ABSTRACT
In the absence of overt methods of racial exclusion, such as de jure school segregation, contemporary instantiations of racism toward persons of color in education occur primarily through a set of strategic discursive and legal challenges against policies and practices meant to foster racial inclusion. No less powerful or impactful than Jim Crow or South African Apartheid, contemporary practices of racial exclusion in education at the hands of White people remain informed by a White supremacist logic. While explicit methods of racism and racial exclusion were required for establishing the existing sociopolitical and economic hegemonic racial hierarchy in the United States, present day practices of racial exclusion, which are operationalized subtly through a racially coded process of discernment and differentiation, are still intended to maintain the racial status quo. Stated differently, the purpose of contemporaneous racial exclusion is to not only entrench the historically derived advantages traditionally accorded to White people collectively, but to also ensconce non-White disadvantage.
