-bring them into a totally White institution that is totally controlled in many ways by a, a really unuseful, dysfunctional kind of economic and social system and we say, Come on now you fit in with us and you be like us and you'll succeed. And so, guess what? Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and Cambridge Public Schools have lost some of their best minority teachers. Thank you, Fred Wall-

-I mean, he left as soon as he could. I don't blame him. I mean, it's just, it re-the whole thing has got to be re-examined, why we educate and how we educate and not how we admit people.

There are hands up. I have-I want to recognize people in which the order I've seen hands. Les, Leslie, and then Russell. OK.

'cause see, I guess I was going to take some of the same tack you've just taken. In saying that if it were true that it's just because they don't have remedial-

That's a bunch of crap.

-support system in the colleges, then those same qualified students who went to Black colleges, and the Black colleges are just as competitive as White colleges, then they wouldn't graduate from the Black colleges either. And the discrepancy in the numbers of Black students, qualified Black students that go to Black colleges and then go on sometimes to White colleges for post-graduate work, it's so wide. I put it at something like 87 percent of all-

Seventy-five of attorneys and physicians from Black colleges go to-

Black colleges.

Yes.

And they go on, they don't just go to Black post-graduate schools. So it is not just their qualifications when you go into these White colleges. When I got to Northwestern, I discovered quickly that academically I had a better background from one of the poorest schools in Chicago than a lot of my classmates because I wrote their papers to make my money. OK? So, it wasn't that, but yet I did not do necessarily academically as well as some of them for other reasons. And those are the reasons that the colleges have to change. And I think part of it is what they're trying to produce. I would never and could never become a White, middle class American. And that's what they were trying to produce at Northwestern when they talked about a assimilating us into their family-

-and it just doesn't happen.

I'm having a, a bit of a problem focusing in on the, on, on the, the point that we're discussing right now. I think that there are several.

There are several. OK.

And you know, I just wanted to acknowledge that, that point. I think that an important statement was, that Carol made an important, an important distinction. We, we've talked about qualified in some sense. I think that many of the colleges are really unprepared to deal with what people who are different from their norm bring to the, to their colleges. I think that often-here's a concrete example. A student at my college recently wrote a paper based upon his reading of the works of [unintelligible] who is one of the foremost African historians in the, in the, in the world. That teacher flunked the student on the paper saying, I don't believe any of this. Because he didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to read what that, what that student had to bring. There are other discussions that many of us have brought to the classroom involving civil rights, involving other issues both historical and, and otherwise that the teachers weren't prepared to deal with. Weren't prepared to teach to, weren't prepared to analyze, et cetera. I guess what, what I'm trying to-

-it's addressing that, but I think we have to move away, in supporting affirmative action, you have to move away from the concept that it's, it's for any particular individual to give him or her a better chance. Because I think it's, it's much more in common interest. Pluralism is in the interest of every institution, every workplace, and-

and the whole country. To oppose-

That's, that's, that's the great dream but in the meantime, people who have not had that advantage continue to fall further behind. The only time you can start talking pluralism-

-is when you bring people in on an equal-

OK. That's the point.

But that's the great dream unless it's not. The point is about equality and access. And so what's so, what's so great about pluralism?

OK, I'll tell you. The, what's so great about pluralism is that it is equitable, it is enriching, it is stimulating, it is creative, it is-

It is also oppressive. It is also discriminating. Of course it is. When you bring me and someone who all their life has had access to all of the things that give them advantages then say you're both equal now.

That's, but then, let me-

That's like that race. You know, you put me here and you put him there and say run-

That's not how I define pluralism. All right, let me finish, because the other thing I was gonna say is when the men's colleges decided that they wanted women, largely for economic reasons, right. They wa-they went co-ed. They didn't just take women and leave the sports program the same, leave the bathrooms the same, leave, you know. They were willing to make all kinds of adjustments-

And how do you do it? Title IX was giving them funds.

See they did it the way she was saying they did it, they did it the way she was saying they did it at Boston State. They did it because the women showed up and said, "This is what we need. This is what we want, and you give it to us. So, it's not like there's this benevolent thing.

