The New Make-Work Job In City Government
Steven Malanga writes at City Journal about a new job just created in Chicago city government, mirroring the Chicago Public Schools' creation of this position:

Many Americans probably have never heard of a "chief equity officer," but it may be the hottest new job in municipal government. The emergence of the position is part of a broader movement to get local governments to look beyond the fundamental American ideals of equal treatment and opportunity and instead demand equity, which generally means the achievement of similar outcomes for all groups. While certain programs pursued under the equity banner--minority contracting set-asides, say--have been around for years, others are newer and more radical.

The equity movement presumes that any unequal results in society reflect structural or institutional racism, even when officials can't identify any actual discrimination. To redress these purported inequities, the movement demands that every city department's mission, and every major decision in local government, be looked at from a racial-equity perspective. In practice, this has meant mandatory bias training for municipal and school employees, in order to root out "policies that work better for white people," in the words of one advocacy group, and laws passed in a number of cities that limit what employers can ask job applicants (about any past criminal history, especially), as well as other measures.

And equity promoters are pushing even more radical ideals, such as having municipalities pay reparations to minorities who've done poorly under local policies. Such revolutionary steps are apparently needed because, as a National League of Cities publication puts it, "no individual jurisdiction has achieved success when it comes to equity." Only equal outcomes for all, however unlikely--or impossible--to achieve, will suffice. None of this bodes well for America's urban future.

...This single-minded racial focus guarantees that many of the equity movement's programs are, or will prove, ineffective--or, worse, harmful. Consider measures restricting employers' ability to ask job seekers about arrest and conviction records. They purport to protect minority applicants, assuming that too many of them are denied jobs based on their criminal histories. But research shows that firms that ask applicants such questions are more likely to hire minority men--perhaps because the businesses feel more secure hiring people whom they feel they know better.

The impetus to soften disciplinary standards in urban public schools so that fewer black and Latino kids get suspended or expelled, under the assumption that they're treated more harshly than white and Asian students, has had truly disturbing results. One of the trendsetters of this approach was former St. Paul superintendent of schools Valeria Silva, who, a decade ago, began denouncing disproportionate minority suspension rates as an expression of a "punishment mentality" and--you guessed it--"white privilege" among teachers. During her tenure, schools dropped some penalties for student misconduct, stopped reporting all but the most violent offenses to local police, and returned special-education students with behavioral problems to general classrooms. Inspired by her example, St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman extended racial-equity initiatives throughout local government; soon, other cities across the country took similar steps.

In St. Paul schools, order collapsed. After several teachers were physically attacked by students allowed to remain in school, despite repeated earlier disciplinary infractions, teachers launched a petition demanding Silva's dismissal. Parents--some of them minorities--complained that their children were being intimidated and threatened in school by bullying, unchecked students. Some parents who could afford a private education pulled their children from the public schools. In school-board elections, voters replaced members who had hired Silva, and in 2016, the reconstituted board forced her out. "I believe we were crippling our black children by not holding them to the same expectations as other students," one African-American teacher, Aaron Benner, told the school board. (See "No Thug Left Behind," Winter 2017.)

You know what kids -- of every possible color -- need? Critical thinking skills, writing skills, civic knowledge, social and debating skills for dealing with others who think differently.

What doesn't foster this is leaving disruptive kids in class to keep disrupting.

Underneath a good bit of the disrupting, I'd suspect, is a lack of intact families.

(I guess I should apologize in advance for saying something so terribly un"woke.")