Is this discrimination? I don’t want to cry racism.

[ucbalumnus]

Question: who was doing the recommending for placement into the next year honors course? I.e. was it your English teacher, or someone else (e.g. counselors)?

@aquapt

And in the individual case, it’s very hard to tell or to prove whether racial bias played into what happened. I don’t think any of us here should be too quick to bat away such suspicions - there is plenty of research to show that students of color are referred to gifted programs, honors classes, etc. at lower rates even when you control for grades and scores. It definitely happens. Whether that was the operative factor in your case - it’s possible but then again it could have been some other reason or just a mistake. That’s the insidious nature of racial bias - it’s often hard to prove but also hard to rule out.

Have to agree here.

Some high schools offer placement in honors courses strictly based on grade in the prior course (e.g. A in prior regular course or B in prior honors course is needed to take the following honors course). Of course, if there is racial (or otherwise undesirable) bias in a teacher’s grading, that can still be a problem, but having it just be based on the prior course grade eliminates any shenanigans or mistakes that an additional referral or recommendation procedure could allow in.