Under Title IX.

No, no, I agree. But whatever the motivation, whatever the motivation. My point is that you can't just throw open the doors, you know, theoretically, just a few individuals and say-

But when there's a federal law in place they have to follow it. I mean, if they wanna wait, and follow the law-

I want every kinda person there is. I want every kinda person there is. I'm picking up on what Carol said that we don't want to, to integrate in order to make people of color follow the White power structure as it exists now. I don't even want my White children to be part of the White power structure as it exists now. That's, that's not integration. Pluralism to me, is power. It is shared power. It is diversity, protection and so forth, and everything by any means necessary. I mean by any means necessary.

I think it goes back to what Leslie is saying and, you know, maybe what you're saying, it's more you're talking equality and access.I think it goes back to what Leslie is saying and, you know, maybe what you're saying, it's more you're talking equality and access.

OK, can we take two more, Carmen. Arnie, you're next and Edison. OK, you'll have the last word.

I just, I just wanna do, I was a little bit concerned about the, the posing of unions versus affirmative action as something that was a, was a tension here and I'm just hoping that we don't generalize in the situation the Boston Teacher's Union and the Birmingham Firefighters to suggest that-

Oh, come on.

-that unions and that seniority are by-issues are by definition in conflict with affirmative action. While there may be some-

They are.

Let me make, let me make, let me make a suggestion here, all right.

Hear him out.

Let me suggest that both union contracts that protect seniority and affirmative action are pursuing common values in terms of enabling people to get into the workforce and to stay there.

Not to stay.

Well, let me, that both of them can be used as methods to combat institutionalized racism. Right?

No.

Now, I am probably,

How could seniority, how could seniority be used in that manner?

Because I work, I work for a primarily White institution in which we have found throughout the years that people of color who get hired by this organization, in part through it's affirmative action policy, do not stay very long.

Uh-huh. And why don't they not stay long?

People don't want them to stay. People don't want them to stay.

It's because of institutional racism. Right? Now, as we go to negotiate a union contract, we are hopeful that we will find ways of making it more possible for the people of color who come into the primarily White organization to stay there so that they do not go out the other, go out the back door. So, what we've got here,

They get disciplined more. They get doubted more. They get-always the negative.

And that's why we organized the union. Get it? That's why we organize the union.

Now, can we just him finish and then.

I wanna, I, I, we've got some problems here and I don't know how, as we go into our contract talk, I don't know how we're gonna resolve the tension that does exist, that's here. But I think that what we're dealing with is, is very compatible values that may end up in conflict with each other, but they both of which are desirable and both of which can-do have a relationship with combating institutionalized racism.

Could I say something?

Wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

I'm dying to answer his question.

This is the way I see it. I just see that we all have a vision of equality and that is the end goal. And some people have decided that what they call affirmative will be a means to get to that goal. It's not doing that right now based on a lot of different things. I, I'm a sophomore at Harvard right now. I'm gonna be a sophomore. And there are two tenured professors and there are very few role models for us to look up to. That is very, very frustrating. There are, our Afro-American Department is dead right now. That is very frustrating. Our African Studies Department has one professor and that is very frustrating. That is, there are some of the things that are not positive that are not there. Not only the negative things that like what he was saying, the negative things. But there are not also the positive things that are there for kids and for adults. And I think that affirmative action cannot be judged as being successful or not successful, because I don't think it's been implemented. That's what I see. And I see that as a means to get to our goal. And if we have to change that, then that's what we have to change.

That's a good segue for my topic. Point of clarification. It's my turn. It's my turn.

Yeah. You just sort of walked in there, right?

