Ferguson, Missouri schools violated U.S. Voting Rights Act: ruling

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Board elections for the Ferguson, Missouri, school district are unfair to African-American voters, a judge ruled Monday, citing a reluctance by white voters to support black candidates in a city that has become the face of a fierce U.S. debate on race.

The mostly black suburb of St. Louis became the focus of international attention in 2014, after a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, and left his body in the street for hours. The incident sparked protests around the country against police treatment of minorities, giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel wrote in a 119-page order that while there was no intentional discrimination at play in the Ferguson-Florissant School District elections, a number of factors including racially polarized voting patterns worked together to effectively block out black candidates.

"The political processes for electing board members in the Ferguson-Florissant School District deprives African-American voters of an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice," Sippel wrote in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the civil rights organization NAACP.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-missouri-education-ruling-idUSKCN10Y001

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U.S. | Mon Aug 22, 2016 8:04pm EDT

[cstanleytech]

1. This ruling doesnt explain the makeup of the board at all well imo.

Was it because to many black voters were unable to legally vote or was it because they simply were choosing not to vote?

[DorothyG]

2. I could use a bit more explanation.

It describes some effect but doesn't talk about cause.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I think I found out why

Last edited Tue Aug 23, 2016, 07:24 AM - Edit history (1)

"Ferguson-Florissant School District". I.e., 2 municipalities share the school district and apparently the board.

Racial population of Ferguson, MO = 29% white, 67% black (total population approx. 21,000 as of 2010 census)
Racial population of Florissant, MO = 69% white, 27% black (total population approx. 52,000 as of 2010 census)

The population of Florissant is almost 2.5 x the size of Ferguson, so the combined school district is majority white - roughly 42,000 whites - 28,000 blacks. The concern is apparently that there are whites in the combined district who refuse to vote for any black school board candidates.

EDIT - here is the companion to the issue - http://www.democraticunderground.com/10611600

75% of that (public) school district is black.

[cstanleytech]

4. So its a voter issue, since they clearly they cant force the voters to vote for black

candidates maybe they need to split the district to restore balance?

[BumRushDaShow]

5. Since Ferguson has a City Council

maybe they can have some appointed members from each municipality and the rest elected, to help bridge the gap. It sounds to me like these members are all "at-large" so perhaps they could create "sub districts" (based on geographic location) and have an elected member from within each designated area vs "at large" (or in addition to a few "at large&quot .

[Taitertots]

6. "No intentional discrimination"

Not winning and being prevented from winning are too vastly different situations.

By this standard there is discrimination everywhere in the whole country because in a democracy, any minority lacks the political power to elected members from their minority.

[crosinski]

7. Look at it this way.

It's like the big school district gets to tell the little school district what to do every time. They have no voice in the decisions made.

[Taitertots]

8. It's the price they pay for choosing to have a shared district

I'm willing to bet the smaller district joined for financial reasons.

[crosinski]

9. I don't agree.

Even if they did join for financial reasons, I don't agree that they shouldn't have a say because they are small.

[Taitertots]

10. One person, one vote. It's democracy.

You're suggesting that they should have disproportionate representation. They're representation is directly proportional to their voting population.

[crosinski]

11. But we do protect minorities.

But we do protect minorities from majorities in some circumstances, or at least make it possible for everyone to be heard, because that's what they're talking about here. Otherwise the big guys would always get their way, and the little guys never would, and that's not equal treatment. I think that's where the judgement is coming down in this case.

Edited to add - l think the ruling was based on the past four years too, which weren't nearly so proportional.

[Taitertots]

12. Protect them from what? The color of their school board reps?

They are already protected in every non-trivial legal manner. You're saying this as if white representatives is a civil rights violation from which they must be protected.

[crosinski]

15. No. I'm talking about minority rights, and this is were it gets really interesting!

Because I'm not talking about race really. I'm talking about majorities and minorities. Now, this is just my own paired down synopsis of the whole situation, but to protect minorities we divide ourselves into states and districts and so forth and so on! In other words, we invented a representative government to sort of protect ourselves from each other. (Because our founders did know human nature.)

So, as JonLP24 mentions, at large voting is a problem. Creating voting districts would probably solve it.

Taitertots, if my my simple country manner hasn't managed to arrange a meeting of our minds by now, I fear this post will be our last on this matter, but thank you. This morning I looked up 'Tyranny of the Majority' and 'The Voting Rights Act of 1965' and then read some thoughts on how they were related, and then I was awed by how we can see our country building itself right now, everyday.

By Gawd! I love Democracy!

[JonLP24]

13. It is the At Large voting system which is problematic

At large voting has been overturned all over the country for violating the voting rights act.

[crosinski]

14. Yeppers. I think so too. nt