Indiana Mayor, Pete Buttigieg confessed that he assumed all of the school’s within his city were integrated, he found out that was wrong.
What We Know:
- “I have to confess that I was slow to realize, I worked for years under the illusion that our schools in my city were integrated because they had to be because of a court order,” Buttigieg said during a campaign stop in North Carolina. Buttigieg went on to say he discovered that all of the county’s diversity was represented under the umbrella of one school district.
- The school system was officially desegregated in 1981 when a legal agreement was reached in federal court. Unfortunately, some of its most integrated schools were permanently shuttered and students were bused to other locations. The agreement required schools to enroll Black students at a percentage within 15 points of the overall percentage of Black students in the district.
- Buttigieg announced a program to incentivize integration of local school districts on the basis of race and economic background backed by a $500 million grant fund.
- As an alleged “top-tier” candidate for the Democratic nomination, Buttigieg is trying to improve his poll numbers among African-American voters. These numbers will play a crucial role in the Democratic primary.
Support for Buttigieg from Black voters registered in the single digits. This raises concerns in regards to states that have diverse electorates.