That's right, thank you. So. What I was going to say as we were talking, I mentioned, and it's my fault I'm sure, the support systems and I think that we immediately went to certainly what they meant in the '60s on the remediation issues. That was not what I meant. I meant exactly what she has described. That if we are going-institutions take a long time to change. But if we're going to make dents in them into helping them to change, the kinds of support systems that have been abandoned have resulted in what you've just described in many institutions. Because we had begun to make progress in many institutions of support systems that included bringing on more minority faculty, tenured professors, more programs that were, were directed towards trying to understand the student as he or she is ethnically when they come to us and working with them in the context and educating in the context of their ethnicity. A lot of those programs had been begun on schools that was a great, and even Tufts has made headway when I was here ten years ago, not enough, but some.

And it slipped.

It's slipped. It has. At, at every institution, Harvard included. From Harvard on down. And it, and, and all I was suggesting was not indicting affirmative action because I agree with her. It's not been implemented properly. But I was suggesting that it clouded the issue enough so that those who were in positions as Lyda said so eloquently to, to not do anything.

You did say that, Lyda.

Those who were in positions to take leadership, and to take charge, and to make the institutional changes, were able to let it slip because people got in a fury over the issue of affirmative action and, and I guess, what I should've said is that it, it clouded the issue so that-it, itself, didn't cause it, but it clouded it enough so that all that slipping was possible and Harvard is probably much worse off now than it was ten years ago, Tufts is, many schools are. Because people sort of threw their hands up and said, God, if they're gonna make that much of a rigmarole over affirmative action, we gotta be careful. The parents are screaming at us, the trustees are, the donors, the government. And so it's much easier then, to go back to the way it was and to do nothing when it was so peaceful and, and we had. I mean, that's how they're feeling not how I feel. And that's what I meant by support, one, and then how affirmative action clouded those support issues.

Because I, just a month ago, I had somebody in a, a White man sitting next to me in my class, and I answered a question that he couldn't answer. And he turned to me and said, Hey, you got in here for real, didn't you? And, and, and the thing, the issue is that is not what affirmative action is about. Affirmative action is not about improving only my education but his, too, because it's his history-

But see, but see what you're saying is, is completely valid because it's a mind-there is a mindset particularly in terms of on colleges and universities, that will automatically stigmatize any person of color at least in terms of on, on, on how he or she might've be wherever he or she is. And it's the mindset now that, unfortunately, some Black academics who are opposed to affirmative action are starting to parrot.

Like Shelby Steele.

If you look at the notebook, there's an article in there by Shelby Steele and that's where he's, and you notice that it's very easy for an African-American academic who is opposed to affirmative action to get published. It's very difficult for an African-American academic who writes for, anyone, who writes in support of affirmative action to get published. The organs, the organs of public opinion don't wanna hear anything that is written about affirmative action that would defend it from whatever viewpoint, historically, legally, or at least in terms of a question of social justice and, and a form of redistribution of resources. They don't wanna hear that.

Right. And that's true about, that's true about, that's true about any kind of writing or articulator-articulation, or any kind of education of the public that you might, that one might want to put forth that challenges the status quo and proposes change. That's true across the board.

Exactly. And unfortunately, that's why the public atti-the attitude is so poisoned against affirmative action because the voices have been silenced at least in terms of individuals who treat, who seek to defend at least in terms of or call for a total implementation of affirmative action policies. John had his hand up. Pat. Lyda do you defer?

No. I'm not. I'm not out.

I mean, we move slow, and we still have to acknowledge some people. We get around to everyone eventually. OK. Let's see, you haven't spoken yet. And then, John, and then Linda.

OK. I, I teach at, I told you before, I consider it the best school in Boston.

Let's lynch him, Boston guys.

There are three, there are three exam schools. You have to take a simple test to get in and then you have-but then you run a special obstacle course in the other two, while others compete on the flat in order to stay. But in our school, we've lost over half of our teachers because the man that we have as our headmaster is from Harvard, and he believes as Harvard does that if you're smart enough to get in, they're smart enough to get out with a degree. And you can't have it both ways. And here he agrees with me, you can't have successful teachers and unsuccessful students. And, and if you don't believe in the kids who are there now, then you can't stay. No matter how well you've been teaching and no matter how many "excellents" you have on your, on your, on your examination form. We've had more folks that saw the error of their ways and, and found it easier to fight the-in another school that had less fine students, because when you're in Latin Academy, it's like being in semi-retirement. A lot of the kids got two parents and they're grateful, they don't blame the problems of their children onto you, and, and they're grateful when you do something fine for them. And we have, we have about a third less students than the Latin, Boston Latin, but we have twice as many Black graduates. They have 519 Black students this year but thirty-two graduates. That's an attrition rate that borders on the criminals.

