Sunday, December 13, 2020

Bill Crawford: Another Racial Inequity Lawsuit Continues

Schools in communities with strong tax bases generally provide better learning environments than those in communities with strained tax bases. This reality looks to be at the heart of another Mississippi racial inequity lawsuit kept alive by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“A federal appeals court has affirmed that Mississippi parents may pursue a lawsuit that says the state allows grave disparities in funding between predominantly black and predominantly white schools,” wrote Emily Wagster Pettus for the Associated Press. The full circuit panel voted 9 to 8 earlier this.

Federal William H. Barbour had dismissed the lawsuit in 2019. A three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit overturned his ruling. The state appealed to the full court but lost.

The lawsuit was filed in 2017 by the Southern Law Policy Center against state officials on behalf of several “low-income black women.” They contend, Wagner wrote, that the schools their children and other black children attended “were in worse condition and had lower academic performance than some wealthier, predominantly white schools.”

“More than 100 years since Reconstruction and 66 years after Brown v. Board, Mississippi continues to operate two types of schools: high-performing schools for white children and failing schools for black children,” Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Will Bardwell said.

No and yes.

The state does not operate schools. Local school boards and superintendents do. The state provides most of the funding for school operations. Local communities provide most of the funding for school facilities. And better off communities provide additional funding for teacher salaries and other enhancements.

In Mississippi, poverty rates are overwhelming for blacks but around the national average for whites. Consequently, communities with high levels of impoverished black populations face a double whammy. Children living in poverty face more learning challenges which impacts school performance. Communities with high poverty rates tend to have weak tax bases making it hard to afford topnotch school facilities and enhance pay to attract and retain good teachers.     

The sticky wicket for the state lies in Section 201 of our state constitution which puts the burden for school maintenance and support on the Legislature, not school boards and communities.

Unless the state appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, the case will go forward in Mississippi next year. The difficult issue facing the state is not intentional discrimination but whether the school disparities cited by the plaintiffs arise from a “vestige of segregation” that can be practically eliminated.

That was the core issue in the 2016 Cleveland School District case, just as it was in the Ayers higher education desegregation case. As one of the negotiators of the Ayers settlement, I can testify that resolving such vestiges can be costly.

For example, should the court on remand find that the Legislature’s funding mechanism is a vestige of segregation, it could well order the state to take over funding for school facilities and bring all school buildings across the state up to a minimum standard. Of course, as in Ayers, much more could be included.

“For one law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you” – Numbers 15:6.

Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.

 

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Elected officials should work to insure that a lawsuit should never be filed against the state. It shouldn’t matter if your from Madison or Holmes county. If we live in a post racial color blind society we want each and child to have the opportunity for a quality education. It certainly begins at home, but when you have sub standard pay for teachers and the lack of qualified teachers you set these kids up for failure.

Anonymous said...

If poor people are typically poor due to bad decision making (births out of wedlock, choosing to commit crimes, shirking education, etc) then it would follow that they would also elect poor leadership to run their schools.

Anonymous said...

So I understand. Is this suit requesting higher pay for teachers in low performing districts? Lower the performance....increase pay to retain teachers?

Anonymous said...

Once again Mississippi may come to grips with it's past. For decades there was vast inequity in the support the state provided Black education relative to support provided for Whites. The consequences still exist. It's never enough to simply say "We are now colorblind". That's like robbing a bank and keeping the money then saying, "I won't rob banks anymore". As long as Whites are doing fine, Blacks must fend for themselves and make up lost ground on the meager funding provided by the state. Like affirmative action, any remedial
efforts aimed at addressing the disparity will be decried as "reverse discrimination" by the White majority and fought tooth and nail by the legislature. But that will not eliminate the consequences. We should all be concerned about that.

Anonymous said...

@11:53 AM - Too funny. "Elected officials should work to insure that a lawsuit..." Would that be with Geico, Progressive, or USAA?

"It shouldn’t matter if your from Madison or Holmes county." What is a "from?" You did say "your from." Oh, that should be "you're from."

There are more examples above of a "quality education," but I will leave it at that (or these).



Anonymous said...

So the same group, leftist Democrats, that are firmly opposed to school choice, are suing because of “grave disparities in funding between predominantly black and predominantly white schools???”

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Dumb F’ers!


As one the original and great African American civil rights icons Robert “Bob” Woodson points out:

“In the past 50 years, 22 TRILLION HAS BEEN SPENT ON POVERTY PROGRAMS.”

“70% GOES NOT TO THE POOR, BUT THOSE WHO SERVE POOR PEOPLE.“


And therein lies the scam.

Anonymous said...

“Schools in communities with strong tax bases generally provide better learning environments than those in communities with strained tax bases.”

The opening sentence has NOTHING to do with race and economics and EVERYTHING to do with family structure and priorities. IF THE PARENTS of the students in the poorest districts in the state demanded their children perform in school and made education a priority they would easily meet and/or outperform standards. We’ve become so blinded by new buildings and technology that we don’t believe students can learn with old-fashion pencil, paper, and books. Also, if these SAME PARENTS were heavily invested in their children’s lives and education, the discipline problems wouldn’t exist in these poorer school districts at the levels they do.

STOP telling the students their environment is lesser. The people pumping this ideology down the throats of students are the ones defeating these students before they even start. Research proves that bright, overly decorated environments can actually have a negative impact on children’s learning, yet teachers are socially forced to “keep up with the Jones” or be perceived as an unmotivated teacher. A good teacher could teach in a cardboard box and motivate her students to learn. These same students will EXCEL if their parents are positive and structured about their education regardless of physical environment.

