4.2 Incidences of Inequality within Washington State Educational Settings as they relate to the Nigerian Population
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Incidences of Inequality within Washington State Educational Settings as they relate to the Nigerian Population
The sharp growth of inequality in Washington State educational settings paints a grim picture of the Nigerian population’s future in Washington State. Several incidences orchestrated by individuals and groups of Nigerian origin continue to push for reforms aimed at allowing Nigerian students to access more opportunities for education at higher various levels. Education, being a right to everyone and a power for economic development and prosperity, driver in the world gives students the courage and confidence to claim an opportunity to access quality education (Jackson & Holzman, 2020). The purpose of this essay is to describe three incidences of inequality, including discrimination, bullying, and denial of access to enrolment in specific courses within Washington State educational settings captured by newspaper articles and with reference to the Nigerian population.
The first incident occurred on March February 2017, when a bullying incident involving a group of three white young men snatched a bag from a Nigerian student learning at Washington University and demanded that she explains why she could not enroll at the University of Lagos. The female student had to cry a lot before the bullies left her alone. She went back to the University Campus and reported the incident with the department of foreign students. Since she could not identify the culprits well, except by physical description which she did, the department did not assure her of justice, but promised to follow-up on the matter and bring the culprits to book. Later the disciplinary department managed to identify the offenders and took disciplinary actions against them based on the University’s Code of conduct. The university management sent a copy of the university policy on bullying at the university to remind them of the consequences of bullying.
In the second incident, a former student, Dominique Stewart, sued Washington State University sued in 2018 over the way the institution handled a racial incident that occurred in 2015. Dominique, who is Nigerian argued that a white member of the Phi Delta Theta in Pullman humiliated her on the night of February 21, 2015. She had been in the scene to wait for a friend in front of the fraternity when the incident occurred. The lawsuit alleges that the respondent shouted misogynistic and racist slurs at Dominique and slummed a door in her face. In response to the incident, the school officials downplayed the evidence and failed to act appropriately to protect her from other racist abuses against that sprang from the incident. She could not file the case when the incident happened because she was a freshman and only 18. The current case concerns a lawsuit that Dominique filed in the Western Washington federal court. She believes that the court will grant her justice.
The third incident was involves a discrimination complaint incident in which Dayo Adetu who is an American but her parents are Nigerian. The case is incidental because she is the only student in a class of 126 graduating students who lacked an unconditional acceptance which is supposed to receive from at least one of the educational institution in Washington State in which she applied. Further evidence tabled dates back to 2012 when Thomas Farquhar the then-Headmaster is alleged to have made the Statement ‘all of the teachers want the Adetus gone, gone, gone from the School.’ The lawyer also tabled evidence indicating that Sidwell School sent a wrong transcript containing a wrong grade in Mathematics to universities which made it impossible for her to receive any unconditional admission.
The lawyer said that a referee in the admissions process had mentioned Dayo’s Nigerian background which was not necessary and that this created an impression which was not correct about her. The Court of Appeal ruled against Adetu arguing that the family ‘’failed to make a sufficient showing that Sidwell engaged in “adverse action” against Dayo or that objectively tangible harm resulted’ (Rim, 2019). The family made a filing in the Supreme Court in April stating that ‘’Sidwell has long been perceived as a “feeder-school” to Ivy League institutions and other top universities.’ The Supreme Court rejected the appeal by the Plaintiff and upheld the decision by the Court of Appeal.
Several aspects of educational law, policies, and procedures relate with each of the three incidences. The first incident involves bullying in university. This a violation of the Right to student Centered educational environment. The second incident involves a violation of the right grievance reporting, hearing, and appeals process. The third incident involves the Right to information transparency and accessibility (Barocas et al. 2020). All the laws, policies, and procedures were followed in resolving the first and third incident and closed. The second incident is a case still in court.
However the authorities in each of the institutions where the second and third incidents occurred did not follow all the laws, policies and procedures relating to each of the cases. They authorities in these universities attempted to cover-up the cases. The Washington State Board provides a policy framework against racial segregation or discrimination (RCW 28A.195.040) (Blake & Trano, 2019). The university disciplinary committee in the first incident followed all the laws, policies, and procedures leading to an appropriate termination of the case.
In conclusion, the Washington State and school districts alone cannot attain the goal of ensuring that incidences of inequality do not occur in its educational setting, and that every child has a high-quality school. There are enormous gaps in the current educational system of the United States with regards to the resources students receive based on race and family income. One of the gaps is that some students from the Nigerian population who need most based on spending per student get the least. The Washington State educational setting needs to operate within the precepts of relevant laws, policy and procedures. In the current essay, none of the instructions changed any laws, policy, or procedures to respond to incidences of inequality against the Nigerian population.
References
Barocas, S., Levy, K., Higdon, M. J., Holden, J. T., Howe, S. W., Miller, K. E., … & Aronson, J. (2020). University of Washington School of Law. Washington Law Review, 95(2).
Blake, C., & Trano, G. (2019). Public and Nonpublic School Nurses: Common Practice, Common Goals. NASN School Nurse, 34(2), 83-85.
Jackson, M., & Holzman, B. (2020). A century of educational inequality in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(32), 19108-19115.
National Research Council. (2012). Equity and diversity in science and engineering education. A framework for K-12 science education, 277-296.
Rim, C. (2019, June 16). Not Getting Into 13 Hyper-Selective Colleges Isn’t A Good Reason To Sue Your DC High School. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/06/15/not-getting-into-13-hyper-selective-colleges-isnt-a-good-reason-to-sue-your-dc-high-school/