It's always been like that.

I repeat, it's an, it's an attrition rate that borders on the criminal. Because, because there are folks who have been in there who do not and have not taken any, any courses, have not tried to re-examine their relationship-for instance, I've been in civil rights work since I was a little boy. And, and the, and the thing that, that touches me as I listen here, the. the gentleman from New Hampshire. I used to teach in New Hampshire. It reminds me of the situation we had in the Safeway stores way back in the fifties, when we were [unintelligible] and we asked the head of Safeway stores, What's your policy towards the hiring of Negroes? That's when we were still Negroes. And he said, We have no policy and no Negroes.

And in our school, because the, we're in a situation like that of a martial artist who has a tiger trying to reach him from the bottom and a bear trying to get him from the top and he's there in the middle on a cliff where he's fallen over, hanging on to a little rim, but he still saw a berry there and he stops to taste the berry. And remaining cool in the most outrageous circumstances, where with the pressure that you read about constantly in the school committee, where you have to watch your back, your front, your sides, and where everything you're doing might be wiped out in, in a, in a moment. And you might get transferred, which is the classic way of solving every problem by breaking the slate on which the problem is written. And as they've done in, in Harvard. And years ago when they were just building that department, some of the people sent their kids to my summer camp. They were fascinating kids, but they saw long before we would admit, what was going to happen, but they couldn't do anything about it. And when you'll find yourself, you know, standing silently in your inadequacy because there is a helplessness this is why you- anyway, let me give other the folks a chance, but I wanted to comment on a couple of the facets of, of the affirmative action which is, you know, is part of Boston now we have to take a whole different stand and I'm on the, on the committee for-BEAM, the Black Educators Alliance of Boston, and what we're doing is, as mentioned, taking the money out of the union will bring the union down, because it is not just useless, but worse than useless. And, and so unless we smash it to bits with a [unintelligible] and remold it closer to the heart's desire, we have nothing. We can't be safe. It's like putting a new tire on a Tin Lizzy. And anyway.

Before we go on, I just wanna ask Sandy a question. Pat, you're next, and then, and John. Sandy, for those individuals who were here for the [cough] November workshop we gave out copies of the, of a bibliography pertaining to affirmative action. Do we have any more copies of that?

I could find them and bring them tomorrow. I don't know if we have any here or-

OK because I think it would be useful just for the entire group because we had compiled for the first series in November, a bibliography because, obviously, it's an issue that cannot be discussed-we can have a whole summer workshop on affirmative action.

Well, this goes back, what is your name, please?

Arnie.

Arnie. He said something and it kinda stirred me up. But anyway, I just want to tell you, I don't want to dwell on the Boston issue per se. But one of the things that a lot of folks are not aware of that really made [whispering] the teachers of color angry at the Boston Teachers Union is that they decided to challenge the judge, OK, tried to challenge the law. The law is already in place that quote-unquote, so many teachers of color are supposed to be put in place and we never met the quota since that order has been given, we never, ever even reached that total quota. And we're angry about that because they keep lying and saying they can't find enough qualified teachers of color to reach the quota. And with this laying-off piece, it even dropped the quota even more, and the White teachers' concern are that the quota is never met, that the quotas stay down because if so many Black teachers are laid off, so many White teachers laid off, then the quota is supposed to go down. So, the feeling is that teachers of color feel like, Hey, you know, they don't want us in the system, a lot of very good teachers are leaving the system on a daily basis throughout this whole time. I mean, without being laid off, they are leaving the system and the co-community is not aware of that. But, you know, we're losing great people because, you know, people are tired of all this mess. We're, we're not just, this is not the first time this order coming down from Judge Garrity. And this is not the first time the union tried to take our union dues to sue us. They did it before and they lost, you know. But this time, we're not sitting around, you know, holding our heads down and saying, Hey, kick us in the butt and we're gonna take it. We're gonna fight and we're gonna fight we don't care whether we win or lose, we're still gonna fight even if we lose, we're gonna fight. You know, and people are angry, really angry about the whole situation.

