Talk:Montgomery Academy (Alabama)

Segregation academy in lead

According to WP:LEAD, The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects. The fact that this school was founded as a segregation academy is practically the only reason why it's notable. It's the only reason anyone outside the school ever writes anything about the school. It's essentially only reason why the school matters to the world outside the school. Therefore it's one of "its most important aspects" and should go in the lead. 209.12.83.254 wants to remove it, and the reason given in an edit summary is: Information included in the opening summary is redundant (included in history section immediately following). The reference to founding as a segregation academy is prejudicial and not relevant to the article preface. But WP:LEAD tells us that only material that's in the body should go in the lead. Thus the argument is a non-starter.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:13, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Plus, the IP address is owned by the school, so maybe you should read WP:COI about editing articles when you're associated with the subject of the article before you do anything controversial?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:17, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

alf laylah wa laylah My apologies, I would like to first state that I am not a "pro" at wikipedia. I wanted to make some changes I know should be made. The article about leads also states "Instead, the lead should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view;" I don't feel the inclusion of this is neutral; rather it feels predjudicial to assume it is an important aspect to what the school is about today. This information is clearly documented in the History sub, I am not trying to shy away from it, I am only attempting to make the lead neutral. Your statement that "It's essentially only reason why the school matters to the world outside the school" seems to be based on opinion with no source to defend it. I don't believe I did anything controversial. I did not remove any of the facts you stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.12.83.254 (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, don't worry. The fact that you're willing to discuss it means everything will probably be fine. I'm basing my judgement of the relative importance of the fact that the school's past as a segregation academy is one of its most important features based on the amount of coverage the school gets in newspapers and books (what we call reliable sources, see WP:RS for an explanation). Other than football scores and routine coverage, the only reason the school gets discussed is because of its origin as a segregation academy. The argument you seem to be trying to make to keep the material out of the lead is that it's not especially relevant nowadays. The technical term for that on Wikipedia is giving the matter "undue weight." You can read about that here: WP:UNDUE. That's the best case for leaving the sentence out of the lead. I think it's due weight, you think it's undue. Anyway, probably we're not going to convince each other, or maybe we are, but in case we can't, we'll just leave things and wait for others to weigh in.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for reading this. I completely understand what you are getting at, the way you phrase it makes a lot of sense. I did update the lead to the format most other schools I've seen have. I made sure to use citations and relevant links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.12.83.254 (talk) 21:26, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for engaging on the talk page. The foundation date is good for the lead, but I don't think that the number of trustees is really important enough to go in there. The accreditation information is fine, too, I guess. But I do think it's important to mention in the lead that it was founded as a segregation academy. It may be hard for you to understand this, but it's the aspect of the school that's the most important as far as actual coverage in reliable sources. I propose that we replace the clause listing the number of trustees with a statement that it was founded in 1959 as a segregation academy. Have you had a chance to read WP:COI? It's important that you don't let the fact that you work for the place color your views about what's important vis a vis this article. You can ask for help (as I may do) at WP:COIN if there are aspects of the conflict-of-interest policy that are unclear.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:14, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with alf laylah wa laylah that the lead must summarize the entire article, which includes the school's history. However, I should point out that this current discussion has happened here a number of times in recent years. The previous consensus version of the lead can be found here. Perhaps that could be a starting point for a new consensus?--SouthernNights (talk) 14:05, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that's a good starting place; I'll make a proposal below with rationales.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:50, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Why is MA notable?

This may be a good time for me to check in, as it were. I was party to the original consensus, which I never felt was fairly drafted. I have new material to contribute, and will appreciate dialogue on this talk section. alf laylah wa laylah, you stated, "The fact that this school was founded as a segregation academy is practically the only reason why it's notable." Two questions. 1) How do you know the school was founded as a segregation academy? and 2) What makes you think that the circumstances of its founding constitute the only notable aspect of the 55-year-old school? Verdad (talk) 21:20, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Two answers: (1) I don't know it. We don't go by personal knowledge on Wikipedia. We go by what sources say. Sources uniformally say that Montgomery Academy was founded as a segregation academy. Thus our article says it. (2) I don't think its founding as a segregation academy "constitute[s] the only notable aspect of the 55-year-old school." I think it's "practically the only reason why it's notable." This is again due to the sources. There are two contexts in which this school is discussed in sources that are produced independently of the school itself: (a) athletics, mostly routine listings of scores, and (b) the fact that it was founded as a segregation academy. If you want to see what a generally notable high school looks like, consider Deerfield Academy for instance. There are whole books written about the school which discuss its history in minute and scholarly detail. With Montgomery Academy there's essentially zero in-depth independent coverage, and what superficial coverage there is is related only to its origin as a segregation academy. Now, I may have missed sources, and I could be completely wrong about this. If so, please bring sources to the discussion that demonstrate my error.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I really like the Deerfield article. Deerfield is an Ivy League feeder school. It is quite notable. Founded by Samuel Adams, of Constitution signing (and beer label) fame. Nothing to sneeze at.

I noticed a few things, and want to chime in with some observations.

The first is that Deerfield is 4 times as old as the school in this article. There will be less books or news articles about the Montgomery Academy. Neither you nor I can argue with simple math.

Deerfield is also in Massachusetts- a little state full of good schools and newspapers. By contrast, Montgomery no longer has a printed newspaper. What leads on al.com these days, I'm afraid, isn't good encyclopedic source material.  :)

Say what you will. There is more written about Deerfield. There is more written about Deerfield this past decade than Montgomery Academy over the last 10 years, simply because of the differences in population density and - I hate to say it- regional differences in interest in higher education.

Nonetheless, the Deerfield article cites the school's own web page, I believe, 3 times out of the 22 references listed. This is to cover the "basics." The same seems necessary of the Montgomery Academy. That is, the "basics" include school colors, sporting accomplishments, rival schools, and- yes- quite a bit of school history.

You taught me a new trick in your conversation with IP 209.12.83.254. I love that "what is my IP address" site. I checked out Deerfield's edit history. I saw a 208 number. Being as 208 is close to 209, I researched it. Deerfield's article is practically curated by someone or various individuals on campus. I would go easy on 209 for COI... He's likely not a teacher, but rather a student who is distressed to read that the 1st thing to come up when he googles his school is a story about segregation. I suspect the source of vandalism over the years, as well as the open discussion about this topic is due in large part to this. What do you think?

I tend to disagree that the Montgomery Academy was founded as a segregation academy. I think the subject bares quite a bit more discussion. If you feel the school is not notable enough to have a Wikipedia article once it is shown the school wasn't founded as a segregation academy, I am open to the article's deletion. Though, I think Wikipedia readership will miss this article. I especially think this because peer schools, Saint James School (Montgomery, Alabama) and Trinity_Presbyterian_School have their own Wikipedia articles. I have no interest in deleting those articles.

The school doesn't have to be notable, according to WP:SCH/AG. --Verdad (talk) 02:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey, that brings me to another question... On January 30th of this year, you edited the Saint_James_School_(Montgomery,_Alabama) article. It appears you deleted all information about the school's history, including gifts from notable prominent citizens because the information was "copied and pasted from the school's website." Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to assist the other editor, then, to cite the source and perhaps summarize the information rather than deleting it wholesale? Seems a little severe. The information that is left in St James' school history is similar to what we are talking about here. I hate to think there are 2 articles that have to deal with similar issues which are proving to be contentious. Verdad (talk) 23:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of the reasons that Deerfield is both more widely and more deeply covered in independent sources, the fact remains that it is. MA is not covered in sources at all except for brief discussions of the fact that it was founded as a seg academy and named in Allen v. Wright and, additionally, its athletic program. The reasons why that may be are not our concern. There's no question that MA is notable enough for a Wikipedia article, since high schools are by default notable and as Alabaman high schools go, this is an important one. You may not think it was founded as a seg academy, but until you have sources to say it was not, it neither bears nor bares more discussion. Uncontroversial statements can certainly be sourced to the school's website or other self-published sources, but the statement that it was not founded as a seg academy is controversial, given that 100% of independent sources that anyone editing this page has revealed that discuss the issue say that it was. If you have sources that no one else has been able to find that argue seriously that it was not founded as a seg academy, that's fine, we can put their point of view in here, but certainly not until you produce them. As for your other comments, try to remember that the purpose of this talk page is to talk about how to edit this article. That and only that's what it's for.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:00, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I delete copyvio a lot. Sorry, but life is too short to always or even often fix such problems. I always say why and that leaves other interested editors the chance to fix it. If there aren't any, then it won't happen but if I tried to fix every bad edit I removed I wouldn't have a life outside Wikipedia. I endorse Alf.laylah.wa.laylah's comments directly above mine. Dougweller (talk) 07:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

This is getting good! We have synonyms, misused homonyms, and issues of contextual polysemy. We have a private school founded by a Bear. We have a public school named Bear. And, now, my grammatical shortcomings are laid bare. To be fair, alf laylah wa laylah, you typed "uniformally", which technically isn't a word. hehe

Since it was a stub, this article has always had issues. We have chatted before about undue weight. WP:NPOV, WP:BIASED, and is a recurring issue. I will always contend that opinions surrounding the school's founding bear no more weight than- say- relevant notable figures who founded it, or academic and athletic success, or the school's location on a major thoroughfare in an historic city, or the school's architecture, or (thank you) notable alumni. I don't think what I am saying here is controversial. (I don't think I am contradicting a consensus opinion that civil rights are good and segregation is bad.) I don't think the aforementioned information is so controversial that it needs to be removed, despite being sourced from the school's site. We see the same kind of material sourced from Deerfield's school webpage, that is not removed from its Wikipedia article.

I have two problems with your comment, "the statement that [Montgomery Academy] was not founded as a seg academy is controversial, given that 100% of independent sources that anyone editing this page has revealed that discuss the issue say that it was."

The first problem I have is that "segregation academy" isn't clearly defined. It's not in Merriam Webster, E. Britannica, Black's Law Dictionary, etc.- just a Wikipedia article, which alf laylah wa laylah and I have both edited. The current version being based on a major rewrite which SouthernNights authored 8 years ago, Friday. (By the way, my edits were reverted.) Are we to say that Montgomery Academy is this "thing", the description of which you are the major author?

Of course the school will pass the duck test. You are in control of how the proverbial duck "walks, talks and swims." WP:DUCK

A quote that I feel most accurately describes segregation academies, based on my interpretation, is from page 275 of Market Education: The Unknown History. "When US Federal courts ordered the desegregation of public school districts in the 1960s and 1970s, some white parents fled to the private sector, and new private schools, dubbed "segregation academies," were opened for the chief purpose of preserving white only classrooms."

I have nominated the seg academy article for deletion because I believe the term is a neologism. The main reason I feel it is a neologism is that "segregation academy" is most often placed in scare_quotes and prefixed with terms like "so-called". The WP:NEO issue, along with the lack of collaborative cooperation on the part of alf laylah wa laylah have bearing on the content of this article.

The second issue is related to our discussion yesterday. The reason I want to make absolutely sure we have the same understanding of the English language is that we need to have the same basis of reality in order to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively. It is not the case that 100% of the independent sources anyone editing this article has used to contribute regarding the issue explicitly say Montgomery Academy was founded as a seg academy. In fact, 0% do. None of the sourced material uses the term "segregation academy."

Let's take a moment to view the language of a couple of the sources in question, in full and in context.

The Douglas Quote:

Many of Montgomery's private schools that were started in the late 1950s were founded in response to national desegregation of public schools, brought on by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, [University of Alabama Professor of elementary education] Sunal said. "Private schooling has a lot of history here and I think Southern history shows that one of the ways people tried to deal with huge changes in the public schools was to start a private school," Sunal said. "But not every private school was a reaction to desegregation."

Archie Douglas, the headmaster of The Montgomery Academy, said the school was started in 1959 in what he believed was a reaction to desegregation of the public schools. "I am sure that those who resented the civil rights movement or sought to get away from it took refuge in the academy," he said. "But, it's not 1959 anymore and The Montgomery Academy has a philosophy today that reflects the openness . . . and utter lack of discrimination with regard to race or religion that was evident in prior decades."

What do you gather from this? We have spoken about face value of statements. Do you look at this and think, "The school was founded as a segregation academy."? I don't. I gather from it that the recent former headmaster of the school felt that those who resented the civil rights movement sought to get away from it by enrolling their children in the academy."

J Mills Thornton's book:

[Martin Luther, jr.] King's announcement [that the Montgomery Improvement Authority was making plans to have a large number of black children apply for transfer to white Montgomery schools] and the response to it badly frightened a great many white Montgomerians. Incoming Governor John Patterson used the occasion of his inaugural address two weeks later to warn black Alabamans ominously to "stand up and speak out now against the agitators of your own race whose aim is to destroy our school system. If you do not do so, and these agitators continue at their present pace, in short time we will have no public education at all. Our public schools, once destroyed and shut down, may not be reopened in your lifetime and mine." The Ku Klux Klan's grand dragon, Robert Shelton of Tuscaloosa- a man of some influence in the new Patterson administration- promised that the Klan would use violence if necessary to prevent integration of Montgomery's schools, and the closing of the city's parks at the very same time proved beyond doubt that segregationist officials were prepared to follow through on their threats. The prospect of total abolition of public schooling, very possibly accompanied by Klan-led riots and bloodshed, therefore seemed very real. A group of white social leaders under the chairmanship of physician Hugh MacGuire scurried to meet the menace of school closure by establishing a private school, limited to "boys and girls of white parentage," the Montgomery Academy; it opened in September.

