On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) reacted to the investigation into Fairfax County, VA and how merit scholarship notifications were handled by stating that equity policies will not help black kids succeed and are actually harmful because people who have never had to compete on merit in school will be completely unprepared to go into the real world.
Donalds stated, “Doing this does not help black kids. Because you’ve got people in these school districts — and it’s not just Fairfax County, it’s been found in Fairfax County — but stuff like this is going on in other ways all across America. And the whole purpose of this diversity, equity, and inclusion stuff is to somehow level the playing field for black kids. You’re not going to help black children succeed by holding everybody else down. You don’t help them succeed by taking away the issues of merit and achievement. We are in a society that has been based on competition. Our economy’s based on competition. Our athletes compete every day. Our musicians compete. And our entertainers all compete. You can’t take that away from young kids and think they’re going to succeed.”
He added, “We should be rewarding merit. We should be showing our children, yes, success is earned, not given. And so you have — that’s the pathway forward. … And like I said before, it’s not going to help black kids succeed, because at the end of the day, when you go into the real world and you have to prove your worth, you have to prove your mettle, but you’ve never had to do it in school, you’re not going to be ready for the real world.”
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