OK, There. Oh.

Yeah, I wanted to, I've got to say a little bit in defense of unions. I don't think that the Boston Teachers Union is a union. It's a clan.

I mean, so, therefore, I don't think that all unions should be tainted with this, whatever this is.

But the AFT in New York is the same

It is not, you know, it is not, it is not really. So, let's call it what it is. It is a clan. I don't know whether it has a charter. I don't whether that charter can be challenged. But the way it's operating, it is not, probably, operating out of the order of which it is allowed to operate as a union. And I think that this is sort of what you're, you're talking about because unions to, to say, to paint all unions in the, in the, in the same way. They've been part of the racist system, which is a capitalistic, racist society. But, and they're part of it, but the way they're acting, I don't even, I wanna give them the dignity of calling them a union.

Well, even Shanker, last week of AFT Convention, you know, Shanker,

Oh, and he's a wizard!

Did not, he did not support Ed Doherty on take-taking the teachers of color to court. He did not support that. And also-

And yet he did in '81. He was silent in '81. I mean, he's-

He didn't support us either.

Harold Fisher, he's the chairperson of the AFT Black Caucus, and he did not support Ed Doherty's position and they, they said that, his whole thing, they want him to get the union together that that was just a bad move to-

I think the thing that kind of worries me-

-challenge the judge's decision.

-is one of the neatest tricks would get, would be to get Black folks in a position against quote "working folks," and so that's what you've got. So that when you get-

That's what you've got.

Yeah, but we are-by, what is happening is affecting working people, too.

But that's what you have in Boston.

No, unions, those unions are not work, working people. They're some kind of a clan,

It's a club.

-self-interested clan.

No. What you have is White working teachers. That's the criminal a-criminality of this whole thing. You have White working teachers who are being laid, I mean, I, the issue is so much more complicated than affirmative action and no one's talking about why we are - this is, I think what Carol was trying to say in the first place - it shouldn't be an issue of affirmative action. It must be an issue of are we gonna teach our kids or not? Why are we laying off teachers at all? Why are we pitting White working class teachers-

Wait, wait, wait, now, we're starting to get into a, we're starting, we're starting to get into another issue which has to be addressed.

I'd like, I'd like maybe bring it back around to where we were.

But, I, I, first of all, I owe Dan an apology because he's been waiting patiently. I owe many people in this room an apology-

You're doing a good job.

-and I can get a collective apology at least in terms of anyone I might've not recognized as speedily as she or he might've wished. But, I just, Loretta, do you, do you wanna show the film clip or do you wanna continue the conversation?

I think we should continue the conversation, take a break, and then see the clip.

OK. There are, the people that I, who had their hands up were Dan, John, and Russell. Tessil, now, has had his hand up. And, and, I'll take, Linda, I'll let you finish and then Dan.

I guess I just want my question on the floor is, and this is really why I came, and I said this at the November workshop. I wanna be able to deal with this issue with White teachers. I work with White teachers who have been laid off. I work with White teachers who are very good teachers, very committed to their kids, and they are really, really angry. And I work with White kids whose parents have been laid off. And my sort of dying thing is I want to be able to talk about this issue and move people in a way that it's not always fists up and I, you know, maybe it's just like you say, maybe it just takes time and time and time. But I feel like I can never move forward with White teachers. All I get is this fury of, I've got seventeen years and I'm a tenured teacher, and I pay taxes I this city, and I live in this city, and I've given my life's blood, and look what they're doing to me. And it's always turned into they're pitting me against my Black colleagues. And I keep searching for a way to talk to people about it and I don't come out any better. And I keep searching for a way to talk to my White students about it and I don't come out any better. And I sort of, I wanna throw it back to this group and say for God's sakes, I, we've gotta come outta this room with a better way to be able to talk about this so that there isn't so much hostility.