Using these sources to say MA was a seg school is misquotation. --Verdad (talk) 02:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

What does the passage mean to you? To me, it means there were parents who thought public schools in Montgomery were going to close and there would be riots and Klan violence around their children. So they opened a school and didn't dare integrate it. This doesn't jibe with the supposition that a seg academy is a school opened to preserve white only classrooms. True, the book uses the phrase "limited to boys and girls of white parentage," but only after it spells out a fear of violence and loss of school services.

To paraphrase the Allen v Wright case, and the Supreme Court justices' findings, Montgomery Academy was alleged by parents of non-students to be segregated, because it lacked a substantial amount of minority students; not for actually being segregated. A justice even went so far as to state the parents were "disappointed observers of the government process." No where in the case or justices' findings was the term "segregation academy" used. I would think a logical consensus would disregard a failed lawsuit like this. I certainly don't think we should make inferences based on the allegations of a law suit. Surely, that would be WP:BIASED.

Dougweller, deleting copyvio is great. Thanks for your service to the wikipedia community. alf laylah wa laylah is not required to spend unnecessary amounts of time fixing bad edits. But, if he is going to be a major contributor to a small set of articles, each of which connected to a singular topic, it would be polite to start a discussion in a talk page before removing most content, other than "_____ school is a segregation academy" on multiple pages. To me, it would make his edits a lot less controversial.

Verdad (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

You'll have a lot better luck getting your edits to stick if you learn to discuss the content of specific articles on the talk pages of those articles rather than dropping ramblings walls of text laced with unsupportable innuendo about other editors. And if you realize that your theories about segregation academies are of no particular interest. Sourcing is of interest. Not your eccentric interpretations of sources. And if you learn to use a dictionary. "Uniformally" is a perfectly good English word.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

This is kind of what I am talking about. To repeat, it's like we are speaking different languages. "Uniformally" doesn't appear in the copy of Webster's Dictionary that I am using. This youtube video of a physics professor addresses the word "uniformally" and also the importance of bing humble and willing to admit mistakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCdiPSA4Mhw I hope we can cooperate collaboratively, which I feel means we can admit mistakes when they are made. No one is infallible.

The citations are clearly misquoted --Verdad (talk) 02:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't feel the inferences you, and other editors, have made from the sourced material accurately reflect the information written in the original texts, as I explained above. I don't think what I am writing in the talk section is theory. In the previous (very long- so sorry!) entry, I explained what I felt the texts were saying. That is, I paraphrased the original texts fairly closely. And I asked you what your interpretation is. (I would still appreciate a response.) That is because it is important for communication so we can collaborate cooperatively.

I don't think my comments are eccentric. There are people who do believe things like- for example- the Holocaust and US slavery never occurred, or that civil rights leaders were wrong in their fight for equality, or were communists. I hope that is not what you think I think. Anyone reading this, please don't think that is what I am trying to promote.

To the extent that you are being dismissive of my comments on the talk page... And, given the fact we are not communicating well... I fear we won't be able to collaborate effectively. I feel like, whatever I say, you will say the opposite is true.

What I am trying to ascertain is- if I make an edit- will you immediately rub it out? It seems to be the case that that happens in this article... That the article is whittled down to as little information as possible other than the seg academy assertion.

If I make an edit, are you going to delete it?

Verdad (talk) 20:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

How can anyone answer that without knowing what the edit will be? The best thing to do is to suggest the text you want to add or change. Dougweller (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

The poor physics professor. All he needed to do was to look in the Oxford English Dictionary to find that "uniformally" is a perfectly acceptable adverbial form of the perfectly good adjective "uniformal." Or use the ngram viewer. Or trust his instincts as a native speaker of English. The emotional damage wrought by the prescriptivist self-proclaimed language police is incalculable. But back to business. You've dropped about 20kb of text on this talk page without even saying what edit you want to make. For God's sake, say what it is or make the edit. My interpretation, as I've stated, is that MA was founded as a segregation academy but that it no longer is one. That's what the sources are saying. Including the new one I added which says so explicitly and without scare-quotes (although I disagree with you that the quotes you refer to are scare-quotes). And, by the way, your claims of being the innocent victim of others unwilling to collaborate are wearing a little thin given your years-long history on this talk page of dismissing sources for fairly idiosyncratic reasons and of accusing other editors of bad faith and sock-puppetry for no better reason than that they disagree with your eccentric interpretations of sources.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Very well. Now we are talking. Thank you, Dougweller and alf laylah wa laylah.

alf laylah wa laylah, I wouldn't call my interpretations eccentric. I'm trying to take a literalist approach here, remember. Piling on sources stating Montgomery Academy has had little diversity in its 55 year history, or that it has been alleged to have been started to provide refuge for those seeking to avoid integrated classrooms is very different from providing a source that beyond doubt indicates the school was founded as a segregation academy. Heck, we don't even have a definition for "segregation academy" except an article which you and SouthernNights practically curate. So, stop it with the condescension.

"Alf layla wa layla"- Arabic for "1001 Nights"; "SouthernNights" would make a clever nom de plume... Interest in the same articles... complete agreement in the articles' talk pages... The fact SouthernNights is responsible for the deletion of an account and takes credit for that account's contributions. Did you think I was unreasonable in suspecting sock-puppetry? You were either the same person, or two people with RL knowledge of one another ganging up on me. If I was wrong, I apologize.

I suggest the following:

Generally, the article needs overhaul- Something above a redline edit, but less than a complete rewrite.

The layout looks great.

It would be nice if there was a copyright free picture of the school on the article. Many peer articles have pictures of schools. If there are a few public use photos of the school, it is not harmful to have them here. They shouldn't be removed.

There is much, really, that could be added. General Tip #4 of the WP:SCH/AG states that we are supposed to avoid making the article a stub. "Avoid stubs. Only add schools that you are willing to do significant research on, and complete most of the generally required page sections. Don't automatically assume that someone else is interested enough in your school to finish it for you. Under certain conditions, very poorly made articles might simply get deleted and your effort will be lost." The repeated pattern here is that SouthernNights (first major editor) and Alf layla wa layla return to the article, only to delete most material outside the seg academy assertion. This needs to stop. Thank you ALWL for starting an alumni section. I have to say, that is uncharacteristic, and welcomed. We are still missing info about curriculum, awards, activities, and former headmasters and teachers. We don't necessarily need to go to strict definitions of reliable sources for a lot of this material. Because of CSD#A7

Article A7 or the Criteria for Speedy Deletion exempts schools from notability requirements. That is to say, it is appropriate to have an article about Montgomery Academy simply because it is a school. We don't need to dwell on seg academies in order to justify an article about Montgomery Academy. I think it's fine to use the school's web page to get information about buildings, donors, student activities, etc. These things aren't controversial. Peer articles do this all the time.

The introduction/lead is lacking. WP:SCH/AG asks us to "Summarize the main sections of the article – history, alumni, buildings, etc." This article doesn't do that. It stops at history; and it uses a summary of the history to be what is in my mind "overly descriptive" in a negative way. I really wish we didn't have to talk about seg academies over-and-over-and-over-and-over. We shouldn't state in the lead that it was "founded as a seg academy" if it was only alleged to have been founded as a seg academy. That is a logical leap. It's inaccurate. We probably shouldn't state in the lead, either, that it was "alleged to have been started as a seg academy," because editors in the past have found words like "alleged" to be Weasel_words.

There is plenty of room in the History section to talk about allegations of lack of diversity. Allen v Wright is relevant inasmuch as it shows that "Over the decades, parents of non-students have been disappointed in the school's lack of diversity." Thornton's book gives incredible insight into the circumstances of the schools founding. I don't think we should go about making interpretations or jumping to conclusions. It would be appropriate to state in the history section, "The Montgomery Academy was founded by a group of prominent white citizens at a time when the threat of public school closure and Klan violence, in response to integration, was a real threat." But not, "MA was founded in reaction to BvBOE.(referencing Thornton)"

I would also want to add the following to the history section, "The Montgomery Academy admitted its first minority student in 19XX. (can someone help me source this info?) It always had a policy of non-discriminatory admission. The first time the policy was communicated to parents in an official statement was in 1970." And we could maybe say something about how the IRS began to require official nondiscrimination statements in 1970...

That's pretty much "it," so to speak.Verdad (talk) 23:50, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

My God, you're right about the usernames. And here I thought you were just casting aspersions randomly to gain an editing advantage. How wrong I was. Look here. It's a drawing of Sam Weller, doubtless related to Dougweller, and it was drawn by Hablot Knight Browne! We're no doubt all in it together. While you're analyzing usernames, why not look at observation #72 found here: WP:OWB? And while you're deciding what's "characteristic" of my editing, why not look here? As far as the rest of what you say, it's hard to respond until you make an edit. I haven't been able to find out when the first non-white student was admitted. I certainly would have added it if I had been.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

So, ummm, yeah... I've asked alf laylah wa laylah if he would delete any edits I might make. Then he said I needed to propose the edits first. And then I proposed the edits. Now he is saying I need to make the edits that I proposed before he will respond. This isn't getting anywhere.

alf laylah wa laylah, you aren't cooperating much. I didn't say you need to research the first non-white student. I would just like it if someone with that information could help me.

1,001 Nights is also called Arabian Nights. I'm sure a reasonable reader might see how I would sense a connection to "Southern Nights." That's neither here nor there. Sock puppet, meat puppet, or not, it doesn't really matter, I guess. ¿Verdad? Verdad (talk) 01:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposal for lead

The Montgomery Academy is a non-sectarian independent day school located in Montgomery, Alabama. The school comprises two campuses. The Lower School accommodates kindergarten through fourth grade, and is located at 1550 Perry Hill Road. The Upper School campus, for the fifth through twelfth grades, is located at 3240 Vaughn Road. The school's current total enrollment is just under 900, of which approximately 300 are in the Upper School. While The Montgomery Academy was founded in 1959 during the period when the desegregation of public schools was hotly debated, as a segregation academy. The Academy now accepts students without regard to race or religion.

Reasons: 1. I don't think the addresses of the two campuses are important enough for the lead. 2. I don't think its neutral to express the fact that it was founded as a seg academy as an explicit contrast ("While") with their current admissions policies. 3. I think it's euphemistic to the point of vagueness to say it was founded "during the period when desegregation...was hotly debated." It was founded in explicit opposition to desegregation, and desegregation wasn't "hotly debated" so much as required by federal law and the constitution and ultimately enforced at gunpoint. It seems foolish to describe this as "hot debate" as if both sides had equal standing. We don't need to go into all this background in the lead or even in this article, obviously, but we can avoid it by just declaring plainly that it was actually founded as a seg academy. This was the sole reason for its founding. We don't have to worry about this being undue weight, as I've argued above.

I also have no objections to some of the material the IP added, for instance, about the accreditation, but I am absolutely certain that the lead must mention MA was founded as a seg academy if it is to comply with WP:LEAD and if it is to inform our readers about what the majority of them are likely to be interested in regarding this school.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:50, 15 February 2014 (UTC) </blockquote.

I like this lead. I agree there's no need for the addresses in the lead--that should go in the article's info box. However, you'd have to link to the segregation academy article. Most readers will probably not be familiar with the term.--SouthernNights (talk) 23:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, agreed about wikilinking. I just copied the text over from your diff without worrying about formatting. Why don't I go ahead and change it now, and if the IP ever shows up again we can see what they think.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

This seems far more neutral than where it started a few days ago. My biggest concern was simply stating "Here is a school, it was founded as a seg academy." and being done with the lead at this point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.12.83.254 (talk) 13:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, good, and I like it a lot better than before because it doesn't gloss over the truth in favor of euphemism. Next thing on the list, "a group of prominent citizens;" another popular piece of code. But there are so few sources... Anyway, that's for another day. Thanks for being open to discussion.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:38, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, I made a few tiny changes when I put it in for the sake of readability, but nothing structural. We'll see what happens.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk • contribs) 00:39, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

My 3rd question is better addressed here. alf laylah wa laylah, you wrote that the terminology "a group of prominent citizens" is a popular piece of code. I am a little lost on what you are trying to say. If you could, please explain what you mean by this? To give you a clue into the source of my confusion... I'm going over the names of the founders: I see two- maybe 3- who are in the Alabama Business Hall of Fame. http://www.bhamwiki.com/enwiki/w/Alabama_Business_Hall_of_Fame Among them are major civic benefactors and patrons of the arts. For example, Blount gave the land and buildings for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winton_M._Blount The Hill family has 2 arterial roads in Montgomery, Perry Hill and Carter Hill, named for members of that family. Others were landowners, doctors, and lawyers. Webster defines prominent as "widely and popularly known : leading." What cryptic meaning would you attach to "prominent" that is different from this?Verdad (talk) 16:28, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

As long as you're looking things up in the dictionary, why don't you try to figure out why "coded" doesn't imply "cryptic." You could also try to figure out why "coded" doesn't imply "literally inaccurate." As for the rest of your question, I'll be happy to discuss it if it ever has a bearing on the content of the article.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:42, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Look past the perceived "jab" and indulge me. "Cryptic" is a synonym for "coded." MW's 5th definition for "cryptic" is : employing cipher or code. I'm guessing you meant something along the lines of another definition of "cryptic" which also applies to "coded": having or seeming to have a hidden or ambiguous meaning. At least that is how I read your comment.

