Menino Challenges Study

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino sent a letter to the Harvard University Civil Rights Project last week contesting the results of a study it released in April, which found that African Americans and Hispanics do not feel welcome in Metro Boston.

Entitled “We Don’t Feel Welcome Here: African Americans and Hispanics in Metro Boston,” the study polled over 400 African American and Hispanic adults in the Metro Boston area. Eighty percent of those polled said that racial discrimination is a somewhat or very serious problem.

Its release marked the 30th anniversary of the ruling that made racial segregation in Boston’s schools illegal, and its author, Josephine K. Louie, said that its primary goal was to spark serious discussion.

Menino led the response, challenging the study’s findings in his letter to the Project’s director.

“Diversity is the strength of our city, and I believe that the residents and businesses of the city of Boston share this point of view,” he wrote.

However, the results of the study suggest that even though metropolitan Boston has become more ethnically and racially diverse, minority groups still said they experience discrimination in the workplace, when seeking housing, and in every day interactions.

Seventy percent of Hispanics and 85 percent of African Americans said they miss out on quality housing because they are afraid they will not be welcomed in certain neighborhoods, and over half of African Americans said they face some form of racial discrimination at least a few times a month.

In his letter to the Harvard Civil Rights Project, Menino expressed concerns with the findings of the study. “In the past decade our city has made great progress in supporting the success of all of Boston’s residents, without regard to their race or ethnic background.”

Menino’s primary contention with the results of the study was that “the presentation of the survey’s polling data... suggests that opinions on race relations are uniform throughout such a large region, including seven eastern Massachussetts counties.”

Louie said that while the study does focus on the metropolitan Boston area, the results also reveal racial discrimination within Boston itself.

“Seventy-seven percent of the African American sample was from Boston and these people in particular thought that racial discrimination was a serious problem,” she said. She added that the particular problem facing Boston is that “whites have left the city and take their wealth with them.”

According to Louie, this creates an imbalance in the community, particularly at public schools.

“Eighty-five percent of students in Boston schools are non-white while 90 percent of students in the outer suburbs are white,” she said.

According to Louie, these imbalances fuel the feeling of discrimination she found in the study.