The frightening thing, I think, is how this whole debate seems to be framed when I talk to others teachers and even people I consider liberals even my own mother has handed me this story. That it's always frequently framed in terms of, Oh, affirmative action means lowering standards. And I think it's so important to move, to get, get that baggage out of it. Even, and, and one of the things that was very, that you brought up, that was really striking is my mother was quoting some, an African-American professor who was saying affirmative action is lowering standards. And I think that we really need to see what we can do to get more of the talk directed at restructuring the education as Judy was pointing out the other night to really, that we have to just shift the framework. And I don't really know exactly how to do that, but that's what I think has to happen.

OK. I'll, why don't we take the-now there's another hand that's gone up.

We need some discipline here, teacher.

I don't run democratic classrooms, unfortunately. That's one of the reasons in college, I can stand behind the podium and-

John and - but in a democratic atmosphere among peers unfortunately.

I'd just like to, very quickly, what is your name?

Elba.

Elba. Elba brought up a term which, which is not on the agenda anywhere that I can see and it's critical and that's institutionalized racism, because that's really the umbrella thing. And the overt racism, and so forth and so on, I mean, everyone's pretty, knows how to act now. But the institutionalized racism really becomes the insidious problem and the problem that no one faces. And I, I said to him, that I as a White person, everyone in here, who is White is a part of an institutionalized racism system whether you like it or not. The fact that when I walk down the street, I'm going to be treated differently. The fact that when I go for a job interview, I'm going to have a leg up. And, and by virtue of being a part of that system in a sense, I become a racist, whether I like it or not. And this puts me in a very kind of funny position and I haven't figured out how to deal with. Which is I work in a school where all the students are either Black or Latino. And I really question, Should I be there? Or what is my role in that school as a White teacher? I don't want to be the great White hope because that, that, that becomes a racial issue, too. And it, and, and it's a thing that I'm kind of working through now, and this concept of institutionalized racism, and, and the affirmative action programs, and all the programs in the world, people will find a way to subvert them. And when you talk about unions and you get to UFT in New York, there are fifty, sixty thousand teachers in New York City and the union just supported this proposal for school-based management with Fernandez, the new Chancellor which turns out to be, it seems to me, almost a racist plot because it excludes parents from that school-based supports team, purposely almost. And our school finally rejected the whole program because of that which originally seemed like a wonderful plan.

And to dismantle decentralization.

Right. And the decentralization of all these issues which Sandra Feldman and her cohorts, Shanker one of them, support. And this is all part of this institutionalized racism. And when you talk about how you're going to talk to your White colleagues, they have got to understand what - I forgot your name -

Who are you talking to, me?

No, no.

That's Mrs. Houston.

Mrs.-what, what she said the idea seems like a -

I didn't hear. Houston! The plot, a plot almost to pit Blacks against working class and when you read the analysis-

But Blacks are working class. Let's-

-working classes, but I mean, when you look at Bensonhurst it erupted in a racial issue where people who in a sense it seems and under analysis who are unskilled labor competing for the same job are fighting one another. And it seems like it's almost a plot, institutionalized racism.

Well, if you have them, keep them divided, you can buy them cheaper, it's as simple as that.

Right. Exactly.

That's all we can do.

Yeah. And it's happened, you know, you read about it in _Grapes of Wrath_.

And other places.

And, and this is the issue that we have, and it's not on the agenda anywhere.

OK, two more.

It was Russell and Tessil.

Russell, Tessil, John, Theresa. Judy, you have the last word.

