statement of the council “permanent.”nExcept for Olson, all of Engler’s appointeesnto the new council are statists,nand include Shahida Mausi, directornof the Detroit Council for the Arts andnan evaluator for the National Endowmentnfor the Arts. In 1990, Mausi’sndeputy, James Hart, penned this remarkablenstatement in City Arts Quarterly,nsubsidized by tax dollars from Joe andnJosephine Six-Pack in Macomb andnDownriver: “In the terrific street-levelnnoise of a synchronic cultural clash, thenbump and, yes, sometimes blood of multi-racialnconflict is the whisper of this newnmulti-cultural polis.”nThis polis. Hart says, is “Anti-Paternalistic,nAnti-Racist, Anti-Sexist, Anti-nColonial, Anti-Imperialist, with long-heldnquestions about essentialist naturalism andnthe natural unity of biology.” To date, Englernhas not given any indication that henunderstands the statement’s significance,nalthough I’m sure Irving Kristol would.n—Greg KazanPOLLY WILLIAMS, a black Democratnin Wisconsin, has been hailed by thenWall Street Journal, Reason, and othernneoconservative organs for her schoolnchoice legislation. And the WisconsinnSupreme Court has approved it: underclassnpublic school students can now getnmore welfare, in this case free tuition,nat “nonsectarian” private schools. Neoconservativenchoicers hail the decisionnand the program, which may be expandednto include religious schools, butnno real conservative should support it.nChoice will destroy the independence—nthe essence—of private schools.nIn almost all public schools today, parentsnfit into one of two categories: superfluousnor “troublemaker.” They havenno control or even influence over whatntheir children are taught, even if it contradictsntheir religious or other deeply heldnbeliefs. Parents can complain about thenteaching of promiscuity in and out of thenclassroom, about condom handouts, rampantnschoolyard theft, sex in the bathrooms,nleftist economics, anti-Western history,nmade-up multiculturalism, andndumbed-down textbooks, but it will havenno effect except to single out them andntheir kids as troublemakers.nPrivate schools offer an escape from allnthis, and a real education besides. But fornhow long? Schools that accept even onenvouchered student will find their curriculums,nadmissions, academic standards.nand disciplinary codes subject to detailednregulation from the Department of Educationnand the various civil rights agencies.nFrank R. Kemerer, an education lawnprofessor at the University of North Texas,npoints out in Education Week that privatenschools have long had to fight for theirnindependence. The Supreme Court innPierce v. Society of Sisters in 1925 rulednthat bureaucrats can “inspect, supervise,nand examine” private schools and “theirnteachers and pupils” to make sure thatn”studies plainly essential to good citizenship”nare taught and that teachingsn”inimical to the public welfare” are baned.nA decade ago, the Supreme Court reaffirmednPierce when it upheld Nebraska’snshutdown of a Christian school andnjailing of its principal, who was also pastornof the local church. His crime? Henhad used parents as teachers. They werensmart, motivated, and hardworking, butnthey didn’t have state licenses. Religiousnfreedom, said the court, is inelevant whennit comes to state regulation of education,none of the most inherently religious of allnactivities.nAll this has happened without governmentnfunding. How bad will it getnwith vouchers? One precedent, says Kemerer,nis HDD’s voucher program. Asnsoon as a landlord accepts a tenant withna rent voucher, he is subject to an incrediblenarray of federal regulations tellingnhim to whom he can rent, at what price,nfor how long, under what conditions, hownmuch upkeep he must do regardless ofntenant vandalism, and when and if he canncancel the lease. Economics professor EstellenJames of the State University of NewnYork, Stony Brook, has studied schoolnvouchers all over the world and found thensame pattern. Whether in Holland,nFrance, Belgium, or any other country shenexamined, private schools that acceptednvouchers invariably became semipublic.nIn the United States, school choicenwill mean that private schools can’t offerndistinctive curriculums. Christian andnJewish schools will have to water downntheir doctrinal teachings and even eliminatenclassroom prayer and religious symbols,nexactly as did the Catholic collegesnthat earlier took federal pottage. All-girlnschools may have to include boys, and certainlynall-boy schools will have to includengirls. Religious schools will have to acceptnmilitant atheists. Just as the Civil RightsnAct of 1991 makes it illegal for companiesnto use hiring or promotion tests that havena “disparate” impact on minorities—nmeaning those that don’t yield a racial­nnnly proportionate result—private schoolsnwill be accused of discrimination unlessntheir admissions, scholarship, and honorsnprograms are ethnically equalized. Evenndiscipline will have to be administered onna quota basis. Hillsdale College has foundnthat it cannot accept even one federallynfinanced student without being subjectednto the full panoply of federal social engineering.nIt would be no different withnprimary and secondary schools.nThere are other reasons to opposenschool choice. Despite claims of competitionnamong public schools, it can’t create—anynmore than Gorbachev could—na free market in a socialized industry. Bynallowing vouchers to be used at the fewndecent public schools, it can make themnlike all the rest. And it will cost a bundle:nPresident Bush has $500 million in hisnnew budget “to support this growingnmovement.” The neoconservatives—nstatists like Bill Bennett, Francis Fukuyama,nand Ben Wattenberg—^advocate centralizedneducation because they want tonconstruct the “first universal nation.”nThat means destroying the reactionary opposition:nthus the drive to deracinate ournprivate schools.nAs American education has becomenmore centralized, it has also become morenleft-wing, more dim-witted, and more antiparent.nOnly one small area of freedomnremains: the private school, now undernattack through “choice.” Polly Williamsnis a member of Milwaukee’s Black Militia,nan armed group which last yearnthreatened death to whites if it didn’t getn$600 million. Do we need to know anythingnelse about choice and those whonadvocate it?n—Llewellyn H. Rockwell, ]r.nANTI-SEMITISM, said August Bebel,nwas the “socialism of fools.” Murray Rothbardnhas responded similarly to the recklessnimputation of anti-Semitic motivesnby neoconservatives and their clients, sayingnthat “Anti-anti-Semitism has becomenthe conservatism of fools.” The non-responsivenessnof journalists and intellectualsnto the gentile-bashing of Alan Dershowitznsuggests that the problemnunderlined by Professor Rothbard goesnwell beyond neoconservative America.nPublic tolerance of Dershowitz as an angrynvictim of white Christian society maynbe a measure of American willingness tonput up with anything lest one be seen asninsensitive. Watching Dershowitz on televisionnand then reading his autobiogra-nJUNE 1992/7n