Segregation
cess to education, being used a lot of places as a cover,” said Lori Bezahler, president of the Hazen Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes youth leadership and public education.
That cover in some schools is based on race. “Unfortunately, I’m not surprised,” Bezahler said, “but I am depressed, grieved and frustrated.”
Rise of school segregation
Since 2001, the number of highly segregated public schools in the USA has more than doubled.
A study in 2016 by the Government Accountability Office concluded that poor, African American and Hispanic students have been increasingly isolated from their affluent, white peers in these schools. The proportion of schools segregated by race and class climbed from 9% in 2001 to 16% in 2014.
“Unfortunately, there is segregation in schools based on disproportional opportunities afforded students,” said Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, dean of American University’s School of Education.
Impoverished schools see far fewer math, science and college prep courses, according to the study. “Gifted programs and classes in many schools are disproportionately white because of well-documented biased identification process,” Holcomb-McCoy said. “The opposite is true for lower-tiered or special education classes, which tend to be overly male and males of color.”
Department of Justice files obtained by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting show that Brookhaven administrators have maintained allblack classrooms for several years while grouping the majority of white students under a handful of teachers.
All-black classrooms and classrooms with black-to-white ratios far above the schools’ racial makeup are common each year at Mamie Martin Elementary School, Brookhaven Elementary School and Lipsey Middle School, which cover kindergarten through sixth grade.
The Justice Department argued that clustering white students into select classrooms, thereby creating all-black classes at the same grade level, segregates students in violation of the 14th
“The question should be about how do we create an education system for children that provides them with the tools and resources they need? If this conversation does not focus on educating children, we are doing a disservice to the children.”
Corey Wiggins Executive director of NAACP Mississippi
ROGELIO V. SOLIS/AP
Amendment. The government took action against two of Brookhaven’s neighboring districts for similar practices.
In 2010, a federal judge ordered the Walthall County School District to use software to assign students to teachers to avoid the creation of all-black classrooms after the Justice Department found administrators grouped disproportionate numbers of white students into some classrooms. The district declined to fight the finding.
The federal government ruled against McComb schools for a similar practice in 2008, requiring the district to annually submit homeroom enrollment by race for two elementary schools, student and faculty votes for homecoming queen and a copy of the high school yearbook.
The Justice Department has not ruled on homerooms in Brookhaven schools, but the district remains under a federal integration order that requires it to submit annually the size and racial makeup of all homeroom classes, along with other demographic data.
This year, Brookhaven Elementary School has no all-black classrooms after former principal Shelley Riley brought the parental request policy to light.
In the Mississippi Delta, the Cleveland School District, which was 65% black and 32% white, allowed students to pick which neighborhood school they wanted to attend. Many black students chose predominantly black East Side High. Two years ago, a Justice Department settlement put all high school students under one roof – Cleveland Central High. The 2017-2018 school year reflects a decline in white enrollment. The district was 71% black.
Education experts have long held that dividing students along racial lines hurts their ability to learn. The Supreme Court took the same stance in 1954 when striking down segregation in its ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that “separate but equal” is “inherently unequal.”
The rise in racial segregation in public schools is not limited to the South. A lawsuit filed in May 2018 in New Jersey calls for the desegregation of state public schools. The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of civil rights groups and students. There are similar cases in Connecticut, Minnesota and New York.
Unlike Brookhaven, the issue in New Jersey and other states where lawsuits were filed pertains to entire schools being segregated, not classrooms.
‘No one questions’
Queen Hawkins, a retired black teacher, said she raised concerns about Brookhaven’s policy but never got a satisfactory answer. “I am concerned the Brookhaven school board allows this practice to continue,” she said. “It is amazing these reports are sent to the Justice Department, and no one questions the information.”
Superintendent Ray Carlock defended the practice: “We do what’s best for the child, not necessarily what’s best for the parent.”
Though majority-black classrooms are taught by black and white teachers, majority-white classrooms are almost always taught by white teachers. In the five years of data examined for this story, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting could identify just two black teachers who taught majoritywhite classrooms.
Corey Wiggins, executive director of the NAACP Mississippi, said the learning experience for black and white students must be fair. “The question should be about how do we create an education system for children that provides them with the tools and resources they need? If this conversation does not focus on educating children, we are doing a disservice to the children.”
Brookhaven Alderwoman-at-Large Karen Sullivan, a former teacher, said she never sought specific teachers when her four children were in school. “They all had extraordinary educational experiences in the Brookhaven School District,” she said. “Meeting new students and having teachers they may not have had otherwise if I had chosen their teachers was exceptionally valuable. If parents would allow themselves to trust the system, I believe they would be just as happy with their child’s education.”
More than a dozen requests for interviews with school officials, elected leaders and retired teachers were turned down. All seven members of the Brookhaven Board of Aldermen and all five members of the school board were mailed, emailed and hand-delivered copies of the Justice Department reports and a series of questions, but Sullivan was the only official to respond.
Kelly Laco, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said, “The United States is carefully monitoring the school district’s compliance with its obligations under the (desegregation) order.”
Brookhaven resident Curtis Oliver, 60, who is black, questioned why the parental request policy still exists. Oliver, CEO of Faces of Recovery Mississippi, graduated from Brookhaven High School in 1976, just six years after the district was integrated.
“When you have classes that are 22-0,” he said, “somebody should want to know why.”