The UNC School of Law's Center for Civil Rights is blaming this week's Wake County school transportation problems on the elimination of the diversity policy.

In a blog post today, Elizabeth Haddix of the CCR, calls the past week of school "an overwhelming fiasco." It's not a surprising statement from her considering that the group is providing legal assistance to the NAACP in the ongoing federal civil rights complaint against Wake for eliminating the use of socioeconomic diversity.

"Despite the administration’s repeated protestations to the contrary, the root of the school opening debacle is the school board’s insistence on adopting a student assignment plan so focused on eliminating diversity that other important values were eliminated too: transparency, community engagement, attention to legitimate public concerns, and efficient resource management," Haddix writes.

Two different pictures are emerging about the situation taking place at the new Walnut Creek Elementary School.

As noted in today's article, Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata acknowledged that an enrollment cap is needed at Walnut Creek to deal with overcrowding. But Tata, pointing to the additional resources provided to the school, says that Walnut Creek is "on the right track."

In contrast, Cash Michaels calls the overcrowding situation a "crime." He accuses Tata and the Republican board majority "of literally turning their backs on the growing problem there."

UPDATE

Click here for an updated version of the article in The Carolinian that Cash Michaels wrote about the crowding situation at Walnut Creek.

Today's N.C. Court of Appeals ruling on the Open Meetings lawsuit against the Wake County school system has something for both sides.

Supporters of the school board majority will focus on the fact that the three-judge panel unanimously agreed to not reinstate the lawsuit, which had been tossed out by Superior Court Judge Bill Pittman.

But critics of the board majority will likely focus on how the panel agreed that the school board had violated the Open Meetings Law during the March 23, 2010 meeting.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST, WITH REACTION FROM THE UNC CENTER FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE JOHN LOCKE FOUNDATION

Were the student reassignments approved by the Wake County school board this year part of a "pattern of racially motivated moves of Black and Hispanic students?"

That's the contention made by the UNC School of Law's Center for Civil Rights in a memo it filed last month to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The memo focuses on the 2011-12 moves to help buttress the arguments of racial animus made in the civil rights complaint filed by the NAACP against Wake.

(Thank you to the Wake Education Partnership for providing this link to this report.)

Could the Wake County school board still be slapped with a preliminary injunction accusing it of violating the state's Open Meetings Law?

As noted in today's article, the N.C. Court of Appeals will hear Thursday the appeal of the lawsuit that accused the school board of violating the Open Meetings Law back in March. Wake County Superior Court Judge Bill Pittman dismissed the suit in May.

At issue is how Pittman found that the school board had acted unreasonably during the March 23 board meeting. But he dismissed the lawsuit after determining Wake had changed its practices and was now acting reasonably to accommodate crowds.

Wake County's school diversity fight will be a topic of conversation at a pair of forums on Monday at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill.

At Monday's 2nd African American Economic Summit, Duke University Professor Monique McMillian will present a paper titled "Wake County Redistricting Plan:  Did It Produce Racial Diversity?  Why Does it Matter?" McMillian is among more than two dozen academics and researchers who had signed a letter in March urging the school board to rescind the vote on the community assignment directive.

The summit is sponsored by Duke's Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality, UNC-Chapel Hill's  Institute for African American Research and Duke's Social Science Research Institute. The summit will be held at Duke.

The legal fight will go on over the lawsuit accusing the Wake County school board majority of violating the state's Open Public Meetings Law.

The plaintiffs filed an appeal Monday over the dismissal of the lawsuit. In a press release, they said they had appealed "fearing a recurrence of unreasonable attendance polices in future board meetings."

“A legal declaration that the Board violated the Open Meetings Act is absolutely meaningful to me and to many other parents in our community,” said Barbara Garlock, one of the plaintiffs, in the press release. “The Board should be held accountable for its pattern of disregard of standards, policies, rules, laws, the spirit of the laws—all of which protect and promote citizen interests.”

Do speakers at Wake County school board meetings have the right to make personal attacks against board members or anyone else?

The school board is set to give initial approval Tuesday to a new policy that sets guidelines on what speakers can say. Several civil rights groups sent a letter today objecting to language in the policy that says "speakers are required to refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at the Board, staff, or other members of the public."

"Comments that go directly to an elected school board members' job performance are protected speech - not personal attacks..." according to the letter. "The new policy prohibiting 'personal attacks' will likely result in impermissible viewpoint discrimination."

UPDATE

SEE END OF POST FOR LINK TO NEW POLICY 

N.C. State University is holding a lecture Thursday night that appears to have a pro-socieeconomic diversity point of view.

Roslyn Mickelson is the featured speaker at the Joseph D. Moore Distinguished Lecture Series talk that's titled "Effects of Integrated Schools on Student Achievement in Mathematics." It's described as "a comprehensive review of educational, behavioral, and social science research of the effects of schools’ racial and socioeconomic composition on mathematics learning."

Mickelson, a professor of sociology and public policy at UNC-Charlotte, was among a group of education researchers who released a joint statement last month urging the Wake County school board to reconsider its decision to abandon the diversity policy.

The N&O and WRAL are offering to pay the cost of relocating today's Wake County school board meeting while supporters of the diversity policy are hurling accusations that the board is violating the spirit and letter of the state Open Meeting Law.

In a letter delivered this afternoon to school board chairman Ron Margiotta, N&O Publisher Orage Quarles said both media outlets will pay for the meeting to be held at to the Fletcher Theater at the Progress Energy Performing Arts Center so that more members of the public can attend.  

Quarles letter says a staff member with the City of Raleigh has assured him that the theater is available for use.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST