Santa Monica High's Multicultural Fistfights

Steve Miller:

The social experiment that Santa Monica High School has become is yet one more example of the dismal failure of leftism and the delusions and paranoia of its architects. Once a beacon of public education to which families and their kids flocked, this beachside high school has in recent years become a center of political indoctrination.

The Left has created the false reality of institutional racism at "SamoHi," thereby fostering a sense of hopelessness in students. The students have, in turn, acted on that hopelessness. Racial disharmony is rampant at the school, manifest in the unchecked self-segregation found at so many of our nation’s public schools. This has caused a greater potential for violence. It was not surprising when a huge, out-of-control race brawl took place on the campus. What was surprising was the response of school board member Oscar De La Torre, who nearly started a second riot just days later when he brought known gang members onto campus and refused to remove them, defying and mocking the police officers on the scene. Rather than being punished or reprimanded, this school board member will continue to be allowed to play a key role in instituting an aggressive new wave of leftist initiatives to address the racial animus.

When asked about his decision to bring gang leaders onto the high school's campus, De La Torre claimed that they were "businessmen," not gang members as the police department alleged. One has to wonder what kind of "businessmen" wear gang clothes, have gang tattoos, and are suspected by the police department of being gang leaders. Only in De La Torre’s radical leftist world can such people be considered no different than the corner grocer.

As an alumnus of SamoHi, I felt compelled to personally contact Superintendent Deasy, who refused to criticize De La Torre’s actions. This was another act of cowardice on the part of Mr. Deasy, who, leftist or not, had to realize that De La Torre’s actions endangered the student body with whose care he has been entrusted. I also contacted the school's principal, neither would she rebuke De La Torre. Other district officials and De La Torre’s fellow board members also remained silent.

In a school board meeting the following day, De La Torre further contributed to the problem by failing to reproach the students who engaged in violence, instead giving them a blanket excuse for their reprehensible conduct. Resorting to the unsupported leftist claim that all blacks and Hispanics – even those in a city as P.C. as Santa Monica – are inherently the victims of some mysterious "institutional racism," De La Torre explained that "youth violence is a complex social problem that stems from marginalization and disenfranchisement."

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