If these SAME PARENTS had grown up with parents that invested in their education, this process would be so much easier. We’ve wasted generation after generation expecting the schools and/or government to “fix” our children. That’s our #1 failure as parents.

Teachers in JPS have been making more than surrounding districts for years... it still hasn’t fixed a thing... because the parents haven’t fixed their priorities.

Anonymous said...

" Southern Law Policy Center"

What a joke.

Anonymous said...

JPS teachers make good money. That’s not the fix

Anonymous said...

I watched a civil war program this morning. The whole premise of the program was that the war was 100% over slavery. The war was over economics and states rights versus U S government powers. Mississippi (particularly Natchez) was the wealthiest portion of the union. There was not one word of economics in the program, it was all about slavery. I am okay with this false narrative until the reaction involves burning our cities.

Anonymous said...

1:31 I totally agree with the premise that academic performance is not dictated by finances but by the determination of the parents and students. Got it. But even though they CAN learn in a cardboard box, I don't think they should learn in a cardboard box. Not when others in the same state with whom they compete have far superior facilities and teachers. Yes there is waste, and yes some parents do not give a damn. But before making a judgment I want to be sure a fair MINIMUM is established which every citizen/school district is entitled to. The question is whether Mississippi provides that, or not. And it ain't a cardboard box. The rich and powerful would insist on it, whether their kids needed it or not, and they would get it. Their districts will still provide more to boot. But just because the poor are silent does not mean they should expect crumbs from the state. A FAIR and EFFECTIVE minimum should be determined and required statewide. If we already have it, so be it.

Don Drane said...

I graduated from Cleveland High School in 1965. The school has been integrated since 1966. The ratio of white to black was virtually equal in 2016 when the most recent of numerous Justice Department cases were brought forward. These lawsuits have been ongoing for fifty years in this district.

Justice was not interested in integration or equal facilities or numbers. The department simply wanted the school (Cleveland High) that had been all white, sixty years earlier, eliminated in every respect. So, they accomplished that. They changed the name of the school, the mascot, the school colors and snatched out all the photos, trophies, class-gifts and other memorabilia in the interest of eliminating history.

Nothing, zero, nada, positive has resulted. Black and gold has changed to purple and The Wildcats have changed to a Panther, I think.

"Mississippi coming to grips with its past"? Bullshit.

Once again the Cancel Culture has prevailed and nothing is accomplished.

Anonymous said...

Kingfish @ 12:39 PM

Thanks for providing that link. I knew this information was out there. I hope the judges on the 5th CCoA will read this before taking any action. Money is not the answer!

Anonymous said...

2:13, I agree that the Civil War was about economics. That is, the economics of slave labor. Of course white Mississippi was wealthy before the Civil War. That's because the farm owners and other businessmen didn't have to pay wages to their their workers.

In other words, slavery WAS economics. It was justified with ideology and prejudice, in order to sell it to poor white folks, but it was really about labor costs, i.e., the money.

As to defending the principal of states' rights, that was the right to own other human beings, plain and simple. People didn't fight and die for ideology. They fought and died for property, primarily the property known as "slaves."

Anonymous said...

What about Jackson Public Schools, which is a large, almost exclusively-black public school system that spends more per student that any other school district in Mississippi? The quality of JPS education is terrible, and I don't think it's because those students are incapable of learning.

Any talk about public school funding in Mississippi that leaves out JPS has ignored the elephant in the room. Clearly, there is more to the problem that just throwing more money at it.

Kingfish said...

All right, no more re-fighting the War Between the States. Get back to the subject of the column. Yeesh.

Anonymous said...

There is no relationship between money spent per student and academic result. Majority black schools get more federal money and therefore spend more per student. Should majority white schools complain?

Anonymous said...

Everyone can see that Mississippi has a great many school districts in order for wealthier districts to spend their taxes on their children and not on the children of those lazy, irresponsible poor people a few miles, or sometimes blocks away.

Anonymous said...

"Majority black schools get more federal money and therefore spend more per student"

Link to that federal formula, please.

Anonymous said...

About 15 years ago there was a big push in Canton to build a new high school as well as other schools. The schools were built and since DATSUN (Nissan) moved to town, the corporation has donated tens of millions of dollars to the Canton Public School District. Check out the test scores before and after the schools were built and the Nissan money was received. See any significant difference?

Anonymous said...

Are they ready to give the Shad White’s of the world subpoena power over their documents and accounting records? Bc that’s how they get it. SPLC has to have multiple victims in this scheme and this whole charade of letting the ****suckers from SPLC do the talking while no one directly challenges the plantiffs for audited financial statements. The state would be wise to preemptively motion for records and start gathering information about the use of outside services. This suit is dangerous considering the report Shad is compiling about public education in Mississippi.

Anonymous said...

Is the “low-income black mother” part needed for some function of the lawsuit or is it just coincidence? There are plenty of low-income black parents out there without having to play the welfare queen stereotype.

Canton Corruption Continued said...

"About 15 years ago there was a big push in Canton to build a new high school as well as other schools. The schools were built and since DATSUN (Nissan) moved to town, the corporation has donated tens of millions of dollars to the Canton Public School District. Check out the test scores before and after the schools were built and the Nissan money was received. See any significant difference?"

The only difference is a slight slide backwards. You're right in that these monstrous buildings got built, including a fabulous football stadium. Can had grumbled they couldn't compete athletically because of poor facilities. Have they improved? Nope.

You're also right that Nissan has gifted tons of money to the school district, voluntarily, every year since 2002. Did any of that money make it to the classroom level? Nope.

Anonymous said...

The State had to take over Tunica County schools in 2015. This proved district, school and student failure has nothing to do with lack of funding.


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