OPINION

And here’s my point: Faribault Middle School is a minority white school and the entire school district will be soon. In October 2022, when the District counted its Middle School students, 22.7 percent identified as Black or African American, 32.2 percent identified as Hispanic, and 39.3 percent identified as White. The High School is just barely majority White, with 50.8 percent of students identifying as White; but the District’s Jefferson Elementary School only has 20.5 percent White students enrolled. Within the next few years, as those kids from Jefferson grow older, the High School will be minority White.

So, Madeline Schultz, a descendant of Northern Europeans, is proud to be teaching a wide rainbow of kids from around the planet about the importance of food and agriculture in their lives. She’s also hoping that she’s preparing some of those youngsters for careers in those areas.

Schultz — and for that matter, the Faribault school district — are doing fantastic work. They are acknowledging, in a positive and constructive way, a growing reality across rural Minnesota.

Last October, Steve Sviggum, a member of the Minnesota Board of Regents and a former leader in the Minnesota State Legislature, said a peculiar thing.

“Is it possible that at Morris, we’ve become too diverse? Is that possible, all from a marketing

— Organization writes “prescriptions”

Sviggum said he’d received a couple of letters from friends whose children chose not to go to Morris because they considered it too diverse …. they just didn’t feel comfortable there, MPR reported.

Sviggum, like so many people who spend their lives in the privileged leadership circles of Minnesota, was — and is — out of touch with rural Minnesota reality. The letter-writing parents of those students were apparently from the same uninformed and out of touch circles. “Too diverse!”

“Uncomfortable!” Indeed.

Those people certainly weren’t from Faribault. Nor were they from Long Prairie - Grey Eagle whose school district 37.6 percent white; or St. James at 40.5 percent white; or Worthington at 18.3 percent; or Willmar at 35.8 percent; or . . . you name a town.

This is not new. It’s been going on for 10 or 20 years while Steve Sviggum was serving in various so-called positions of leadership. So, for him to be in the place of ignorance where his question originated from is inexcusable.

But so was the response to his question. MPR falsely reported that Sviggum made an assertion. He didn’t. He asked a question. And the liberals crucified him for asking it. He was run off the Board of Regents and forced to apologize. Imagine — he was run out of a citadel of higher learning for asking a question which nobody dared to answer. And nobody dared to ask him questions about his questions.

So I’m going to.

Steve, where do your friends live? What high school did they go to? Why do they feel uncomfortable becoming part of a minority? Why does it matter to us, as Minnesotans, if those youngsters feel uncomfortable?

Maybe Sviggum can answer those questions. Maybe he can help us all enter into the important conversation about these major demographic changes which have already happened and will continue