The UCAS Political Structure topic just gave me a run for Shadowrun.

For the adventure we invent a new type of school. To make some controversial issue here, it's a public school for Orks and Trolls. They're called Cram Schools because they teach eight years of Junior High and High School in four years. The schools were put in place by ORC (Ork Rights Committee) and cost the same as sending a Norm to school for eight years. The idea is that the shortened lifespan requires a faster teaching model.

Obviously, these schools should be open to all races, but limited budgets and local concentrations of Orks and Trolls means that only metahumans attend. Humanis invokes Brown as a political tactic, and the case quickly reaches the High Court.

The two arguments are...

If the school was private, with no state funding, would it still be subject to those rules?

I know businesses have the right to deny service, but I don't know about schools. If it were a non-profit corporation, would it count as a "business" and be able to deny service, in this case schooling?

Also, if it still exists (and if I understand it right) Affirmative Action allows giving preference to minorities, so couldn't the school just give preference to orks and trolls until the spaces in the school are full?

Even if technically in the clear, I imagine that Humanis would keep the school or its backers in court until they ran out of money, so there's still plenty of run potential.

Hmmm...Interesting idea, Kanada.

Although politics and legal matters are not my forte, thus I shall lurk and not comment for the moment...*ninja*

I think the school in question is meant to be a public project. Hence the Seattle Board of Education in the suit

Since "seperate but equal" was struck down, if it doesn't come back at some point in the meantime, it still works. The only thing that's not completely logical is that it seems that the Humais folk would be somewhat more likely to have want to have their children attend a meta-free school than want to have them go with the metas.

I think it might work better the other way. A school district opens up a "ork and troll friendly" school that teaches a full curiculum in 4 years. The only problem is that the skills are more practical and geared toward helping students learn a trade (read: floor mopping is a class). ORC is suing to have the school abolished and the orks and trolls given a regular "good" education or the like.

The stakes of running against the big dogs at this level are pretty deadly, though. The PCs could easily end up with the entire Humanis movement after them.

On a related note, the idea is lacking some logical merit. Most Orc and Troll kids are physically incapable of an accelerated education, as they have statistically lower intellignece than the other metas. You're essentially trying to take the slowest kids and put them in the hardest classes. I'd argue that orcs and trolls problems are genetic and inborn, not a product of any system.

There has never been anything to the effect that trolls and orcs mature faster than I can recall, only that they die sooner. They just get screwed.

Actually, there's a Brown equivalent for metas in SR called Grumman v. Tulsa School Board. The man who argued for Grumman (an ork kid, IIRC) was Richard Scott, the sitting Chief Justice of the UCAS.

Then we consider that Bakke would probably be reversed (as it were, being a plurality) in the 1990s-2000s in a decision opposite of Grutter v. Bollinger, which would effectively destroy affirmative action in the U.S. given that in SR SCOTUS really was ultra-conservative by 2003.

This would be a chance to reverse it.

^ If you want to bring discrimination into play, this 'humanitarian act' towards Orcs and Trolls could be one of the methods to discredit them further (because, as it is, it's highly possible for this place to turn into a school for the delinquent). You could have the players find/destroy proof of this, either to force a review of the system OR prevent it.

If you want a real life scenario very similar to this, I remember similar issues surrounding an all gay high school in New York. The idea for the school was that openly homosexual students were facing severe discrimination, leading to much higher suicide and drop out rates, and that a school for them would eliminate this problem. Basically, the exact same arguements as you post came up, with talk of special rights, etc. As I recall, it was a public school. You might want to try looking up the case.

JaronK

Same thing applies. Historically black colleges can't prohibit white students from attending (I'd have to look up the case, though).

Well, it's also not prohibited if they are private schools under the Constitution. it may be if they receive federal funds, though.

But if it's a public school, the case probably went:

• Summary Judgment in the District of the Seattle Metroplex
• Affirmed or appeal rejected by the Ninth (or whatever follows) Circuit Court of Appeals
• Likely rejection to hear en banc by the entirety of Circuit appeals court judges
• Cert. denied by SCOTUS

The all homosexual school case doesn't really compare (sadly) as they will admit any child that applies...

If the Cram schools agree to admit any student, can they deny transportation? Maybe we could make the entire Crow v. Seattle Board of Eduction about bussing and public schools. Jim Crow claiming the school should pay to bus him the ten miles to the nearest school and the schools telling him to take a hike (hahaha - puns I love 'em).

Hmmmm.....in terms of runs, and this is just me thinking out loud (er..you know what I mean), you could even go so far as to have a fissure in the ORC movement, itself, with all the runs that could be included within.

One side (A) would not want orks/trolls treated any differently and sees this is a way to alienate and ostracize them from the educational system. The "floor mopping" class someone mentioned.

Another side (B) might posit what you are talking about. Saying that separate curriculae are important to inculcate an ork/troll culture etc etc. Not about floor mopping, but about being within your own cultural paradigm and not facing the horrendous prejudice that these kids have to face in the classroom and playground. Very much an ethnic studies paradigm that allows many minority students on american college campuses to live in dorms with folks with similar cultural interests (usually from the same ethnicity, but for legal reasons, open to everyone).

Everyone has made good arguments about some of the legalities, so I won't repeat that.

Imagine, though, if Humanis had infiltrated certain aspects of the ORC movement and, under the guise of providing orks/trolls with a distinct education, they are trying to remove their presence from the public school system by funding their opponents well meaning program. Now your runners are hired by side A to investigate the possible Humanis element and how deep their penetration of the ORC movement goes. It reminds me of the extreme Nation of Islam and Ku Klux Klan positions that argue that racial separation is a good idea and that miscegenation is the worst thing ever and how two wildly different sides wind up meeting.

Or maybe side B hires the runners to gather dirt on side A....matrix snoops, surveillance, etc etc. Or maybe the fissure is getting violent and someone needs bodyguards. It does not have to be Humanis vs. ORC...so many movements have internal dissension, and I, as a GM, might exploit that AND add the Humanis element...

Sorry to ramble..hope I added to the idea gumbo we are creating