Forgive me for disagreeing. But, I believe this does have bearing on the content of the article. We are literally talking about language of the article. Above, you were discussing proposed edits. And you stated that a phrase was not ideal because it was a popular piece of code. I wouldn't want Wikipedia readers to be confused by the content of this article, or deprived of information, simply because a contributor felt words don't mean what they usually mean, or had a hidden or ambiguous meaning. Does that make sense?

I'd also like to make certain we are operating from the same basis of reality. If you feel words carry a different meaning than what is widely accepted, we will have difficulty collaboratively editing. That sounds harsh. And I don't mean it to be. I just don't see us on the same page right now.

Could you be more specific about what you meant by your comment?

"Prominent citizens" means "well known leaders" and something else concurrently?... Or, "prominent citizens" is a euphemism for something else, entirely? And that something else is (what?), specifically? Verdad (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say that "a phrase was not ideal." In fact I made no judgement of its value. I will even admit, as I did above but you chose to ignore, that it's literally true that the school was founded by "prominent citizens." However, your jump from the fact that you don't get contextual polysemy to an assertion that it's possible that I "feel words carry a different meaning than what is widely accepted" is super-weird. Is it not possible that words have widely accepted meanings that you're not familiar with? Or something else you haven't thought of? In any case, as no one has even proposed changing that text it's not worth discussing further, at least not to me.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:01, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

It IS super-weird. I don't mean to be accusatory. But, I feel like we are speaking different languages here.

Since we are having trouble communicating, I'll go ahead and say, you didn't write that the phrase "wasn't ideal." You listed it as something that glossed over the truth in favor of euphemism. I kind of inferred that you felt it was less than ideal, because you seem to want to change or remove that phrase.

I return to my original question. Personally, when I read the term "a group of prominent citizens," I think of the guy that gave the museum, the business leaders, etc. I feel this is the most fitting interpretation based on the definition provided. I was not aware of a contextual polysemy that may exist for this term. What do you believe- or more appropriately, what do you feel the reader will gather when he reads "the school was founded by a group of prominent citizens" in this article?

Response to the section above (re: Deerfield) forthcoming.

Verdad (talk) 21:42, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

If I want to remove a phrase, I'll say something fairly clear, like "I want to remove phrase X" and then I'll say why. You don't need to infer or to speculate on what I "seem" to want to do. As for your actual question, I don't "feel" anything in particular about "the reader" with respect to that phrase. Most likely "the reader" will take it at face value and, as I said, its face value is true. We really have no argument about that phrase here. By the way, if you indent your replies with one more colon than the comment you're replying to has it allows for threaded conversation, which is easier for people to follow who haven't been reading along.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Notable students and faculty section

I propose that we include not just alumni here but also students whose attendance at MA is discussed more than tangentially in a reliable source, whether or not they graduated from the school. Thoughts?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:24, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

We actually have guidance on this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines (I cut out a bit):

"Who should be included? Per Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people, alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria. All alumni meeting these criteria are to be included on an alumni list, regardless of how much time they have spent on a school roll, from one day to several years, and whether or not they graduated.

Entries should be bulleted and have a very brief description of their notability. Links to articles related to an entry are encouraged, but beware of overlinking, for example if many alumni have entered parliament, there is no need to link to the parliament of a certain country more than once. After a description, state when they graduated or what years they attended.

Alumni may be categorized alphabetically, or according to the field that made them famous: e.g. politics, medicine, academia. It is acceptable to list someone in more than one field, provided that this is mentioned in a side note. Add something like: "(Also listed in sport)".

As all alumni who attended a school for any amount of time must be included across all alumni articles, some attendees will have attended more than one school. Place in brackets the name of any other schools that they attended.

• Most Rev Sir Marcus Loane KBE, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney (1966–1982) (also attended King's School)"

The only problem I have is that this allows entries with no articles, which makes it imperative that there are reliable sources showing they meet WP:PEOPLE - and if anyone finds those, it would be better to go ahead and make a stub for the person. Dougweller (talk) 07:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, lovely. I always forget to check the wikiproject guidelines. They're often quite useful. It's a little disappointing that so far I've only found two alums with Wikipedia articles and sources, although I'm sure there are more. Unfortunately one of the two I don't think is really notable and I sent his article to AfD and hence am holding off on putting him in here until that's settled. Regardless of the guideline I prefer to stick to people who already have articles, although I certainly won't argue with the inclusion of people who should have articles. As you say, stubs are easy enough to start.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:50, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

NAIS membership in history section

I removed this from the history section:

The school is part of the [[National Association of Independent Schools]] and adheres to the association's standards, which state that the "school will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its admission policies."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nais.org/about/index.cfm?ItemNumber=146811|title=Principles of good practice|publisher=National Association of Independent Schools|accessdate=2006-05-02}}</ref>

Rationale: It is not a statement about the school's history, so it doesn't belong in the history section. The statement that MA is a member of NAIS is repeated in the academics section so it's not necessary to repeat it here. The statement that the school adheres to the association's standards regarding nondiscrimination is a peculiar bit of synthesis (WP:SYNTH, if you're interested). Obviously the particular standard that's picked out here from amongst the many standards the NAIS imposes on its members is meant to make a point to counterbalance the school's past history as a segregation academy. However, the source it's cited to, the NAIS standards, doesn't discuss the MA, so its use to support this claim is synthetic. In any case, it's already stated a number of times that the school does not now discriminate with regard to race, so the statement I removed doesn't belong in the article and, a fortiori, neither does it belong in this section.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:20, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. It's certainly redundant and unsourced - who says it sticks to their standards? If it's the school, it's a type of mission statement and we don't include those. Dougweller (talk) 05:43, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

For a small school

I removed this: "For a relatively small school, The Montgomery Academy offers a large number of sports." It needs a source or at least to be made more explicit so that it can be checked somehow. I removed it instead of tagging it for CN because I tried to find a source for it and could not and it sounds like advertising. No independent sources seem to have this kind of meta-info about the MA athletic program.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Edits made

Explanation of edits can be found in the discussion below, under "Why is MA Notable?".

New source included.

Passages which did not closely follow sourced material have either been changed or deleted. (We should not cite sources and then misquote them, or poorly translate information.)

General modification so the language of the article does not conflict with itself.

Call for assistance. Do you have copyright free photographs of buildings or athletic events? Can you help flesh out such sections as "Notable Alumni" or add information like "Awards and Recognition"? Please edit this article accordingly! The current edits don't fully satisfy WP:SCH/AG. I'm waiting on some media-by-mail.

Verdad (talk) 03:56, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Removal of sourced material

Please explain in detail how this material is irrelevant or unsupported by the source cited:

Although most such schools had markedly deficient curricula, by 1973 the Montgomery Academy was one of a small number of segregation academies with accreditation, "complete academic programs," and "competent staffs."<ref name=yale>{{cite journal|title=Segregation Academies and State Action|journal=The Yale Law Journal|volume=82|number=7|date=June 1973|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/795573|pages=1436-1461|quote=One may speak of three classes of segregation academy, roughly corresponding to the social and economic divisions within the white community: (a) lower-class 'rebel yell' academies; (b) white community schools; and (c) upper-class day schools. Poor white families have organized irregular 'rebel yell' academies which provide only rudimentary education ... By contrast, a small number of post-desegregation schools, located primarily in urban centers, offer complete academic programs, competent staffs recruited largely from the public school system, accreditation by state and regional authorities, modern physical plants, and amenities such as guidance counseling, language and science laboratories, and airconditioning [sic]. These 'segregation academies second generation' aspire to the same elite status as traditional upper-class day schools in the rest of the nation. Most have announced 'open enrollment' policies as required by the Internal Revenue Service...but in practice their student bodies contain neither blacks nor low-income whites...Examples include...Montgomery (Ala.) Academy...}}</ref>

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for asking.

The Yale Law Review article refers to Montgomery Academy as a "segregation academy." We have gone back and forth about the term. My chief complaint is that there is no specific definition for this term. You are a contributor to the wikipedia article describing the term. A little bit of WP:COI there. But, I think we can overlook that.

As explained below, I like to use one of your sources, Page 275 of Market Education: The Unknown History. "When US Federal courts ordered the desegregation of public school districts in the 1960s and 1970s, some white parents fled to the private sector, and new private schools, dubbed "segregation academies," were opened for the chief purpose of preserving white only classrooms." I just don't think the information from the newly sourced article jibes with that quote. You reverted my edits very quickly. Did you read the 1970 Tuscaloosa News article?

Hey, you deleted my source! That was a reliable source and a good article about Montgomery Academy!!! Seems to have answered my question below. That is, you would immediately delete my edits.

Please on't delete my reliable source. I'm going to revert your edit. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings.

Back to the YLR. The summary you provided... it begins to get very broad. Based on the definition I'm using of "seg school," it doesn't matter if a school has air conditioning and guidance counselors. Does that make sense?

Most importantly, I feel that a statement by a representative of the institution overrides indirect observations by the author of an academic article. I had a source which includes a statement from a headmaster. You deleted my source. What's up with that?

I hope this explains what you were asking. As I stated in my comment above, the reasons for my edits are explained in our conversation in "Why is MA notable?". Please refer to that discussion before deleting or reverting my edits.

Thanks!!

Because the Yale Law Journal article cited doesn't say what the summary says it says. This is a misquote.--Verdad (talk) 02:03, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Verdad (talk) 05:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't explain what I was asking at all. It's another wall of text about a bunch of other stuff. You feel that a statement of a headmaster that even a newspaper won't print without direct attribution overrides an academic source? Why do your feelings matter? It's well established that for purposes of writing Wikipedia articles you're wrong. Now, just because an article in the Yale Law Journal explicitly and unequivocally calls MA a seg academy doesn't mean we have to use the source, but it does mean that you have to have a weighty argument for not using it, or for not using it to support what's cited to it in the text. There's no way the YLJ is less authoritative in terms of WP:RS than a defensive quote from a headmaster denying the accusations of the IRS. Also, can you stop with the huge rambling unfocused slabs of text? It's impossible to discuss content with you if you won't stick to the subject. I opened different talk page sections for each point to try to help you work with people. Please use them and start more of your own if you think it's necessary. The only way we're going to get anything done is to take baby steps.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Egregious misrepresentation of source

This material was recently added:

The Montgomery Academy has always had a policy of open admission with regards to race. That is, race was never a factor for considering admission. <ref>"[http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19701122&id=fT0eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NLkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7292,4540548 Private Schools Are Still Tax Exempt]," The Tuscaloosa News, Nov 22, 1970.</ref>

It is an egregious misrepresentation of the cited source to use it to support a statement in Wikipedia's voice that MA "has always had a policy of open admission with regard to race." The article quotes the headmaster as saying that in 1970 in response to an IRS challenge. The source also says that the school only added an explicit nondiscrimination policy in 1970. This source is perfectly usable, but not to support that statement in Wikipedia's voice. If we're going to use the quote from Adams it must be both attributed and contextualized.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

not really. This is a fairly literal interpretation of the source. I had hoped you would contribute something about the IRS challenge in the following paragraph. In light of a quote that exists in a cited source for this article that has not made it into this article, it wouldn't be surprising that the headmaster was telling the truth. That is, the Alabama education professor's comments in the Montgomery Advertiser piece, for which Archie Douglas' quote comes. Do you have access to that article?--Verdad (talk) 22:40, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Really. The reporter didn't report the headmaster's assertion as fact. The reporter reported the headmaster's assertion as a statement attributed to the headmaster. For us or anyone to convert that into a bare assertion of fact is a violation of WP:NPOV, specifically WP:YESPOV, and even more specifically the part which says "Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements." In particular, since multiple reliable sources state explicitly that MA was founded as a seg academy but the headmaster says it was not, we should state his opinion, but given the overwhelming weight of the sources on the other side of the question it's not possible to allow him to support a statement in Wikipedia's voice to the effect that MA was not. If there are unused sources or unused statements in used sources, why don't you say what they are?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

We essentially have 2 headmasters quotes. One says "I think people looking to escape desegregation took refuge in MA." Another says "we have always had an open admission policy with regard to race." Both are headmasters. One was chronologically closer to the founding in a significant way. Why are using the 2004 quote to say, "founded as a seg school" if we have the 1970 quote that more explicitly addresses the question? The Douglas quote doesn't even pass the GOODREFS test*. It's fine to talk about the IRS challenge. I expected a collaborative edit from you. Thought you might want to field that one. (*refuge taken by one group does not equate to intent of others, inasmuch as the Vatican consulate in Panama was never built as a bunker for drug trafficking dictators. Operation_Nifty_Package)--Verdad (talk) 04:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

No, we have two headmasters' quotes and a bunch of academic sources that agree with one of the headmaster. Here's how we count that: Most sources, including all the reliable ones, say it was founded as a seg academy, but one headmaster says no. That headmaster's opinion is currently quoted in the article since he seems to be the only person on record saying that it wasn't founded as a seg academy.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:42, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

[expletive deleted] apologetics

Huh, it was the length of time before the school "experienced true racial diversity," and that's why we need to use litotes to describe the fact that the school was sued repeatedly for racial discrimination and for participating in illegal pacts with the city of Montgomery? This needs to be said directly and it was before.

