Civil-rights complaint filed; Wayne County accused of re-segregating its schools

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 02, 2009

RALEIGH

The Wayne County public-school system has deliberately re-segregated schools, putting black students at a disadvantage and creating "a district of apartheid education," the NAACP said in a federal complaint filed yesterday.

The state NAACP president, the Rev. William Barber, said that the organization filed a civil-rights complaint with the U.S. Justice and Education departments against the Wayne County schools in Goldsboro.

Irving Joyner, an NAACP attorney, said that the school system is accused of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal to distribute federal money on the basis of racial discrimination.

Barber cited policies that he says have resulted in lower graduation rates, and higher suspension rates for black students. He says that the student population of the Goldsboro Central Attendance District is almost 100 percent black, while another district in Goldsboro is almost 90 percent white.

He said that 94 percent of students in the central-attendance district receive free or reduced school lunches -- a sign of poverty. Of 2,100 students enrolled in the central-attendance district, only four are white, Barber said.

Ken Derksen, a spokesman for the Wayne County schools, said that the school system couldn't comment on the allegations until it receives the complaint from the Department of Justice.

Barber said that Wayne County schools were desegregated in the 1970s. But the NAACP alleges that the Wayne County School Board has deliberately re-segregated schools by redrawing district lines and busing white students as far as eight miles away to attend school when the "black district" is less than two miles away.