TUESDAY,AUG.28,2001
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Alabama schools see resegregation occur as residential, economic patterns change
Leader says Black political leadership needed to reverse the trend
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Sidney Lanier High School principal Lewis Washington Jr. can peer through his office window and see the erosion of desegregation efforts at his school in the past 30 years.
The west Montgomery school, a noble structure with Gothic spires that went up in 1929, once educated the children of Alabama governors and many other state leaders. In 1964, when a few African-American students enrolled, it was the first high school in the county to integrate.
Today, Sidney Lanier stands as a symbol of how Alabama's schools, like many others across the South, have become more segregated than at any time since 1970, according to a recent Harvard University study. The student body that Washington sees strolling the campus has only six Whites out of 1,100 students enrolled.
"We are 99 percent African- American and back then it was totally reverse," Washington said. "It affects the way children grow up with each other, and that's a cost that's more than the cost of busing children to one site or the other."
Obvious gains have been made since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board in 1954, which came at a time when public schools were legally and almost totally segregated across the South. But a trend toward resegregation has occurred mostly through the advent of private schools, neighborhood districting and a loosening of federal court mandates for deseg-
regated classrooms.
Critics of the shift toward resegregation say the end result is lower test scores at predominantly African-American schools, and both Black and White students being less prepared for an increasingly diverse world.
The Harvard study found that Alabama schools, after making gains in desegregation throughout the 1970s, began resegregating in the 1980s and 1990s. By 1998, the study said, the percentage of African-American students in majority-White schools had dropped to 31.4 percent, about the same as in 1970.
According to the study, desegregation in Southern states peaked in 1988, when 43.5 percent of African-American students attended majority-White schools. But by 1998, the percentage of African-American students in majority-White schools dropped to 32.7 percent — lower than it had been at any time since 1970.
"The Black political leadership and the Black clergy have got to start beating the drums again about what's going on," said Black political leader Joe Reed, who also holds a post with the Alabama Education Association.
Reed and others argue that several Supreme Court decisions have authorized a return to segregated neighborhood schools.
Now, many school boards "say we don't discriminate based on race," said Tuskegee civil rights attorney Fred Gray. "Their position is that (resegregation) is not the result of discrimination, rather it's the result of residential patterns, economic changes and other patterns."
Dennis Parker, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, also points to an increase in students attending mostly White private schools.
The construction of new homes often results in the building of new
"The main thing we can do is make sure all districts have an equal opportunity for education funding and resources."
Joe Morton deputy superintendent of Alabama schools
schools catering to White students. Parker said.
"I'm not saying it's intentional discrimination," he said. "But if you have houses that are three-, four- and five-hundred thousand dollars, then fewer Blacks are going to be living in these houses."
There are other issues, too. Some school board members have said they didn't even realize they were under a court order to desegregate because they weren't serving on the board when the orders were handed down.
Joe Morton, deputy superintendent of Alabama schools, said the state was doing "a strong professional job to abide by the court orders that do exist." But he said in some cases, there was not much school administrators can do to stop resegregation.
"When you get into changing housing patterns and migration, it's out of the purview of public education," Morton said. "The main thing we can do is make sure all districts have an equal opportunity for education funding and resources."
Even the harshest critics of resegregation say Alabama has come a long way since Brown ruling. In that case from Kansas, the high court declared school segregation unconstitutional.
Kansas' lawsuit against Nebraska Colorado sets water-law precedent
The Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas' lawsuits against Colorado and Nebraska about violations in water compacts remain on track, legislators were told yesterday.
Attorney General Carla Stovall gave an update on progress to gain money and water from the state's neighbors. She said briefs for the case against Nebraska about the Republican River were because of the court-appointed special master by November.
Officials from Kansas and Nebraska have been in discussion about the lawsuit, though no settlements have been reached. At issue is the amount of water Kansas claims Nebraska has failed to allow to flow into the state.
A special master has recently toured the Republican basin, Stovall said. The two states now are working through the logistics of exchanging documents.
Stovall said Kansas had claimed one victory in the case when the special master ruled groundwater pumping in Nebraska is governed by the compact.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Kansas is entitled to $14 million in damages as a result of Colorado's failure to abide by the
Arkansas River Compact. A special master is to decide how much Kansas will receive in interest since the case was filed in 1985.
"In this case, Colorado is not agreeing to anything." Stovall said.
She said the case was a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in that it sets precedent for allowing one state to win damages from another for water issues.
Legislators have appropriated $17.3 million for the Colorado litigation since 1984. Any money received by the state as a result of the lawsuit will be deposited in the Interstate Water Litigation Fund, with money then used to help pay the costs of other water litigation, monitoring compliance with other water compacts.
All amounts above $17.3 million will be used for water projects, with a third of the money earmarked for the state Water Plan and the remainder for projects affected by the Arkansas River Compact.
Legislators expressed concern yesterday that Colorado would be slow to make payments.
They also wondered if any money above the attorney fees could be returned to the state general fund for other uses.
Groups raise money to aid the defense of mom accused of drowning children
The Associated Press
HOUSTON —The National Organization for Women and other groups said yesterday they were helping to raise money to defend Andrea Yates
into account in any punishment.
— the mother accused of drowning her five children in the bathtub — in part to help other women suffering from postpartum depression.
The groups also oppose the death penalty for Yates, saying her depression should be taken
"It gives us a platform for something that obviously needs education," said Deborah Bell, president of Texas NOW.
Yates, 37, called police on June 20 and admitted drowning her children in the tub. Her husband, Russell Yates, told police his wife was depressed and had been treated for postpartum depression. She is under suicide watch in a jail psychiatric unit.
American Civil Liberties Union, other women's and health groups and several antideath penalty organizations yesterday joined NOW in raising money.
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has said he would seek the death penalty.
NOW and the other groups in the Andrea Pia Yates Support Coalition plan a candlelight vigil on Sept. 11, a day before a hearing is scheduled to determine if Yates is fit to stand trial.
The defense fund was previously established by Yates' lawyers, but they cannot publicize it because of a court-imposed gag order.
Money not needed for her defense will go to groups working to educate and help others suffering from postpartum depression, coalition members said.