It would still be some time, though, before the school experienced true racial diversity. For that reason, the school's decades-long history is not without controversy. In 1972, a federal judge prohibited the city of Montgomery from allowing the Montgomery Academy and three other all-white schools from using city recreational facilities.<ref>"[http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7RAdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KZwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6691,4196242& Recreational facilities Ruling Made]," The Tuscaloosa News, Jan 21, 1972.</ref>

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

How about , "by the early 1970s, there were still no African American students enrolled at the Montgomery Academy"? This was why I asked if there was anything about when the first non-white student enrolled.

I think, technically, MA was cited in numerous cases suing the government. Was MA actually, itself, sued?--Verdad (talk) 05:39, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

MA was cited in at least one case suing the city of Montgomery for subsidizing segregation academies. MA was not itself sued because it's not illegal to run a segregation academy. It's not even illegal to run a government-subsidized segregation academy. It's illegal for the government to subsidize segregation academies. If MA had not been a seg academy the city of Montgomery would not have been forced to refrain from subsidizing it. This is why, if it was not sued, it was not sued. Only the government was breaking the law by subsidizing MA. I'm sorry I misspoke above. The article is accurate on this point.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:49, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Not a problem. I'm prone to doing the same thing. The wiki article would be accurate on the point that MA was cited for being "all white", in the 1973 case. It would be accurate to state MA was cited in Allen v Wright for being what the plaintiffs described as segregated, but what the brief and the justices noted was not segregated but rather lacking in significant racial diversity. These cases are GOODREFS to illustrate controversy in the school's history. They aren't GOODREFS from which to derive information about the school's founding, etc. Dont get me wrong. This is great source material for information about MA. However, there is no information in the cases or the news articles supporting what was written in the Wikipedia article vis a vis the school's founding.

--Verdad (talk) 14:37, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Forget those other sources for a minute. There are two issues, since you're evidently not going to respond to the actual topic of this section. First, your own source states that at its foundation it allowed white students only. Are you claiming that this isn't sufficient to say that it was founded as a seg academy? Second, a number of sources, that Yale article included, explicitly call it a seg academy at various times in the 1970s. Is it your contention that these statements don't support the claim that it was founded as a seg academy? E.g. maybe because it wasn't founded as a seg academy in 1959 but by 1973 (date of Yale article) it had become a seg academy?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:01, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

1. When it was founded the school was "limited to students of white parentage." Yes. Thornton writes this... in the specifically stated context that politicians were threatening school closure and there was a very real possibility of Klan-led violence and bloodshed... with the general historical understanding that the Klan could target whites who supported integration, which has been very widely documented. 2. I think it's just the Yale article that does this. The lawsuits assert the school is white-only (1970 & 1973) or that it lacks significant diversity (1984). But I don't see the other sources using the term and attributing it to MA.

A school operates under the direction of the headmaster at the service of the school board of directors. The original board of directors would have been comprised of the founders. They would have hired the first headmaster. Thornton writes they were motivated by the threat of school closure and Klan violence, not a desire to avoid integration. 9 years later, the board hired a new headmaster. In 1970 Montgomery Academy, like every other private school in America, was required to have a publicly stated policy of open admission in order to maintain tax-exempt status. The second headmaster very specifically said, at that juncture, the school had an open admissions policy from day one.--Verdad (talk) 22:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Too much for the lead

This has no place in the lead:

A notable non-graduate of Montgomery Academy is former congressman and Alabama gubernatorial primary candidate [[Artur Davis]], who attended the school for 2 years.

It's too much information on too little content. The school's been around for more than 50 years, and one of the primary points about it, so important that it needs to be mentioned in the lead, less important than the fact that it was founded as a segregation academy, is that some minor congressman went there for two years before he transferred somewhere else? It's not actually reasonable.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Please see WP:SCH/AG. It explains that the lead section of school article should ideally include alumni (gray area with a "non-grad"). I hope you will continue to contribute material about notable alumni. By the way... I wouldn't call Artur Davis a minor congressman!!! He was a speaker at the Democratic National Convention nominating our current president. And he should have been the first African American governor of Alabama, if the electorate had half a brain! - Verdad (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It's implausible to say that we should summarize a one sentence section with one sentence in the lead. We have to maintain a sense of proportionality and summarize the most important aspects of the article, not lending undue weight to any of them in particular. When the notable alumni section has more people in it we can pick a few and put them in the lead, but at this point I can't see that there's anything important enough about the fact that Davis went to MA for two years, mentioned in only one article that I can find, that would support putting as much material about him in the lead as there is in the entire article all together.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

True. True. It's just that WP:SCH/AG gives us a formula to follow and notable alumni is a component of the Lead section. Arthur is a great man. I covered some of the 2010 primary on Wikipedia. See the article on Bradley Byrne, a Republican candidate from that primary. The defeat by Sparks was a travesty. Horrible smearing at the last minute. --Verdad (talk) 22:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Segregation academy in the lead yet again

This belongs in the lead:

The Montgomery Academy was founded in 1959 as a [[segregation academy]]. It now accepts students without regard to race or religion.

The only reason that MA is discussed in reliable sources other than routine mentions of its athletic program and a few other programs is the fact that it was founded as a segregation academy. There is no more salient point in this school's history than that according to reliable sources. Every editor who's discussed the matter on this page except for one agrees that this belongs in the lead. There aren't even sources to dispute it, just a quote from a headmaster at a time when the school was in trouble from the IRS that even The Tuscaloosa News wouldn't print without attribution, and we're supposed to use this to negate the claims of multiple reliable sources which flat out call the school a segregation academy? Again, this is not reasonable.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Article A7 of WP:CSD states school articles aren't subject to the same notability requirements. Please see my comments in the "why is MA notable?" area of the talk page. WP:SCH/AG is a good basis for how we should proceed with an article about a school.Verdad (talk) 05:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. It talks about past discussions. It very carefully does not say what you state that it says. Dougweller (talk) 05:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Elaborate? I'm confused. Verdad (talk) 06:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

CSD has nothing whatsoever to do with article content. The controlling policy is WP:NPOV. Please, you should read it carefully. Note especially the statement that "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." In this case we have 100% of the academic literature on MA stating that it was founded as a seg academy and 1.5 quotes from former headmasters kind of disagreeing. One of those headmasters is quoted by name in the article, and obviously there's going to be no objection to quoting the other one, but your wacky theories about how something to do with CSD is going to affect the content of this article is purely a product of your absolute inexperience as an editor and your consequent failure to understand the first thing about how Wikipedia is written.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

This has potential to grow into a rambling slab for me. I'll try to be concise. CSD states that a school does not need to be notable to have an article. You have stated the only reason MA is notable is the seg school assertion. In the past, you or someone else assuming the position, stated that without seg school there is no reason for an article. And thus, the overwhelming weight of information in the article (I gathered from comments at the time) needed to address this. Does that explain? As for NPOV, maybe that's he's addressed in another breakout. --Verdad (talk) 22:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Nobody's trying to get this article deleted. I don't know what the rest of your statement is referring to.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The circumstances

We need an actual quote from the book to deal with this issue:

The circumstances of the school's founding closely follow the [[Brown_v._Board_of_Education|Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling]] of 1954. In early 1959, incoming Alabama Governor, John Patterson threatened long-term public school closure. Meanwhile, Robert Shelton, a Klu Klux Klan leader, publicly threatened violence as a means to stop school integration. Historian [[J. Mills Thornton III]] attributes these events to the opening of the Montgomery Academy later in 1959.

Obviously whoever put that summary in there didn't understand that we can't really judge whether a summary in the article is supported by a source by looking at a summary of the source written by whoever wrote the summary in the article. I should have a copy by Saturday. If anyone else has a copy they should put an actual quote in the citation so everyone can see if it supports whatever version of this material they want to have in here. Barring that it should either be removed or left alone.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey, alf laylah wa laylah, in the talk section "Why is MA notable?", you will find a lengthy portion of Thornton's work that I have transcribed. You don't need to buy the book. (It is rather expensive. My bank account knows this!) I'd be happy to include a paragraph on either side... or scan the pages and upload PDFs to an image host... I want to help!

I don't think that, "barring your review" my edit should be removed. I will bend over backwards to get the pages from the book to you.

Verdad (talk) 05:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I've reverted you. You don't have consensus and I'm concerned that you think that adding someone who attended the school briefly to the lead is appropriate. Dougweller (talk) 05:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey Dougweller,

The following was added to your talk page.

"I'm following WP:SCH/AG for the lead section of Montgomery_Academy. The article guidelines for schools asks us to include notable alumni in lead sections. Artur Davis is listed in MA's Notable Alumni section. This is the reason for the edit. If you have any further questions, let's chat about it. I'm open to dialogue!!!!"

I agree. Adding Artur Davis in the Lead section is a gray area. The guidelines call for notable ALUMNI. Would you be willing to help me source reliable sources regarding notable alumni? - Verdad (talk) 06:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know if this helps.[1]. Do you agree that the statement in the lead about the school not discriminating should make it clear that this is the school's policy, not a statement of fact? I don't have any reason to doubt that this is what happens, but we still can't make statements of fact such as this one. Dougweller (talk) 06:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Tough one... I tried to "talk this out" before. You saw me trying to talk this out before, right? I'm tired of the debate. I'd LOVE it if someone... ANYONE... would read Dividing Lines. This would SOOOOOOO clear the air. Verdad (talk) 06:45, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I've reported this editor after he ignored the 3RR warning. Dougweller (talk) 08:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not buying the book, I'm getting it from the library. The fact that that possibility doesn't occur to you speaks volumes. You should get a card and use it. Very helpful!— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Has it arrived yet? Interesting reading. --Verdad (talk) 01:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement of non-discrimination in the lead

Dougweller, I'm replying to this in a new section because I think it'll be easier to follow: "Do you agree that the statement in the lead about the school not discriminating should make it clear that this is the school's policy, not a statement of fact? I don't have any reason to doubt that this is what happens, but we still can't make statements of fact such as this one."

I think it's safe to state this as fact even though it comes from the school's policy. The school is accredited by SACS, which requires non-discrimination. The accreditation process is rigorous and by no means a rubber-stamp. If they were still discriminating on the basis of race they'd have lost their accreditation. I think that in cases like this it's better to take SACS accreditation as a reliable source that a school actually meets SACS requirements because any hedge we might put in would cast doubt on the truth of the statement, which would be misleading in my opinion. Also, my impression is that this is common practice in school articles, although I don't have any evidence beyond my experience. Compare e.g. Calhoun Academy, which is possibly still a seg academy, and is not accredited by SACS but by SCISA.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

alf laylah wa laylah, Ok, if that's the case and so long as the lead mentions that it was founded as a segregation academy I'm happy with that. Thanks for the explanation. Dougweller (talk) 16:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

NPOV

"Obviously whoever put that summary in there didn't understand that we can't really judge whether a summary in the article is supported by a source by looking at a summary of the source written by whoever wrote the summary in the article." - user alf layla wa layla's response to my summary of the Dividing Lines quote

I have a question for the more experienced editors. WP doesn't seem to have a policy that addresses circumstances where a source is cited, but the language in the Wikipedia article does not match the source. What do you call that? Is there a WP policy page?

This has been a constant problem on this article, since the beginning and especially with the early cited material. A source might be cited as supporting a comment. But, in reality, the information in the book or article is different. A great example is Dividing Lines. See comments below.

As for NPOV in general, this article is very slanted toward the assertion MA was founded as a seg school. Valid information from verifiable sources exists that states it was not. These sources include, specifically, the book and articles cited by those asserting the seg school position and a new source I have added.

To be fair to the subject of the article and to the readers, we should strive to follow NPOV closely. I believe my edits were very NPOV compliant.--Verdad (talk) 23:13, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Your edits weren't NPOV-compliant. They were egregiously not so, as a matter of fact. You might think about the specific reasons others have given about why that is. We use the presences of various points of view in reliable sources to determine the relative weight that each point of view is given in the article. So far we have multiple reliable academic sources that state that MA was founded as a seg academy, one of which you removed all mention of for no policy-based reason, as weighted against a few statements by involved individuals that it was not. We quote the individuals but we let the academic sources have much more weight. This is actually normal.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I found my answer(s)! Oh thank God! It was in the Wikipedia for dummies area of help. Hahaha!

NPOV is a recurring issue we talk about. You think "MA was founded as a seg school" is NPOV. I wildly disagree.

I don't think anyone currently editing this article is responsible for any of the supporting citations backing the assertion of seg school. The original citations were made by user:alabamaboy, which has been deleted. So, I hope I don't offend any present contributors when I say we may have a problem with WP:GOODREFS. Prime example being Dividing Lines; which, when I coughed up the cash showed the problems described in GOODREFS.

