April 11, 1913: the day Woodrow Wilson federalized segregation.

[Expletive deleted]ing Progressives.

One hundred years ago today, Woodrow Wilson brought Jim Crow to the North. He had been inaugurated on March 4, 1913. At a cabinet meeting on April 11, his postmaster general, Albert S. Burleson, suggested that the new administration segregate the railway mail service; and treasury secretary William G. McAdoo, who would soon become Wilson’s son-in-law, chimed in to signal his support. Wilson followed their lead.

Scratch one of those guys, find a racist; an eugenicist; or both.  Mind you, it’s one of the deeper ironies that American political life that the most Wilsonian* (in terms of outlook and managerial style) President we’ve had since him is technically** the first African-American President of the United States…

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane

*As you may guess, I don’t mean that as a compliment.  Woodrow Wilson was a fascist so-and-so who nearly did this country a ton of permanent damage.  Or  a ton more.

**To be honest about it, Barack Obama is about as authentically African-American as I am.  The man’s an Ivy League liberal academic, which is about as white-bread as it gets.

#rsrh A must read on school choice.

The title is “The education debacle of the decade” – and wasn’t it, just? It’s about the Democratic party’s successful efforts to re-segregate the DC school system, in the guise of killing the Opportunity Scholarship Program… and I’m being even blunter about this than author Bob Ewing says that the Washington Post is being (no link to WaPo at site):

It’s clear, though, from how the destruction of the [OSP] program is being orchestrated, that issues such as parents’ needs, student performance and program effectiveness don’t matter next to the political demands of teachers’ unions.

Sure, teachers’ unions hate school choice.  Exposing a monopoly to market forces always ticks off the monopolists.  But even if the teachers’ unions had been on-board with the OSP, the single-minded way that the Democratic party leadership went hammer and tongs after this small program tells me that white, Democratic legislators have a real problem with poor minority students suddenly appearing in their white, privileged, private schools.  And now that they have both branches of government, they’re finally in a position to do something about it. Continue reading #rsrh A must read on school choice.

Using the Nobel money to keep those kids in school.

(Via @magnolia_tree) It’s a marvelous idea, really:

According to the Fox News White House blog:

The White House says that the President has decided to give the approximately $1.4 million prize accompanying his Nobel Prize to charity. They have not made a decision on which charity or charities will receive the money.

Here’s an idea for the President: He could give the 216 low-income kids back the scholarships that his administration took away from them earlier this year.

But if the President was gutsy enough to make that sort of gesture at the teacher’s unions, then those kids wouldn’t have had their program killed by the resegregationists in the first place.

Moe Lane