The author of a new book on race begins with a controversial hypotheses: it was desegregation that destroyed thriving black schools and created a culture of underperformance. Even if this is true, it does not imply, of course, that school desegregation was the wrong choice. The problem, says a review of the book from Slate, was more that, “Black students bused into predominantly white schools faced hostility and contempt from white students. They encountered the soft prejudice of low expectations from racist teachers who assumed blacks weren’t capable and from liberals who coddled them.”