In recent weeks, the Wake County Board of Education in N.C. has restricted public access to its meetings. Using a centuries-old state law, the board (led by its new tea party 5-4 majority) has limited the number of public citizens who can attend the board's "open" meetings and now selects "representatives" they appoint to attend the meeting to speak on behalf of whatever "sides" they deem to require representation. Public citizens who attempt to attend the "public" meetings are now subject to arrest for trespassing.
As school board chair Ray Margiotta said last week, he "would not favor more public input in a million years."
Things came to a head at last week's board meeting when a clamp-down on public protesters led to a racially charged set of arrests and police manhandling of African-American school board member Keith Sutton.
Last October, with a less than 7% voter turnout, the Wake County Board of Education swept in a new conservative majority and swept out 30 years of leadership in the nation's models of voluntary school desegregation. Since the new 5-4 majority (funded by neoconservative Art Pope and led by local tea party members) took office, they have systematically gutted the Wake County Public School System's desegregation policy, even forcing the removal of the word "diversity" from all policies coming before them in public meetings.
After a sizable march and rally supporting civil rights and equity for public school students in downtown Raleigh on July 20, hundreds of diversity advocates came to the site of the Wake County Board of Education meeting to voice their opposition to the board's dismantling of the decades-old desegregation policy.
The school board had called in dozens of extra police officers and ordered in horseback police teams, prison buses, and EMS vehicles. Board chair Ray Margiotta (a tea party leader and also the board member of a private charter school in the area) had attempted to fill the public seats of the meeting with other tea party members in hopes of preventing other members of the public from attending the meeting.
When protesters were denied the opportunity to sit in the meeting and began to chant in the hallway, tensions mounted. A man from the board chair's tea party group lost control and began to take swings at protesters. The police quickly closed in on diversity advocates at the urging of Board Chair Margiotta. When board member Sutton ran to the aid of a young student caught in the middle of incipient violence, police officers seized him and pulled his arm behind his back, attempting to cuff him with plastic ties used to restrain arrestees. Staff members had to stop police from arresting Sutton by letting them know that Sutton was a board member.
You can see video of Sutton's near-arrest half-way down the page of the news story here.
Minutes earlier, on the public sidewalk outside the building, N.C. NAACP President Rev. William Barber led prayers and chants with a group of pro-diversity advocates on the public sidewalk. Police quickly surrounded him. Barber tried to deliver a community letter to Margiotta, but police restrained him with plastic handcuffs. As Barber was being led to an EMS vehicle to be taken to jail, Rev. Greg Moss, leader of the 500,000 member Baptist Convention, locked arms with his long-time friend and was also arrested. Rev. Nancy Petty likewise locked arms with Rev. Barber and was arrested as well. Barber and Petty were charged with second-degree trespassing; Moss was charged with interfering with the arrest of Barber.
According to an email from civil rights attorney Al McSurely, who attempted to attend the "public" board meeting,
Several white adults who were waiting to speak or merely to show solidarity with other speakers were told by the police to move back and were not arrested. The police concentrated on the African Americans in attendance and the young people. A white Margiotta supporter took a swing at a young black woman who was there, and Keith Sutton stepped down from the board table to protect the foster child of a friend in attendance. Police seized Sutton as he attempted to pull the girl from the dangerous situation.
Nineteen people were arrested at the "public" meeting and on the "public" sidewalks as they attempted to speak or deliver letters to the school board. Among those arrested were eight ministers, six young people of college and high school age, five members of the executive committee of the NC State Conference of Branches of the NAACP, and three NAACP branch presidents. Although most attempting to attend the board meeting were white, 11 of the 19 people arrested were African American.
Margiotta and the other four conservative members of the board deny that there are racial motivations for resegregating Wake County Public Schools or that they asked police to target African Americans for trespassing arrests.
Meanwhile, Wake County Public School System, with more than 145,000 students and more than 15,000 teachers and staff, is being forced to abandon its 30-year history of peaceful desegregation and its dedication to equal access for all students regardless of race, family income, English-speaking abilities, and special-education needs. In place of the district's former desegregation plan, the new school board majority is crafting a "zone" plan that will limit student access to remediation programs, Advance Placement classes and resources for gifted and talented students, magnet schools, and English as a Second Language programs.