Only one in six middle school students in the Detroit Public School System tested at or above the proficient level for reading. That’s a heartbreakingly tragic number, but instead of fixing the schools, the Detroit school bureaucrats decided last month that a higher priority was to remove former HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s name from a high school science center named after him. Ben Carson, of course, is black. And he is also one of the top brain surgeons in the world. His sin was working for Donald Trump to try to fix the dysfunction of cities like Detroit.

We thank our friend David Sokol for calling attention to this insulting and absurd decision.

Dr. Carson is famous for his pioneering work with conjoined twins and pediatric neurosurgery.

Former school board member LaMar Lemmons justified the decision of having Dr. Carson’s name on the school on the grounds that it is “synonymous with having Trump’s name on our school in blackface.”

Really? This is the same man who launched the “Opportunity Zone” initiative, in nearly 9,000 districts across the country reducing taxes and regulations, which raised $75 billion in capital for underserved communities in the first two years alone. It is estimated to have lifted hundreds of thousands of mostly minorities out of poverty.

Whatever one might think of Carson’s politics, it seems to us that this great man and mind (who grew up in poverty himself) should be proudly held up as a role model to minorities across the country.