It won’t matter.

The vast majority of human beings will not be able to accept that individuals may differ from the group without having proof forced upon them, and 50% of those won’t be able to accept it even once the proof is there.

Now my personal experience is the male/female version of this, but I’ve witnessed teachers and even professors fall victim to this (to say nothing of the huge number of peers that bought into this), and had quite a number of horror stories related to me. It was pretty frightening (and eye-opening) that almost every women in maths and sciences I knew experienced at least one such incident from a teacher or prof!

So, to the matter at hand, the principal *did* make a mistake, and it should have been foreseeable. It was inevitable that bringing up the results would result in the other students “blaming” the all the black students for their poor marks.

The achievement gap is real, and does have to be addressed, but as human beings are what they are, you have to be *very* careful that in addressing it, you don’t do more harm than good.

The principal failed in this, and an apology was in order.