Does the Yale article say what Wikipedia says it says? Dividing Lines did not.

The legal cases, same thing... Maybe more of an issue with WP:YESPOV.

(Another breakout?). I'd love to talk YESPOV with you, alf. I think we both could make some compelling cases. --Verdad (talk) 02:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Did I not quote enough of the Yale article for you to see that it gives MA as an example of a specific type of seg academy without using any quotes at all around the phrase?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:10, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

you did. Thanks. I'm the same as you. I want to see it with my own eyes. What is the author going off of? In 1973, I would imagine it was the IRS case? The article contradicts other sourced info. Thornton does a much better job than the Yale article could ever do. The other thing about it... We need a concise definition of seg school. The author of the article, in describing seg schools as 3 different things, is growing the parameters that qualify a school as a seg school. Right? YESPOV says not to disparage the subject of the article, especially with contested assertions. Adams' quote in 1970 contests the assertion. Thornton's explanation is not reconcilable with the YLJ article. The Yale article, while coming from as amazing a place as an Ivy League printing press, may not be our best source here. Still, I want the whole article with its citations. --Verdad (talk) 04:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

If you want the article get it yourself and check it to your heart's content. It's available through JSTOR and I've provided a link. How do you know Thornton does a better job than the Yale article could do if you haven't read the Yale article? The Yale author is not "growing" any parameters. The Yale author is discussing one thing, segregation academies, and proposing a tripartite taxonomy of them, like Caesar and Gaul. All three kinds are still segregation academies and Gaul is still Gaul, divided into three though it may be. Adams' quote has just about zero weight next to multiple extended analyses by independent sources. I've said this a bunch of times and you've yet to respond to it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:55, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Yale alumni have access to JSTOR, so I'll take a look at it myself. Dougweller (talk) 14:38, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

That didn't take long. "These "segregation academies, second generation," aspire to the same elite status as traditional upper-class day schools in the rest of the nation. Most have announced "open enrollment" policies as required by the Internal Revenue Service, see note 62 infra, but in practice their student bodies contain neither blacks nor low-income whites. Terjen, Private Schools, Charleston Style, SOUTH TODAY, Jan.-Feb. 1971, at 7. Examples include Jackson (Miss.) Prep., see Egerton, supra note 48, at 42; Montgomery (Ala.) Academy". Dougweller (talk) 14:43, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but don't forget that Verdad is concerned about quotation marks around words. It's important to note that in the beginning of the cited footnote the phrase "segregation academies" is used without any kind of quotation marks around it and it's clear in the context of the whole note that MA in 1973 was a seg academy without qualification and that the only novel phrase the author is using is "segregation academies, second generation." It's why I quoted so much in the reference.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:55, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. It's obvious when you read the article, but I hadn't thought about the possible nit. Dougweller (talk) 15:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Doug, is the Yale story cited? One might wonder how Handsome Dan at his typewriter in New Haven in 1973 would determine this. --Verdad (talk) 16:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Are you actually asking me are there citations in a Yale Law Journal article? Dougweller (talk) 18:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. I meant to say, "Since you have access to the whole article, can you help me to view what sources were cited?" --Verdad (talk) 19:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Tuscaloosa News Article - Nov 22, 1970

alf laylah wa laylah , I added cited material from a reliable source in which the headmaster of Montgomery Academy stated the school always had an open admissions policy. I believe your response was that it was [explicative] apologetics and that you feel the headmaster was pressured to say such by the IRS. I don't have a specific question. I am open to further discussion. In the meantime, I think it would be wise to go under the assumption that the headmaster was not lying to a newspaper. You can curse at me. That's ok. I would appreciate not having my edit reverted or my account blocked. --Verdad (talk) 22:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The fact that you think that I think that the headmaster was pressured to say something by the IRS makes it seem ever less likely that you'll be able to interpret sources reasonably. Where did I say that?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

04:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC), under "egregious misrepresentation of source."--Verdad (talk) 01:54, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Like teeth. Being. Pulled. What. Did. I. Say. There. That. You. Think. Can. Be. Characterized. As. "the headmaster was pressured to say such by the IRS."?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:03, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

This:

This material was recently added:

The Montgomery Academy has always had a policy of open admission with regards to race. That is, race was never a factor for considering admission.

It is an egregious misrepresentation of the cited source to use it to support a statement in Wikipedia's voice that MA "has always had a policy of open admission with regard to race." The article quotes the headmaster as saying that in 1970 in response to an IRS challenge. The source also says that the school only added an explicit nondiscrimination policy in 1970. This source is perfectly usable, but not to support that statement in Wikipedia's voice. If we're going to use the quote from Adams it must be both attributed and contextualized.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

--Verdad (talk) 02:13, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Would you say that I pressured you into making that last statement you just made, then?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

now you're being cryptic. ;) --Verdad (talk) 02:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

References

Dividing Lines

alf laylah wa laylah , did you get the book yet? Was my transcription accurate?--Verdad (talk) 22:12, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Not yet. The library works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. It'll be along in good time, I have no doubt.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:43, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

let me know. We are overdue to hug it out. (Like the pun?)--Verdad (talk) 01:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Here it is: http://postimg.org/image/3krqvddot/ --Verdad (talk) 04:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't doubt that the school was founded to make sure that there would continue to be education, but it was founded to make sure that segregated education continued to be available. That's pretty clear, and the Head saying that that wasn't meant to be the policy doesn't change the fact. Dougweller (talk) 10:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Verdad, your source says explicitly that enrollment in MA from its founding was 'limited to "boys and girls of white parentage."' I'll certainly need to look at the whole thing to see what supports this material. In the mean time, though, is this your argument?

A: The Klan was going to close the public schools because of BvB.

B: The founders of MA founded MA in response to the impending Klan-threatened closure rather than to maintain all-white schools for their children.

C: The founders of MA limited admissions to whites (according to your own source there).

D: However, that racial restriction was not an essential impetus for the school's foundation.

E: Therefore MA was not founded as a segregation academy.

Is that a fair statement of your position? By the way, aren't you worried that Adams's statement to the effect that MA had never had a racially discriminatory admissions policy contradicts the explicit statement in "Dividing Lines" to the effect that admission was limited to whites from the founding?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Alf, the DL does state the school was limited to boys and girls of white parentage. But Thornton very clearly frames this within the context that:

A. Segregationist officials were going to close schools because of civil rights activity, that essentially was BvB coming to fruition. And,

B. The Klan threatened to use violence if necessary to prevent school integration. (I hope we are on the same page that the KKK would intimidate, through violence and the threat of violence, African Americans and non-African Americans it perceived to be helping civil rights.)

C. Correct, because of "B"

D. Right. That is to say, the motivations of the founders were 1. to ensure their children's education was not suspended or discontinued and 2. to shield them from Klan violence.

E. Exactly. Sunal's quote in the 2004 Montgomery Advertiser article would be instructive here.

--Verdad (talk) 16:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Just to clarify before I respond, you mean Sunal's statement quoted here: "Private schooling has a lot of history here and I think Southern history shows that one of the ways people tried to deal with huge changes in the public schools was to start a private school," Sunal said. "But not every private school was a reaction to desegregation." That's the one you're talking about? The one that specifically doesn't say whether or not MA is one of these schools?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I picked up with this in response to "The appositude of the YLJ article."--Verdad (talk) 22:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll take that as a "yes."— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:22, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

A "yes, but..." Yes, but I said it was and "instructive quote"- not a quote that stated one way or the other. Yes, but it's not a yes-no question... --Verdad (talk) 22:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The question was "is that the quote you meant when you said that 'Sunal's quote...would be instructive here." The answer I'm assuming from both of your non-answers was "yes, that was the quote you were referring to," not that you meant that it said anything in particular. Is this amended version a fair representation of your theory, then?

A: The state and/or municipal government was going to close the public schools because of BvB.

B: The founders of MA founded MA in response to the impending closure so as to prevent the interruption of their children's education and out of fear for their children's safety at the hands of the Klan should those children attend integrated public schools.

C: The founders of MA limited admission to whites solely to prevent Klan violence against anyone who practiced integration.

D: Consequently racial restriction in admissions was not an essential impetus for the school's foundation.

E: Therefore MA was not founded as a segregation academy.

Now do I have it right?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:46, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Not theory. Theory doesn't matter. Only what verifiable sources state and what our guidance is from Wikipedia policy.

A: Yes. Thornton states this.

B: You are paraphrasing Thornton. Here is the passage, "[Martin Luther, jr.] King's announcement [that the Montgomery Improvement Authority was making plans to have a large number of black children apply for transfer to white Montgomery schools] and the response to it badly frightened a great many white Montgomerians. Incoming Governor John Patterson used the occasion of his inaugural address two weeks later to warn black Alabamans ominously to "stand up and speak out now against the agitators of your own race whose aim is to destroy our school system. If you do not do so, and these agitators continue at their present pace, in short time we will have no public education at all. Our public schools, once destroyed and shut down, may not be reopened in your lifetime and mine." The Ku Klux Klan's grand dragon, Robert Shelton of Tuscaloosa- a man of some influence in the new Patterson administration- promised that the Klan would use violence if necessary to prevent integration of Montgomery's schools, and the closing of the city's parks at the very same time proved beyond doubt that segregationist officials were prepared to follow through on their threats. The prospect of total abolition of public schooling, very possibly accompanied by Klan-led riots and bloodshed, therefore seemed very real. A group of white social leaders under the chairmanship of physician Hugh MacGuire scurried to meet the menace of school closure by establishing a private school, limited to "boys and girls of white parentage," the Montgomery Academy; it opened in September."

C: Thornton dedicates quite a lot of ink to explaining the circumstances of MA's founding. There is a lot of lead-up to the final bit of the text above. Thornton writes about the potential for school closings. He then writes about Klan threats. He then returns to say the founders, "scurried to meet the menace of school closure by establishing a private school, limited to 'boys and girls of white parentage.'" Why did he sandwich the bit about Klan violence between a passage about school closure and the quote about the founding? You tell me.

At least one source states that private schools assert they were once white-only because of financial reasons. From the Advertiser article, 'Douglas said he knows diversity at the academy has been a concern among school leaders and parents in the past, a concern that is, unfortunately, directly tied to money. "As the cost of providing a high quality education continues to rise, there was and there still is a lot of concern in our community, our board and among our faculty that the rising cost will actually serve to reduce our diversity," he said. "There is an economic piece to this, too." Amelia agreed. When asked why she thought less than 10 percent of The Montgomery Academy's student population was nonwhite, she provided a one-word answer. "Money," she said. So, short answer- "It's complicated. But generally speaking, yes, this is what Thornton is saying."

D: Correct. They wanted their kids to have an education and not get killed. That is what I read from the text. That is what someone with a literal interpretation of the text ought to gather. I see no editorialization in that summary.

E: Using Coulson's description from Market Education, "...new private schools, dubbed 'segregations academies,' were opened for the chief purpose of preserving white only classrooms," yes. http://books.google.com/books?id=3xi49dmYw0wC&pg=PA275&dq=%22segregation+academies%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MiZpU8HCBsLpoATNoICYBw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22segregation%20academies%22&f=false

Hope that helps. http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3pmvd7 --Verdad (talk) 02:07, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Assume arguendo that your versions of A–D are verifiable. You cannot therefore use E to conclude that MA is not a seg academy without violating WP:SYNTH since Coulson doesn't mention MA.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH is a guideline we follow, along with WP:GOODREFS, WP:YESPOV, and especially in this case WP:SCH/AG.

