. Great job seeing these things in real life and connecting them to the reality of society.
Hi,
I am interested in your topic about the educational inequality between white and black people. Indeed, white people posses most of wealth in the society. They have more job opportunity and better social benefits because they live in city. However, once black people begin to participate in, they would discriminate them in order to keep their status.
This is a great showcase, I have never heard of “White Flight” but after reading your piece it makes sense. I can definitely see the gaps in education between inner city and the suburbs, even in situations like Columbus City versus South western City Schools which are very similar public school system’s but the education in each system is very different. Great piece and good job thinking outside of the box.
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