I, I wanted to throw out three thoughts basically. One, is that one of the problems seen in talking about affirmative action is I think related to some of what I was saying yesterday. Dealing with some fundamental issues of our society and, and our country. One of those I think, is that there is a fundamental difference and nonconcurrence, in some respects, among some of the thoughts that we use as basis for our thinking. I'm, I'm speaking about the differences between the things that we are taught to believe in which are meritocracy, pluralism, equality, and power. Those don't necessarily fit together. And we can feel each that we're equally loyal, equally right, equally American by focusing on any one of those four to the exclusion of the other three, or any combination of the four or whatever. We're not going to make progress, in my view, on issues like this, until we begin to understand some of the contradictions that are in those beliefs.

Could you repeat, it was meritocracy, power?

Meritocracy, power, pluralism or diversity, and equality.

Continue, Russell. Right.

The second thought is that, another part of talking about affirmative action, we, we tend to focus, both Blacks and Whites, often I think, on the, in terms of students, on support mechanisms. Looking back on my experience in college and looking at, at some of my work right now, this, I mean, support mechanisms are important but it's also important to realize that the institution has to change in order for, for this stuff to, to work. [inaudible] a couple of years ago, mentioned in a speech that one of the problems with testing is that some of the tests are crazy. There's one standardized test he said that's still in use that asks who discovered America. And the correct answer, of course, to the test is Christopher Columbus. If you're bright enough to know that Africans were here before. If you're bright enough to understand that perhaps Native Americans came to the beach and discovered Christopher Columbus there, rather than the other way around, then you're, then you're wrong according to the test. There also, there also need to be ways set up in universities and school institutions of ways of using the diversity in ways to change the institutions much like American businesses now are dealing with new models of participation in ways to change their workplace. The, the third thought has to do with how to break through the, the impasse of contradictions on all of this. I think that the fundamental thing is that there has to be discussion of what schools are for, of what the goals and ambitions are of the schools, of the schools. As long as people are focusing on schools as employment markets, we're not going to be doing the right thing for students. The purpose of education is to educate kids and not to provide jobs.

Tessil.

I did have just one, well, two points. One, had to do with what my colleague here was saying. I'm a graduate of the first public school in the United States of America, 1635 The Boston Latin School in deference to my friend here, it's better than Boston Latin Academy and I'm gonna preface that by saying at one time Boston Latin Academy was Girls' Latin and when I was there, it was Boy's Latin. And so there's that whole idea of, you know, this institutional setup from 1635 where, in deference to all my friends in here, the educational system in America is very elitist. We are all set up under an institutional set-situation to perpetuate certain ways of living that are not gonna change. The system is set up to, to protect the way of life in America. So that is the first thing I wanted to just throw out there for anybody to kick around. The other thing is this whole issue of, of layoffs, seniority, affirmative action and all this other stuff. There's not enough money to keep the supports in place. So now you turn around, the Bush administration, the Flynn Administration, everybody is saying, Well, hey, we don't have the money to keep the, the, everything in place. We can't keep all the teachers. We have to lay off teachers because we don't have enough money. Now, since we're not gonna use every day business criteria "quality" OK, we're gonna use seniority. And let's look at, let's look at it. If any of you go into any job, any job, the first person fired is the first hired.

Last.

And the people - well, wait, wait, wait - believe me I believe everything everybody is gonna beat me up with-but the thing is that's the way it is. And it, and, and, and, unfortunately, Black people-

You said it backwards. That's what people are saying.

First people hired. Oh, first people fired are the last people hired.

OK. Now, in that respect, we're always, there are those teachers, Black teachers, who have twenty years in the city, in the system...now I've really got a, you know, quandary, I'm Black and I've got seniority, you know? I mean, there aren't many people like that, but in, in this whole situation the whole point is there is enough money to keep all the teachers employed, to keep all the affirmative action things in place, keep all the systems in place, to have diversity at the college level, and keep all the African-American societies and studies programs there. But the whole point is when the crunch comes and they go to the budget and the people in the poor post office or in the budget department says, Hey, we don't have forty million dollars anymore, they got to cut. So when they cut they say, Well, where's the places we can cut that we're gonna get the least resistance? And unfortunately it's those people that don't have enough, the, the power to, to stop it. I can't stop the Boston Teachers Union from taking forty-two dollars out of my check.

Yes, we can.