Assume arguendo what you say about WP:SYNTH means the Thornton book doesn't disqualify the Yale article from inclusion. The Thornton book still presents a competing account that is not WP:GOODREFSed into the wikipedia article in any form that gives it any weight. The Yale article assertion is contested by the statement of the school's second headmaster, which is cited and summarized in the wiki article, essentially as a minority view. The Yale article's assertion is controversial, derogatory, and in the article's lead, which also violates WP:YESPOV and WP:SCH/AG. Filling the MA article with quite a bit about "segregation academies" and stating the school was founded as a "segregation academy"... this is not what we want to be doing as editors attempting to comply with WP policies in general, regardless of what we might think vis-a-vis a synthesized rebuttal of the Yale piece. --Verdad (talk) 05:45, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

You're conflating three separate issues and ignoring one. First, as you say, the Thornton book may be a valid source. NO ONE IS DISPUTING THIS. Second, you think the YLJ article may be excluded on some grounds yet to be specified. This is exceedingly unlikely to happen but it is a separate discussion from all of these. Finally, you don't understand the difference between policies (WP:NPOV, WP:SYNTH, WP:YESPOV), guidelines, essays, how-to pages (WP:GOODREFS), and Wikiproject guidelines (WP:SCH/AG). Only the first category may be treated as binding on editors. The rest are listed in descending order of how required they are. Now, are you going to answer my question above? Do you understand that even if A–D are verifiable, you cannot combine them with the definition in E to conclude that MA was not a seg academy because it would violate A CORE POLICY OF WIKIPEDIA, namely WP:SYNTH? Feel free to start new sections for your other concerns, but please don't continue to evade this key question.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Cross Referencing

alf laylah wa laylah , it is fine for you to work on the seg school article and the Montgomery Academy article concurrently. It is probably improper for you to make edits that are intended to tie the two together. I think we could productively talk about this further. One of the main issues I'm having with you reminds me of a quote from The Princess Bride. "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. http://m.quickmeme.com/img/f6/f67334bc58f2468bad15312669d5edaa0afe4c44de4eb56039994a47f00d296b.jpg. To me, a seg school is a school founded by racists for racists. To you, the definition seems to be growing into whatever MA is/was. I hope we aren't trying to paint the school in a negative light for personal reasons. --Verdad (talk) 23:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm speechless. Can you not find a way to discuss article content without sowing weirdo unsupported aspersions about you like grain, hoping perhaps that some will fall on fertile ground? Or maybe you're sowing tares in the fields of the enemy. Whatever it is I wish you'd stop it. I see from the history of this talk page that for 8 years now people have been trying to explain to you how Wikipedia works and you just don't seem to understand. It's a long time, don't you think?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

take a deep breath, man. That's not going to get us anywhere. I'm not trying to anger you. It's not weirdo unsupported anything. Maybe this is a better conversation for the seg school talk page. I think the description you are putting forth is too broad. Sunal's quote from the Advertiser article would support, for example, my assertion not every private school founded in the previously segregated South in the middle of the last century was to preserve segregation....--Verdad (talk) 02:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

But this was founded as a segregated school, whites only. As you've shown. And your failure to show good faith to Alf.laylah.wa.laylah is noted. It could almost be called a personal attack. Dougweller (talk) 10:21, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

If I wanted to make a personal attack, I'd make a personal attack. For example, "Dougweller is a cotton-headed ninnymuggins," would be considered a personal attack. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yMYeR4ZwjrU/TQvJRhcoGEI/AAAAAAAAAZs/mTxnKeVIP5Y/s400/tumblr_l5iy1hssuZ1qzxzwwo1_500.jpg What I'm trying to explain is that we seem to have two different definitions of seg school. Alf is editing that article. Both the content of "Seg Academy" and the activity of editors from that article on this article are relevant to discussions about this article. Follow? By the way, you aren't a cotton-headed ninnymuggins. I didn't mean that at all. ;) --Verdad (talk) 16:21, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

That's certainly true. When you want to make personal attacks you do. You haven't yet called me a racist, as you did to Alabamaboy 8 years ago on this page in a characteristic attempt at well-poisoning, and you haven't revived your claims that I'm a sockpuppet, even though as of four days you were still defending them despite the universal scorn heaped on their plausibility by everyone who noticed. You also seem to have dropped your strategy of insisting that reliable academic sources written by black people or people who teach at HBCs are prima facie unreliable with respect to MA and that editors who want to use them are pushing an agenda. So yeah, I agree. You'll make personal attacks if you want to and your recent (last few days) behavior doesn't rise to your usual standard. For now you're just completely misinterpreting the COI policy and taking it upon yourself to decide what it's proper for me to edit and how. Grandmothers and egg-sucking come to mind.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:06, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The appositude of the YLJ source

I think it's worth noting that the YLJ source defines "segregation academy" as "one of 'a system of private schools operated on a racially segregated basis as an alternative to white students seeking to avoid desegregated public schools.'" (p.1441) It's worth noting about this definition is that it puts the intentional onus on the students rather than the founders of the school. This is a historically important distinction since a lot of pre-existing all-white schools, founded before Brown, became seg academies after Brown, a fact reflected by the bestowing of subsidies by racist state and local governments on such schools after Brown in order to allow them to so function. In any case, even if Verdad's theory, now under discussion, about the motivation of the founders of MA turns out to be verifiable through reliable sources, MA would clearly still be a segregation academy within the meaning of the term as used in this article which, it is important to note, specifically calls MA a segregation academy (so citing it to support that claim is not a violation of WP:SYN). It strikes me that this moots the argument Verdad is making about the intention of the founders. However, obviously, it's conceivable that that theory, if and only if verifiable, should be discussed in the article for the sake of NPOV.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:47, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I rather disagree. I'd love access to whole YLJ article and its citations. Access is limited. So, while it is verifiable, it is only so to a limited extent.

I prefer the definition put forth by Coulson in "Market Education." http://books.google.com/books?id=3xi49dmYw0wC&pg=PA275&dq=%22segregation+academies%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MiZpU8HCBsLpoATNoICYBw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22segregation%20academies%22&f=false That is - "...new private schools, dubbed 'segregations academies,' were opened for the chief purpose of preserving white only classrooms." Coulson then goes on to explain, "Despite the failure of [anti-integration efforts by state legislatures], segregation academies did attract many white parents opposed to integration." Both passages indicate the intentions at founding determine whether a school is a "segregation academy."

alf laylah wa laylah's comment, "This is a historically important distinction since a lot of pre-existing all-white schools, founded before Brown, became seg academies after Brown, a fact reflected by the bestowing of subsidies by racist state and local governments on such schools after Brown in order to allow them to so function," is one that I am going to have to disagree with rather specifically for a couple of reasons. The first, obviously, is that alf laylah wa laylah and I disagree about what a "seg school" is. Secondly, I don't think either his or my cited definitions of seg school account for how a school is treated by state and local government.

If a seg school is what I say it is and not what alf laylah wa laylah says it is, the rest is moot. However, I'll address the so-called "theory."

I think the "theory" alf laylah wa laylah speaks of is very well supported in the cited texts, literally and specifically, without editorialization. If we are to indicate the relative prominence of opposing views, I would give- for example- more credence to Thornton (a professor of history whose focus is Southern politics, segregation, etc.) than the Yale article. I would prefer Alabama professor of elementary education, Dr. Sunal's statement rather than what the Yale author wrote. WP:YESPOV

I added this link to the article. But it was removed. (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19701122&id=fT0eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NLkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7292,4540548) The headmaster's quote from the Tuscaloosa News Nov 22, 1970 seriously contests the assertions of the IRS at the time, which were echoed by the Yale article and later by the plaintiffs in AvW. I hope we are all within the belief system that labeling an institution a "segregation academy" unnecessarily would disparage the school. WP:YESPOV I don't deny that the lack of diversity is a source of recurring citation. But it seems to me the school has done an adequate job of contesting the assertion, first in 1970, and later on with policy statements. --Verdad (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The Yale article doesn't state what the summary states it says. To say the Yale Journal states MA is a seg school is a misquote.--Verdad (talk) 02:06, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Can you stick to one point per section? Your "Market Education" thing is consistent with the definition in the YLJ article anyway, since it is of the form "if X then seg academy" not "if seg academy then X." In any case you'll have some trouble using the "Market Education" definition here since it doesn't mention MA and only you think MA wasn't a seg academy. The YLJ article not only defines "seg academy" but explicitly says that MA was one. In order to argue that it was not one you'll have to find a source that specifically says that it was not one in order not to fall afoul of WP:SYN. Do you see the problem?

Also, you'd have more credibility if you'd pay attention to the content of the article. You put that 11/22/70 article in, totally mistook its meaning in a way that you haven't accounted for yet, and then I put it all back so as to accurately reflect what it says. It's cited in the article now. It was a good find on your part, and if you hadn't either misunderstood or misrepresented its contents, your edit containing it would be in there now.

You also have to give up on the idea that your theories about which sources are more reliable than others are way out of line with standard Wikipedia policy. Thornton and the YLJ article are on a par. What you prefer is irrelevant. You've already demonstrated your lack of discernment when you attack the reliability of sources based on the fact that they teach at HBCs. Also, as far as I can see from the excerpt you made available, Thornton doesn't even say that MA was not a seg academy, so you can't draw the conclusion that it was not from his work.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to abandon this breakout for a couple of reasons.

First, the only things that matter are what the verifiable sources say, and the policies and guidelines Wikipedia sets forth. We've discussed Dividing Lines and YLJ. I've said about all I can say. Information in Dividing Lines paints a different picture than YLJ. YESPOV instructs us what to do in those circumstances. For the purposes of this article, not much else is important. For the purposes of scholarly discussion, Thornton is the expert.

I responded to your claim that I had a theory by calling it a "so-called theory." This was to rhetorically distance my statement from the use of the term theory, not to state that in fact it was a theory. I hope this was clear. We are going back and forth about theory. That needs to stop.

Also, some of what you just wrote confused me and was potentially insulting. But, I think we are having a great interaction on the other breakouts. And, in the best interest of good faith editing, we can carry forward there. We can absolutely talk more about the YLJ article. We can absolutely talk about the definition of "seg academy." Let's not be uncivil. --Verdad (talk) 01:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

So you don't have a theory about why your statement that MA was not founded as a seg academy is verifiable? And you don't want to talk any more about the verifiability of the statement that MA was not founded as a seg academy? If you don't want to talk about the verifiability of that statement any more you're probably going to have to give up any hope of working it into the article since every editor who's discussed the issue over the last 8 years except for you seems to think it verifiably was founded as a seg academy. Maybe you're confused about what the word "theory" means and you think I'm denigrating your theory as counterfactual or something? Not that I want to be "uncivil" by suggesting that you don't know what the word "theory" means in this context, but that's the most plausible theory I can come up with for why you'd want to deny you have a theory when you obviously do. I mean it in OED sense 4a. A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed. Perhaps you feel that I'm denigrating your theory by using it in sense 6. In loose or general sense: A hypothesis proposed as an explanation; hence, a mere hypothesis, speculation, conjecture; an idea or set of ideas about something; an individual view or notion. I assure you that I am not. Is there some word you'd prefer other than "theory?" Perhaps "set of reasons verifiable by reliable sources for thinking that MA was not founded as a seg academy?" That's all I meant. Talking about the definition of seg academy is kind of a dead end, by the way, because the only way we're going to call MA a seg academy in this article is because sources call it one, not because we decide it meets some definition. That would violate WP:OR. Similarly, the only way we're not going to say it was founded as a seg academy is because sources say that it was not, not because it doesn't meet some other definition. That would also violate WP:OR.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:03, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

An interesting and hitherto unused source

What can we make of this, I wonder?

• Wright, Gavin (25 February 2013). Sharing the Prize. Harvard University Press. pp. 168–. ISBN 978-0-674-07644-0.

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

If you are asking me what I think of that passage, I think including it as a source would not bring any more or less benefit than the currently cited sources currently bring. It is a convenience link because it doesn't present any more information than the sources currently cited in the current article. In fact, all of our cited sources are right there in one little passage. WP:CONV It was written after 2010. It's language closely follows the Wikipedia article on seg academies and the cross-referenced Montgomery Academy article. And it makes the same error the Wikipedia articles did at the time. That is, Sharing the Prize states "Montgomery Academy was sued in 1984." In fact, the IRS was sued in the AvW case of 1984. I guess, also of note is that it uses scare quotes around the term "segregation academies."

What do you make of it? --Verdad (talk) 00:45, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Why do you think those are scare quotes? And are you seriously suggesting that a book published by Harvard University was influenced by some Wikipedia articles? Is that seriously what you're saying?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:04, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Because the Wikipedia article on Scare quotes- Neutral Distancing says they are.

