You might not have caught one of the more outrageous actions our president has taken during his term in office when it came out late last month…

(a) Establishment. There is hereby established the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans (Initiative), to be housed in the Department of Education (Department). There shall be an Executive Director of the Initiative, to be appointed by the Secretary of Education (Secretary). The Initiative shall be supported by the Interagency Working Group established under subsection (c) of this section and advised by the Commission established under section 3 of this order.

(b) Mission and Functions.

(1) The Initiative will help to restore the United States to its role as the global leader in education; strengthen the Nation by improving educational outcomes for African Americans of all ages; and help ensure that African Americans receive a complete and competitive education that prepares them for college, a satisfying career, and productive citizenship.

(2) The Initiative will complement and reinforce the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Initiative established by Executive Order 13532 of February 26, 2010, and together, they both will support enhanced educational outcomes for African Americans at every level of the American education system, including early childhood education; elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education; career and technical education; and adult education.

(3) To help expand educational opportunities, improve educational outcomes, and deliver a complete and competitive education for all African Americans, the Initiative shall, consistent with applicable law, promote, encourage, and undertake efforts designed to meet the following objectives:

(i) increasing general understanding of the causes of the educational challenges faced by African American students, whether they are in urban, suburban, or rural learning environments;

…

(iii) decreasing the disproportionate number of referrals of African American children from general education to special education by addressing the root causes of the referrals and eradicating discriminatory referrals;

…

(vi) reducing the dropout rate of African American students and helping African American students graduate from high school prepared for college and a career, in part by promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools, and by supporting successful and innovative dropout prevention and recovery strategies that better engage African American youths in their learning, help them catch up academically, and provide those who have left the educational system with pathways to reentry;

…

(viii) enhancing the educational and life opportunities of African Americans by fostering positive family and community engagement in education; reducing racial isolation and resegregation of elementary and secondary schools to promote understanding and tolerance among all Americans; improving the quality of, and expanding access to, adult education, literacy, and career and technical education; and increasing opportunities for education and career advancement in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

(4) In working to fulfill its mission and objectives, the Initiative shall, consistent with applicable law:

(i) identify evidence-based best practices that can provide African American students a rigorous and well-rounded education in safe and healthy environments, as well as access to support services, which will prepare them for college, a career, and civic participation;

There is more at the link, but essentially the White House’s Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans seeks to do two things; first, it will attempt to combat white flight out of inner-city school systems, probably through having Eric Holder descend upon independent school districts with Department of Justice lawsuits, and second, it will promote attempts within public schools to lessen the amount of discipline meted out to black kids in those schools.

Meaning that the Obama administration wants school systems to do less about things like this…

Or this…

Or this…

At Examiner.com, Kyle Rogers puts a scalpel on this issue…

To comply, public schools would have to engage in a racial quota system of discipline. The executive order will create a new Federal bureaucracy to pressure school systems to comply with the president’s demands. The executive order makes no mention of any effort to get black students to improve behavior.

There is a reason why blacks are more likely to be disciplined in school. Black students are more likely to misbehave. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that there is a huge crime rate disparity between blacks and other racial groups.

We say this until we’re blue in the face, but none of this is about race. It’s about culture. There is a culture which is most prevalent in the black community but is by no means limited to it which glorifies physical violence, disregard for private property, promiscuous sex, alcohol and drug abuse, out-of-wedlock childbirth and a departure from commonly-recognized practices of public virtue. That culture manifests itself in popular entertainment, and particularly in gangster rap music and film, and it is being promoted aggressively by Hollywood.

That culture, which we’re calling the thug culture, offers the promise of easy profits for the entertainment industry; it’s a tremendously facile vehicle to offer sex and violence to the public without bothering to create real art or an uplifting message.

And increasingly, we’re starting to see political figures on the Left embracing the thug culture. Obama’s new educational initiative is a great example of this, as was the Left’s over-the-top embrace of Trayvon Martin in the Zimmerman trial.

The thug culture is as easily profitable for Democrat politicians as it is for Hollywood. After all, what happens statistically to people who live the thug life? If they don’t end up six feet under at a young age, that is…

• They don’t perform well academically, which likely means they’re not going to have the skills for well-paying jobs
• Alcoholism and drug addiction, which both soak up lots of money and destroy employability
• Violent behavior patterns, which means they’re in and out of jail
• Bizarre tattoos and body piercings, which further destroy employability
• Sex out of wedlock, which creates children they can’t afford

All of which are disproportionately present in the black community – but you’ll find this stuff within the white and Hispanic underclass as well.

And all of them lead to one thing: government dependency. How do people dependent on the government vote?

Kids in the inner city who come from lousy homes need MORE discipline than the average, not less. They need to be rescued from the thug culture which is all around them.

Instead, Obama is demanding that, at least for black kids who represent a disproportionate number of the at-risk youth who need to be kept on the straight-and-narrow if they’re to have any chance of getting out of the impoverished hellholes in which they’re growing up, schools surrender to the thug culture.

This is insidious. It’s evil. It’s the federal government promoting dependency and reduced capability within the populace, and acting to cement people into a permanent underclass.

And it’s the victimization of the good kids in those inner-city schools who do want to play by the rules and get out. When schools full of thugs refuse to discipline them, the kids who aren’t thugs will then be brutalized for “acting white” and trying to learn something. Obama has endorsed that by calling for a reduction in school discipline.

Not to mention the racial aspect of this. We’ll assume you saw the video last week of the 13-year old white boy who was beaten to a pulp by three 15-year old black thugs on a school bus in Florida, so we don’t have to inflict it on you again. The story behind that beating is a classic example of what Obama is turning his eyes from…

The dispute began on July 9 when one of the three boys tried to sell the younger boy marijuana while the two were in a bathroom at their drop out prevention school, prompting the younger teen to notify school officials, according to WFLA.com.

Later that day, Joshua Reddin, Julian McKnight and Lloyd Khemradj were on the bus when they confronted their peer about the incident and began beating him while the school bus driver 64-year-old John Moody began to panic and call for help.

We’re not going to turn that episode into a racial thing, but the point is that Obama’s initiative would demand that those three thugs be given lenient treatment for (1) attempting to sell illegal drugs on school grounds and (2) committing aggravated battery, which is a violent crime. And if it becomes standard practice that black kids don’t have anything happen to them for attacking white kids – when white kids face more stringent discipline for attacking black kids – what do you think is going to happen?

Two things. First, you’re going to have some very serious racial problems at schools all over the country.

And second, you’re going to have a lot more white flight from public schools than you have now.

Oh, but no – because Obama’s initiative says we can’t have white flight from public schools, and the DOJ is being tasked to step in and prevent it. How Washington is going to effectively do that is a good question; is Eric Holder going to sue white parents to stop them moving to the suburbs? Is he going to sue the Catholic Church for taking in an overwhelmingly white student population? Is he going to come after homeschoolers?

None of that would be a particular surprise. But one thing Holder absolutely will do is attack people who try to form breakaway school districts in places like Southeast Baton Rouge by gumming them up with expensive lawsuits.

This mess might be the best evidence yet for removing the federal government from the education business altogether. But what’s patently, frighteningly obvious is that the Obama administration is using the levers of federal power to make the thug culture the mainstream American culture – and in doing so standing the social contract, in which free people possessed of virtue don’t require and are unencumbered by an overbearing government, on its head.