A Brooklyn College math education professor wrote a new academic article that condemns meritocracy, or the system where the most talented/achieved get ahead, is a “tool of whiteness.”

The reason Laurie Rubel gives in the article for the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education is because meritocracy, in her opinion, “[I]gnores systemic barriers and institutional structures that prevent opportunity and success.” She argues, instead, that math teachers need to be instructed on how to teach “equity-directed” math that is “culturally relevant” and how to teach “mathematics for social justice.”

However, Rubel cautions that teaching math for social justice could easily become a “tool of whiteness” if teachers lack experience with minorities and hold even the slightest “belief that effort is always rewarded… like the myths of meritocracy.”

Rubel also slams teachers who look beyond race in the classroom:

“Teachers who claim color-blindness — that is, they claim to not notice the race of their students — are, in effect, refusing to acknowledge the impact of enduring racial stratification on students and their families.

“By claiming not to notice, the teacher is saying that she is dismissing one of the most salient features of the child’s identity and that she does not account for it in her curricular planning and instruction.”

She? Is Rubel implying that only females are teachers? That’s sexist.

H/T Campus Reform