What I am saying is that the book published by Harvard University would be a WP:CONV if cited, because it cites all the same sources in the WP article. Your question was open ended. So, I went into detail. It's worth noting all the information is there that is in Wikipedia in the same language, line after line. The "sued in 1984" statement from the book is technically wrong. I think the Wikipedia article has gotten it wrong in the past, too. Is any of this inaccurate? --Verdad (talk) 02:31, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

How does the Wikipedia article on scare quotes say they are? Why do you think the quotes indicate "neutral distancing" as opposed to, e.g., indicating a technical usage or a term of art? And how sure are you that MA has not been sued. So far we don't have a source beyond this one that says it was, but we don't have any sources that say it wasn't. Why are you so sure that it wasn't sued? Also, I think you're seriously misreading that essay on convenience sources. It doesn't seem to me to apply to this at all. Not in the least.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:01, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

You mean "jargon?" Thats right there under "neutral distancing." So, the choices would be, "neutral distancing in general" or "neutral distancing for jargon." I think maybe you are trying to say, the term "seg academy" is jargon, not a neologism? We started to get into this. That's debatable. I'll concede this is open to interpretation. One group's jargon is another group's neologism. Typically, the group for which it is jargon is likely the smaller of the two groups. Wouldn't this make mathematical sense? In the vocabulary I use, we say "I would like to try to get my kid into private school." Prior to reading the wikipedia article, I had never heard the term. I 'm pretty certain no one said, "I would like to get my child into a Seg Academy." Neologisms are always new. In political circles they can be used to convey a connotation. (seeDeath Tax) To some, a neologism can be derogatory if the connotation is not flattering. und so weiter, und so fort...--Verdad (talk) 04:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Obviously "segregation academy" is a neologism; what's your point? The word was coined sometime after 1954 because there was no referent before that. That makes it a neologism which is also a technical term or a term of art. None of that is evidence that all instances of quotation marks around it are scare quotes or "neutral distancing" (those are "scare quotes" (and those are irony/sarcasm quotation marks)). It's commonplace to put quotation marks around technical terms on their first use in a nontechnical text. You have a theory (in the pejorative sense of "theory" (those are use/mention distinction quotes)) that every single time the word "segregation academy" (again use/mention) appears inside quotation marks they're "scare quotes" (neutral distancing) but (a) that's wrong and (b) you have no support for your "theory" (scare quotes with sarcastic connotation as they mimic quotation marks that indicate that I'm quoting you) in any case. "Jargon" (quotation marks indicating a quotation of you) is nothing more than a dismissive word for technical terms. You might as well go try to argue that e.g. "electron" (use/mention) isn't a real concept because it's a neologism (it is) and when nontechnical texts close to the time of its coining mention it for the first time they often put quotation marks around it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:41, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

"Jargon" is a technical term or a term of art. "Neologism" is a newly coined term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Both get scare quotes. Wait, so we both agree "segregation academy" is a neologism? --Verdad (talk) 06:00, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

No, and I hope you aren't thinking of taking Segregation academy back to AfD - you were told that at Talk:Segregation academy where it was pointed out that its use is as least 43 years old ""The South's New Segregation Academies," John C. Walder, Allen D. Cleveland, The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), ". Or to forbid use here by qutoing Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Neologisms and new compounds. It's not "newly coined". Dougweller (talk) 08:59, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

"Jargon" is pejorative: Applied contemptuously to any mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a particular set of persons, as the language of scholars or philosophers, the terminology of a science or art, or the cant of a class, sect, trade, or profession. "Technical term" or "term of art" are non-pejorative words. Thus one might use scare quotes or neutral distancing quotes to indicate jargon whereas one might use quotation marks indicating a defining instance of a technical term or term of art. You're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that, used in books by scholars, the scholarly term of art "segregation academy" appears inside quotation marks because the scholars, whose term of art it is, are contemptuous of it. They are defining it so they want to set it off as a term which may be unfamiliar to their reader. This has been the case in every example of putative scare quotes you've managed to produce.

Now on to the neologism issue. I know the MOS defines "neologism" that way, but it is wrong. There's nothing in the standard definition of "neologism" that requires that a word not be part of mainstream language. For instance, "google (v.)" is obviously a neologism, since its referent didn't exist before 1998. And yet, there it is, in the OED, a part of mainstream language. "Segregation academy" is a neologism because its referent didn't exist before 1954. Yet there it is, defined and used over and over again in scholarly works. Most article names in Wikipedia are neologisms despite that badly misguided definition in the MOS. If you think that detracts from their suitability for article subjects, go try to delete quark and see how that works out for you. Fortunately the MOS is merely a guideline, so we're not bound by it when it contradicts policies like NPOV and SYNTH.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

You are talking about a number of things. I'm very open to talking about those things... I think my response to all of this would be lengthy and disjointed. (unless I did breakouts for breakouts, which is a little hard to accomplish, but I will try)

"Neologism" and the newness of the term "seg academy" -- "Googling" as a verb has made it to the dictionary, and "seg academy" has not. I just... I could get into this... Do we really need to talk about this?

You stated, "Most article names in Wikipedia are neologisms despite that badly misguided definition in the MOS." -- I'd just prefer we stuck to our guiding policies, rather than dismissing them when convenient.

Jargon as pejorative and the preference of the term "use of art" -- Well.... yes and no. I see the reasoning. I've used the term with colleagues before. It's not so terribly insulting of a word.

"Segregation academy" is a neologism because its referent didn't exist before 1954. Yet there it is, defined and used over and over again in scholarly works. --If "segregation academy" is defined, can we say it's defined and discuss what it means here (in the talk page) as the term is not in a dictionary but in the lead of this article? I'm a little tired of trying to grasp a handful of mercury.--Verdad (talk) 05:49, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Citations in Yale Law Journal

Can someone with JSTOR access please view the Yale Law Journal article and let me know what sources the author of the article cites, specifically in reference to Seg Academies and MA?

Thanks --Verdad (talk) 02:43, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Brief for Montgomery Academy as Amicus Curiae, at 11-17, Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 473 F.2d 832 (5th Cir. 1973).— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:57, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Link to cited source. http://openjurist.org/473/f2d/832/gilmore-v-city-of-montgomery Are there others? --Verdad (talk) 03:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

That's a link to the opinion of the court, not the amicus brief that's cited.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:24, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

References in the article

In line citations in this article were added by an editor who no longer maintains his account. It may be productive to review and scrutinize these in line citations as I am noticing in line citations are not verifying the text they are attributed to. WP:GOODREFS

"Like a number of private schools founded in the United States in reaction to U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education, The Montgomery Academy was a segregation academy.[3][4][5][6]" is in line cited with [3]Dividing Lines by J. Mills Thornton, which makes no reference to the term, [4]Southern Education Report, Volume 3, the summary of which makes no reference to "segregation academies." [5]"Private schools diversify", a Montgomery Advertiser article which makes no reference to the term, and [6] The Allen v Wright case which makes no reference to the term.

--Verdad (talk) 05:45, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that we should review these. In fact, I think that for now we should delete them and replace them with the YLJ source, which explicitly says that MA was a seg academy, so it's sufficient to support the statement. Then perhaps we will add them back as appropriate, perhaps in support of different material. Also, I've been meaning to say that regardless, I see no need to cite Allen v. Wright here since, as Verdad says, it doesn't mention seg academies, and I'm wary of using court opinions to back up statements of fact, especially ones they don't actually make. The SER article can probably be removed for now, although I'm in the process of getting a copy. What the "summary," whatever that is, makes mention of, is of no account whatsoever. This article is extraordinarily difficult to obtain and seems mostly to exist on microform rather than on paper or digitally.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I must be old. I called a library and asked if they had X publication on "microfilm". I might have said "microfiche." The college student on the other end of the line said, "Ummm. I don't know what that is. Let me get you the archivist. She knows where the old newspapers are." I died laughing. What do they use nowadays? --Verdad (talk) 18:26, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Yep, "microform" is the generic library catalog "jargon," encompassing microfilm, microfiche, the completely unlamented and barely usable microcard, and probably others I haven't heard of. Nowadays they digitize everything, but many minor and archaic journals like SER haven't been made public in that form yet that I can find. It's digitized on google books only in the sense that you can search it, but you can't see anything but snippets and gbooks seems incapable of producing a citation that's complete enough for interlibrary loan. Hence I have to physically go to a library where they will make photocopies off the microform, whichever kind it is. Fortunately there's at least one near here that has it. TL;DR: Kids these days...now get off my lawn!— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:18, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Defining Seg Academy

A topic more appropriate for the "seg school" article. I found a good reference:

A "segregation academy" has been defined as a private school "operated on a racially segregated basis as an alternative available to white students seeking to avoid desegregated public schools." Coffey v. Educational Fin. Comm'n, 296 F. Supp. 1389, 1392 (S.D. Miss. 1969). Of course, not every Southern private school is a "segregation academy." See generally PrivateSchools 1365 n.15; SegregationAcademies 1443-44. --Verdad (talk) 18:08, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

References

How is that different from the definition I cited above? And who is disputing that not every Southern private school is a seg academy? Obviously not every Southern private is a seg academy The question is whether MA was founded as a seg academy. So far quality sources say it was and no sources say it wasn't except through synthesis, and pretty dubious synthesis at that, which, dubious or not, is a violation of policy. Material from this article, interesting as it is, is unusable here since it doesn't mention MA.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:26, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Whoa nelly! I'm just talking about defining seg academy.--Verdad (talk) 19:34, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Then why are you talking about it on this page?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:59, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

TLDR version- "Seg academy is a WP:SYNTH term. Why are we talking about SYNTH in the rebuttal?"

Because, I suppose, it is a term that is used on this article that does not have widespread use and that has not been clearly defined. The reference I included states that "a 'segregation academy' is defined as." It's the best source I can find to say *this* is what this means. Yeah, this is the wrong talk page... It indicates to me the "seg academy" article needs quite a bit of work. Vis-a-vis the contents of this article, it would be important to point out it would not constitute WP:SYNTH to use- for example- the Thornton text to contradict the Yale text if we ever had a standard definition of the term.

Using the definition I included above, the characteristics of a seg school are that it operates on a racially segregated basis as an alternative available to white students seeking to avoid desegregated public schools. The Adams quote, without using jargon or neologism, contests such an assertion about the school.

"Seg academy" is quicksilver. It catches your attention. But, you can't hold onto the meaning of it without it dispersing everywhere. It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. The term lacks proper definition. The term is also derogatory to the reasonable reader. That would violate WP:YESPOV, particularly if the cited source only referenced the allegations of a lawsuit.

These allegations are also seriously contested. It's not necessary for the subject to employ jargon or neologism in its challenge. "The Montgomery Academy is not- and was never- a 'seg school,'" is not a required statement to refute a derogatory allegation. In this case, "The Montgomery Academy has always had a policy of open admission," should be sufficient to challenge the assertion that "MA operated on a racially segregated basis" This can be accomplished with a statement from the headmaster -who operates the school- saying "MA has always had a policy of not discriminating based upon race." --Verdad (talk) 23:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

You should read WP:SYNTH again. There's no such thing as "a synth term." We have a reliable source that explicitly calls MA a seg academy. We have no reliable source that says that MA was not a seg academy. To use a source that describes the circumstances of MA's founding along with a different source that doesn't mention MA but defines "seg academy" in a way which (perhaps) suggests that MA's founding doesn't meet the definition is a textbook example of synthesis. Source A says "MA was founded under conditions X." Source B says (you claim) "If Y is a segregation academy then Y was not founded under conditions X." Your conclusion is that "MA was not a segregation academy." Modus tollens is certainly a valid syllogism, and your premises are arguably even plausible, but irrespective of that, your use of these two sources in this way, especially given that one of them does not even mention MA, is certainly a violation of WP:SYNTH.

Your attempt to dismiss the YLJ by attacking its references is a non-starter as well. It's easy enough to argue that Wikipedia editors shouldn't draw conclusions from court filings under most circumstances, and I've said as much above. But if a reliable secondary source draws conclusions from primary sources, we have the sine qua non of reliability. Under your proposed method for dismissing sources it would be impossible to cite any book of legal history, since they all draw conclusions from court filings and opinions. Reductio ad absurdum, QED.

Furthermore, your argument that the quote from Adams refutes the claim that MA was a seg academy is laughable. First because he's not an independent source, so his statements can't be used to support controversial statements of fact in Wikipedia's voice. Furthermore, regardless of its written policy MA operated on a racially segregated basis. You even said so yourself, and claimed that it was for the safety of the students because the Klan would have killed everyone if they'd run an integrated school. Your preferred source agrees as well, stating explicitly that the school was started for white students. Thus even under your preferred definition MA was a seg academy. It was operated in a racially segregated manner and it was used by white students to avoid attending integrated public schools. Even assuming your prominent citizens' intention was what you say it was, their school was a segregation academy.

In case you're wondering, I'm ignoring your inchoate arguments about jargon and neologisms because they don't make any sense.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:06, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

All of that legal jargon to defend a neologism... I understood you better when you used words like, "b.s."  ;)

I'm simply stating that when a term communicates something, that something must have characteristics, especially if it is a person, place, or thing. Otherwise, the term could be attached to anything.

Is it satisfactory to challenge an assertion which uses uncommon or derogatory terminology by stating that the subject does not possess the characteristics of that term? Or does the challenging source need to state the term specifically?

Onus probandi, reductio ad adsurdum... When Amanda Knox was accused of murder, she said, "I did not kill my friend." Was her statement enough, or did she need to specify further? Should the lead for an article about Amanda Knox state, "Amanda Knox is a murderer?"

You misquote me. I'm telling you "seg academy" as an article is guilty of WP:SYNTH. Your treatment of this article vis-a-vis the term indicates a similar attitude toward the use of it.

I'm not attacking the references YLJ cites. I'm simply stating that the reference is a lawsuit which makes assertions which are challenged. Assertions which are derogatory and seriously challenged are covered by WP:YESPOV.

Similarly, I didn't state the school was or wasn't started for white students. I stated the school was "limited to students of white parentage" in the context that the Klu Klux Klan was threatening violence.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, can we communicate using standard English, not legal jargon? LOL--Verdad (talk) 05:15, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

NPOV over time

This is hard to communicate. I'm sure there is nothing new under the sun. Someone with knowledge of WP policies may want to chime in if a policy exists that describes this.

I've been watching this article for some time. Due and undue weight have been discussed at one point. In fact, in the logical course of discussion in this talk page, we are due for some intercourse about undue weight.

Simply- I take issue with the fostering of a specific edit, and not an article. Are we editing to provide a quality article about a school, based on WP:SCH/AG, or are we trying to promote a derogatory assertion about a school?

This article has grown in size at times. For better or for worse, the article's growth was essentially in the interest of not presenting an assertion with undue weight. Then, over time, everything but the assertion which carried undue weight was eliminated for technical reasons.

However, WP:SCH/AG exempts this article from notability requirements and gives us reign to use uncontroversial information from school publications.

This is an article about a school. WP:SCH/AG governs. We aren't following those guidelines at all. It's a problem. This has been a poorly written, poorly cited, poorly monitored article for 8 years.

