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Many years ago, a professor in California was tasked with unraveling the mystery behind the poor academic performance of upper-middle-class black students who were earning a troubling average GPA of 1.9, as opposed to the average GPA of 3 .45 of their white counterparts. Professor John Ogbu enthusiastically accepted this challenge and discovered what he believed to be the solution to the problem. Unfortunately, no one wanted to hear the truth he discovered, and he quickly found himself branded as the “Clarence Thomas” of academia and cast aside.
Black parents in an upscale suburb asked a black academic to investigate why their children had a GPA of 1.9 while white students had a GPA of 3.45.
His conclusion: Culture.
They did not like this and called him “an academic Clarence Thomas”. https://t.co/iF2hJXVZyn
— i/o (@monitoringbias) August 7, 2023
Professor Ogbu discovered that the discrepancy between the two GPAs probably came down to “culture”.
A group of parents hungry for solutions convinced the school district to join them and formally invite the black anthropologist to visit Shaker Heights. Their discussions led Ogbu to propose a research project to find out what was going on. The district agreed to fund the study, and parents were given unlimited access to their children and their homes.
The teacher and his research assistant moved to Shaker Heights for nine months in mid-1997. They reviewed data and test scores. The team observed 110 different classes, from kindergarten to high school. They conducted extensive interviews with school staff, black parents, and students. His project yielded an unexpected conclusion: It wasn’t socioeconomics, school funding, or racism that explained students’ poor academic performance; they were their own attitudes, and those of their parents.
Achieving success was considered “too white.” Also, lazy parenting played a major role in the students’ downfall.
Ogbu concluded that the average black student in Shaker Heights put little effort into schoolwork and was part of a peer culture that looked down on academic success as “acting white.” While he noted that other factors also play a role, and does not deny that there may be anti-black sentiment in the district, he concluded that discrimination alone could not explain the gap.
“Black parents think their role is to move to Shaker Heights, pay the highest taxes so their kids can graduate from Shaker, and that’s where their role stops,” Ogbu says during an interview with his home in the Oakland hills. “They believe that the school system should take care of the rest. They did not supervise their children very much. They didn’t make sure their kids did their homework. This is not how other ethnic groups think.”
Both school officials and parents did not want to hear the truth. Obviously, they were looking for an excuse of “racism”.
It took the 63-year-old Nigerian immigrant several years to complete his book, Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement, which he wrote with the help of his research assistant Astrid Davis. Before publication, he gave parents and school officials a year to respond to his investigation, but no parents ever did. Ogbu then met with district officials and parents to discuss the book, which was finally published in January.
The talks were cordial, but it was clear that his conclusions made some people uncomfortable. African-American parents worried that Ogbu’s work further reinforced the stereotype that blacks are intellectually inadequate and lazy. Meanwhile, school district officials were concerned that it appeared to blame black parents and students for their own academic failures.
But then things got downright ugly.
But in the weeks following the meetings, it became clear that the person of greatest concern may have been Ogbu himself. Shortly after he left Ohio and returned to California, a black father from Shaker Heights went on television and called him “Academic Clarence Thomas.” The National Urban League condemned him and his work in a press release that quipped, “The League maintains that it is futile to waste time and energy on those who blame the victims of racism.” Criticism reached as far as The New York Times, where an article published before the publication of Ogbu’s book cited or referred to four separate academics who quarreled with its premise. He quoted a Shaker Heights school official who criticized the teacher’s findings and cited work by the Minority Student Achievement Network suggesting that black students care about the school as much as white and Asian students. In fact, the reporter did not locate a single person in Shaker Heights or anywhere else with anything good to say about the book.
Professor Ogbu continues to face criticism from fellow academics who claim he lacks a true understanding of the dynamics of the black community and fails to recognize the many achievements they have achieved. However, there are those who agree with Professor Ogbu’s conclusions. In fact, many experts claim that the black community has been allowed languish because of an ingrained victimhood mentality that they proudly wear as a badge of honor. This mindset acts as a shield, making any discussion of black responsibility or accountability racist. Consequently, the crucial issue of “Black responsibility and accountability” remains unaddressed, perpetuating a destructive cycle of failure.
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