Talk:Burley High School (Charlottesville, Virginia)

Is the heading "Segregation and Massive Resistance" non-neutral

Note: This is a repost of a message I sent to a fellow user about this page:

Hi John. I'm replying to a question you posed regarding the Wikipedia page for Burley High School (Charlottesville, Virginia). You said:

"I question the neutrality of the last section title. can't this just be added to history?"

The section title you are referring to is "Segregation and Massive Resistance."

First, to address the question of adding that content to "history." There is no "history" section on the page since this is a page about a school that no longer exists, so the entire page is an historical entry.

To address neutrality: The word "segregation" is neutral because it refers to the structure of the education system in Charlottesville when Burley High School was created to serve only Black students, and it wsa the historical situation that led to Massive Resistance. Segregation is itself a non-neutral state of being, one could argue, but the word and the historical fact of it is indeed neutral. It happened, and it was fundamental to the history of the Burley school.

The term "Massive Resistance" is neutral because it refers to an historical event that dominated the history of K-12 education in Charlottesville, Virginia in the 1950s. Massive Resistance to integration was prompted in great part by the lawsuit of Burley High School parents who wanted their children to transfer out of that school to another school.

Resistance to the segregation of Burley students led directly to resistance to the integration of Burley students, which led to Massive Resistance. This is a fundamental aspect of Burley's history, and the resulting integration of the schools eventually led Burley to close permanently as a high school. Therefore, the extended incident of "Segregation and Massive Resistance" is a single, unified narrative that is fundamental to Burley's history, and is best understood in a specific section on the page.

Burley's widespread notability and the reason it belongs in Wikipedia rests primarily in the Segregation and Massive Resistance story, which impacted the lives of everyone in Charlottesville at the time---black and white. Nothing in the title or in the content of the article contains an opinion. The history itself is not neutral. The fact of it happening must be included in Wikipedia and must be included using the accurate historical terms for the events in question. Leofstan (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Leofstan, two things. I did not see the phrase "Massive Resistance" in any of the sources I was able to review. Further, unless that is the term commonly used to describe the movement (which would be shown by a preponderance of sources referring to it as such), using it in the section title is POV. Second, whether historic or not, this is still an article about a school and should be layed out as such. All the common stuff we cover in articles about extant schools still occurred at this school. Your article is about desegregation, not a school. As such, it violates WP:UNDUE. I am not sure you understand the differences between writing, say, a white paper for a college class, and writing for an encyclopedia. To write an encyclopedia article, you search out all the available sources (which should be relatively easy for you as a librarian), you discard the poor quality ones (too POV, not meeting WP:RS, etc), and you paraphrase them to write an article. That is all. You cannot take what one source says and what another source says and draw the conclusion that another fact must therefore be true, even if that synthesis is perfectly clear. We do not draw conclusions here, and we do not try to tell a story, other than the obvious story which is the summary of all that is written on the subject of the article. Again, and I'm not saying you've done a bad job here, but it appears that telling a story of the desegregation movement is what you are doing here. Please take this as constructive criticism, not an opposing view. The story of desegregation needs to be told, over and over, in the spirit of the discussion of the Holocaust. Never forget. However, the way this article is written is clearly POV, as the only thing you are discussing is desegregation. John from Idegon (talk) 21:33, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• John from Idegon, thanks for your reply. Three comments: (1.) I'm sorry to hear that the term "Massive resistance" was causing you some issues. I'm surprised that you weren't able to find it in any sources--the first hit on a google search for the term is the Wikipedia article, "Massive Resistance," and I hyperlinked to that article within the section in question. The term was coined by Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. at the time, and is the standard term used by historians. I don't know what else to tell you. (2.) You say that in the article, "the only thing you are discussing is desegregation." I don't understand how you can possibly make that claim about this article. Setting aside the opening paragraph, which includes some general history, there are four sections totally 572 words dedicated to the school's curriculum, faculty, and student life. There is one section totaling 109 words dedicated to segregation and massive resistance. I expect that as further users continue to add content, there will be richer and richer content in ALL sections. I'm sure you're well aware that most Wikipedia articles grow in fits and starts, and that they are added to unevenly by different users. This is a brand new article. Give it some space to grow. But even in its current state, I strenuously object to your claim that it is only about segregation. (3.) You say that "whether historic or not, this is still an article about a school and should be layed out as such." Again, I don't understand how you could possibly argue that this article is not organized so as to serve as an article about a school. Here are the sections of the article as they currently stand on the day I am writing this comment: "Curriculum," "Student Life," "Band Life," "Athletics," "Segregation and Massive Resistance." It seems pretty reasonable to me to set out to describe a school's curriculum first, and its student activities and other aspects of the school experience second, and so on. It would be irresponsible to exclude "Segregation and Massive Resistance," as that was itself a fundamental aspect of the student's experience at this school. Again, I just don't understand where your critique is coming from.Leofstan (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2018 (UTC)