Explanation of the statement "poorly written"- Totally noncompliant with WP:SCH/AG. For years the article lacked the sections set forth by this guiding policy, regarding the structure suggested. We have to do better than this.

Explanation of "poorly cited"- My comments in another section about WP:GOODREFS. For years, sources were cited which did not say what what this article said they say.

Explanation of "poorly monitored"- When information was removed that was generally uncontroversial according to WP:SCH/AG, little notice was taken. When edits were changed regarding "seg school" or the assertion the school was "founded in response to Brown v Board," the article was immediately reverted.

Say there was a consensus about NPOV in this article. Assume for the sake of argument (assume arguendo) all parties agree a current or future version of the article is NPOV, SCH/AG, and GOODREFS compliant in some future form. Historically, with this article, it has been the case that content is removed which doesn't assert MA was founded as a seg school.

Rhetorical question, "In 18 months, will we have a stub that says 'MA was founded as a seg school,' and little else?"

The above doesn't require a response. But, I welcome discussion.--Verdad (talk) 05:15, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Southern Education Report citation removed

I removed this:

<ref>''Southern Education Report'', Volume 3, Southern Education Reporting Service, Nashville, TN, 1969, page 124. Article by Jim Leeson which states "One example is Montgomery Academy in Montgomery, Ala., which had desegregation as one of the issues discussed in its formation in the mid-'50s."</ref>

as it's evident that whoever added it was looking at the gbooks snippet view, which is not acceptable, especially for such a contentious matter. Once someone lays hands on the article we can figure out what to say regarding it. It's clear that the only source is the snippet view because gbooks says Volume 3 is from 1969 whereas all other catalogs I've found have Volume 3 as being published from 1967-8, e.g. here and worldcat as well. Also the pagination is different from other searchable records, giving pages 122 and 124 in the gbooks snippet view but page 85 and 88 elsewhere, e.g. here. In any case, the source is not necessary to support the only claim it was supporting, which is that MA was a seg academy, as that's adequately and explicitly supported by the YLJ source.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:34, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I finally got a copy of this. The citation information on gbooks is wildly wrong, but I've corrected the year, the issue, and the page numbers, so interested parties will be able to obtain a copy from ILL. Also, it's a good thing I checked. What it had to say is more subtle than that MA was founded as a seg academy, and definitely needed to be added in accordance with NPOV.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:24, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

New edits

I see new edits are being made. I'm assuming good faith here, and hope my comments will be interpreted constructively.

I think my edits from a few days ago could use improving. I even stated that myself. However, I don't see how these new major changes to the article are superior to the edits I made and were reverted. Assuming we were to agree the article was NPOV, it's still way off by SCH/AG standards. But, it's not NPOV based on YESPOV. And, we still have a long way to go on verifying everything is GOODREFS compliant.

I appreciate the backdrop section being added. I see that as a wonderful gesture of good faith. It concerns me, though, that the information might be more appropriate, for example, in the "social implications" portion of Brown_v._Board_of_Education, rather than in an article about a school.

We are adding more and more to the body of the article with regards to the topic of desegregation, etc. I feel like we've always been overweight on that topic in this article. It seems like it's only getting worse. I think we can concisely address assertions of lawsuits that cite the school without making the "Montgomery Academy" article mostly about desegregation or seg academies. --Verdad (talk) 22:41, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

You have to try to get a better understanding of the alphabet soup you're citing. SCH/AG is a wikiproject guideline. It has little to no weight in discussions about removing content sourced to reliable independent sources. I don't even know what GOODREFS is, maybe some kind of restatement for beginners of WP:V? Perhaps you're a beginner, but no one else here is. You'd be more convincing if you'd drop the GOODREFS thing and read WP:V. Finally, what parts of YESPOV do you think are being violated here and where? It would be most useful if you would start a new talk page section for each individual sentence that you object to along with your policy based reason for objecting rather than replying here.

Finally, you seem like you're trying to make some kind of argument based on WP:UNDUE in your last paragraph. To do this successfully you will need to show that there are actually two significant points of view on the question of whether MA was founded as a seg academy. So far there is one statement by a former headmaster that the school never discriminated on the basis of race, which is duly included in the article, versus the fact that every reliable independent source that discusses MA at all discusses it in the context of its history as a seg academy. It is really the only reason historians seem to care about this school at all. I don't see that there's any plausible argument for limiting the amount of material we put in about that since there are no counterbalancing points of view expressed in reliable independent sources.

Also, I'm not wedded to the background section, but Thornton's book does mention MA in one half of one sentence, and given the absolute paucity of sources and your insistence that it matters I thought it'd be useful to include the background that you insist is so crucial to the understanding of MA's origins. I don't actually care one way or the other, but I do think that without that background the only possible thing we can source to Thornton is the fact that MA was founded for white children only.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:58, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Terjen Text

This is fascinating. I can't find the SRC text either. I think it's in here: http://mondale.law.umn.edu/civil_rights.php somewhere. It would be ticker-tape/ephemera at the bottom of a landfill if it weren't for the Mondale hearings. One of those links has it... None of them are searchable. Terjen worked for the SRC. "Organizing Black America" describes SRC as an interest group involved with pointing out inequality in America, especially in the segregated South. Good for them... I agree. But, we should consider the source. Nothing could be less egalitarian than founding a school no one but the community leaders could afford. That didn't mean they were fleeing Brown or Green.

http://books.google.com/books?id=56KH2aisL_UC&pg=PA556&lpg=PA556&dq=SRC+segregation&source=bl&ots=MVFSmfh4Q3&sig=VkrKmYO_cW196GuYv8Ipnpt7l2U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CC58U4bBB86YyATLlILYDA&ved=0CGEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=SRC%20segregation&f=false

What SRC text? Do you mean SERC SERS? It's a whole different thing: [2] "The Southern Education Reporting Service, which was underwritten by an arm of the Ford Foundation and gathered news from 17 Southern states, purported to tell the desegregation story objectively and without concern for the politics of race. This paper draws upon extensive research in the SERS archives at Tulane and manuscript collections in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to examine the editors' use of objectivity as a political tool and, ironically, the activism entailed in a political project committed to objectivity." Note that SERC SERS was essentially a wire service focused on Southern education. Are you actually commenting on the content of this article here?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

sorry. Terjen is the author of the citation in the footnotes of the Yale Article. She quotes the amicus curiae from Gilmore v Montgomery in a piece she wrote for the Southern Regional Council, the successor organization of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. You had said the SERS paper was difficult to find. I remember now... Terjen's article, in full, is very elusive as well.--Verdad (talk) 20:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Why do you think that? The authors of the YLJ article cited in this article are Jerome C. Hafter and Peter M. Hoffman. I see I forgot to add it to the citation, which I'll do now.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:05, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

because I am holding the article in my hand and everything I'm telling you I'm seeing in the article. --Verdad (talk) 01:30, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Terjen isn't cited in this Wikipedia article. The part from the YLJ article, which is not by Terjen, that has to do with the MA is not cited to Terjen. Terjen is completely unrelated to anything. Terjen is not "the author of the citation in the footnotes of the Yale Article," Terjen is the author of an article that is cited in the footnote of the Yale article in relation to something other than MA. Terjen is completely irrelevant to this discussion.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:42, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Yale Article Revisited

The text SouthernNights states is from the Yale article is actually from the Terjen text. The Yale article states, citing Terjen in unrelated statements, "The true 'segregation academy' is a product of the post-Greenera." Well, that's anachronistic to MA's founding... IOW: http://i.imgur.com/jKL1MHc.gif. MA was founded pre-Green. According to the Yale article, MA was guilty of being segregated because it was emulating an elite prep school which had prohibitive tuition charges.

It arguably was founded within the event horizon of desegregation. There's really no denying that. But, it was founded 5 years after Brown and 9 years before busing.

The way Thornton frames it, the founders' motivation was to ensure their children's education continued and the Klan didn't harm them. If we are going to say MA was founded with segregation on the minds of the founders, it would be a steep hill to climb.

Call it theory if you want... Any way you chip at it, there has to be a litmus test. Terjen's threshold is any school founded after Brown that is not diverse. YLJ's threshold is a school that is the product of the [post-busing] era. Other sources state a seg school is a school specifically founded to allow people to not participate in integrated education.

Tell me what a seg school is, and we can get deeper into this. The sources we have here... even the ones that cite one another... contradict themselves. Is the crime "being white and associating with whites?" If so, I know a lot of those people. All of whom would emphatically reject the label "segregationist."

Does that make sense? I'm not trying to be obtuse here.--Verdad (talk) 04:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

It makes perfect sense, although I don't see what SouthernNights has to do with the Yale article; did he refer to it? However, you have to see that the YLJ article explicitly calls MA a seg academy. Explicitly. Without hedges. Your theories on what Thornton means but doesn't say don't carry a lot of weight in the face of that. I don't know how to define "seg academy" exhaustively, but clearly, on Wikipedia, any school that one or more reliable sources calls a seg academy can (a) be called a seg academy in Wikipedia's voice if there are no dissenting independent reliable sources or (b) have attributed views stating that it is a seg academy balanced by dissenting views stating that it is not a seg academy in proportion to their prevalence in the literature. This is basic WP:NPOV. Furthermore, even if we accept your theory that Thornton says that MA was not founded to perpetuate segregation, even you admit that it was founded to allow people not to participate in integrated education although, you claim, this was not for racist reasons.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

SouthernNights refers to the article, yes... He "quotes it" for us. Here's the problem... He's not quoting the article. The article doesn't mention a single school by name. The article does say, "a true segregation academy is a product of the post-Green" era. That quote follows a section about pre-desegregation elite prep schools as "segregated private schools," distinguishable from seg academies. Do we consider desegregation Brown or Green? The author of the Yale article seems to think it's 1968...--Verdad (talk) 20:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, I claim Thornton states MA was founded to avoid school closure and clan violence, not integration- and that MA asserts it always had open admissions. --Verdad (talk) 00:19, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm totally confused. Which Yale article are you talking about that "doesn't mention a single school by name" and that SouthernNights quotes? Surely not the one cited here from the Yale Law Journal, which mentions MA by name, as quoted by me, when it is explicitly calling MA a segregation academy. You said that Thornton implies that the klan threatened to do violence to anyone who practiced integration and that therefore MA was segregated to avoid violence by avoiding integration. Like this: "Integrated school implies violence. MA wants no violence. Therefore MA wants segregated school." That's part of your argument.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:03, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

The june 1973 article "Segregation Academies and State Action." I'm looking at it right here. Nothing about a single school. The citations mention several schools. The citation we are talking about- the one I'm calling the "SouthernNight quote" (though Alabamaboy probably was the one that referenced it. Then SouthernNights "blanked" Alabamaboy and made everything so damned convoluted.) ...that quote is from the Terjen text.--Verdad (talk) 01:40, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

2nd part of your question... "Avoid violence by avoiding integration?" No. Avoid violence by limiting to children of white parentage. That can be accomplished several ways other than having a racially exclusive policy. Why are we even getting into this question? Is someone who aids a criminal at gunpoint a collaborator to the crime? I thought this would be an obvious point to make.--Verdad (talk) 01:53, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

You're looking at "Segregation Academies and State Action" and you don't see that it explicitly and without quotes (scare or otherwise) calls MA a seg academy? Is that what you're asserting? If so, it's time for you to read WP:CIR. As for who referenced it first, why does it matter? I referenced it recently and supported it with a quote, not a summary, that makes it clear that the article explicitly calls MA a seg academy. The paragraph beginning "2nd part" makes absolutely no sense to me.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:46, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Nope. I'm looking at it right here. And it does not say what you are saying it says.

It includes information in the footnotes that Katherine Terjen did a report in 1971 for the SRC, which made it into the congressional record as part of the Mondale Hearings- which are fascinating. It also cites Gilmore v City of Montgomery- which is essentially the information as Allen v Wright for our purposes.

In the body of the text, the authors make no mention of any school. What's even more interesting is that they assert schools outside of the public school system were "segregated" prior to 1968 but that "true 'segregation academi[es]'" did not exist until after Green v Kent County. Are you reading the same article as I am (pp 1436-1461)?--Verdad (talk) 09:26, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

First, it doesn't matter whether a source speaks in the body of the text or in a footnote. That's a distinction that you just made up. Second, I'm not a mind reader. What do they say that makes you think that they assert schools outside of the public school system were "segregated" prior to 1968 but that "true 'segregation academi[es]'" did not exist until after Green v Kent County.? I see one or two sentences in the article which, given your past history, you might have twisted into that statement, but, certainly, give a quote from the article that supports that statement. Also, remember, according to you sentences which use "scare quotes" around the phrase "segregation academy" have less force than those that don't. Finally, it explicitly says that MA is a seg academy. Why do you keep ignoring that fact?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:18, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

If a footnote just quotes another document, we call that a citation, right?--Verdad (talk) 23:59, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

So you won't answer?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:59, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

When a footnote simply quotes another document, we call that a citation. Verdad (talk) 11:40, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

If you have something concrete to say about the content of this particular Wikipedia article I wish you'd say it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2014 (UTC)