We can, but we can't stop it without going to the Boston City Hall and getting those folks to stop taking our money that they're pooling in to keep everybody - If we start doing that, the whole system is gonna fall back. But before we, before we can start our own union, they'll keep all the teachers hired, or find the money, some kind of way from firing 780 teachers in, in January to 180 teachers today. And now they're saying by next week, they only have to lay off 100 teachers and probably by the time we get back to school in September, no teachers will be laid off and what'll it be. It'll be, Well, we averted a very major national problem because Albert Shanker. Even though he said, Yeah, you know, Boston Teachers Union shouldn't do that, he didn't tell what they should do. He stayed out of it.

Right. Right.

OK, John, Teresa, and Judy and then a break.

Yeah.

OK, yeah. OK. Now, I have a plan.

And, it's very-

Keep it short.

-no, no, no, no. We're building castles in the air and I never use the board. And literally that's what we're doing and so...I, I'm kind of an ex officio advisor to the, to the two peoples, the Black, and the Whites, who were choosing the new superintendent of schools and I like both of 'em. One of 'em is from South Boston, and one of 'em is, is Jerry Anderson who is Black. It's like he's a kind of Latter Day Saint, saint. But he was a sinner before and [inaudible]. And so the two of 'em are the youngest people on the school committee and they are going to, and they want to, they were the search committee for the new superintendent. My contention is that we don't need a new superintendent, that the last thing in the world we need is some insolent carpet bagger coming pure and chaste from afar as if we were coming like a, like an empty pitcher to a full fountain with no merits of our own. And anybody silly enough to continue that insipid process has to, or should, have his head examined. Just as in our institutions, we've got to turn and take charge of them. I said when, when Mayor Flynn got elected, you know, I talked about the triumph of the ordinary. I said it in a denigrating fashion but subsequently, thinking it through, it was the triumph of the ordinary. And he has been a most unusual man. Now, he went, because he's got the same spiritual syphilis in his bones that, that, that Dukakis had and wants to be bigger. And he might have left us all because he didn't have the kind of commitment. He may come, well, he's already said he wants to be mayor for a little while and he'll be a shoe-in. But the idea that on that school committee there are a number of, there are four people Jean McGuire, who is my patron saint. I think she's one of the greatest women. She's been there outlandish number of years. When she came in, she was the guidance counselor for twenty-three thousand Black kids. And I would die for her, kill for her, she's just one of the greatest women I've known. And we've had John O'Brian who's smart, and wa-watching his wisdom weary look as he, as he denigrates the school committee always annoys me, but he still knows what's going on. We've got four people, Juanita Wade, who is a new person kind of a socialistic tendency but sharp, really sharp. And so, and with, with, with an intelligence. Now, we're watching a socialistic world go down the drain and I think there are a tremendous number of things that deserve to live that are a part of that world. And even Gorbachev who, anyway, let me not get away from the center.

What I'm concerned with is a plan that the school committee not seek another superintendent, not-to recognize that there are no good giants. Not you, not me, not anyone. And when we were talking before about the group of people that got together and chose a Rosa Parks. She didn't choose them. And they operated backstage. Just as in this room there are some people I have known for an outlandish number of years and the people who put this group together are backstage and you don't see them more than once and they have done the kinds of things. If you get, and you can do tremendous things if you don't care who the hell gets credit for it. And the idea of four solid minorities is more than enough. We used to say when I was in the civil rights thing way back in the, in the fifties, Man, they worry, White folks worry when two or three, of us get together. But the another folk said, Man, they worry when one of us is together, and that, and that's true when you're Black, White, or anything else. And we are moving towards a creative decentralization but the, but it's far better to have a group like the school committee who said, and that's the unifying thing, No layoffs. We can through a normal attrition rate have no Black and White because we can't look in one another's eyes. We, we can't afford to do it. I see too many ugly things. Psychology was supposed to do a lot of things for us but all it did is bring us closer and closer to more things we couldn't stand about one another So, we can look in the same direction, and say we need all of the teachers in Boston. We have more students, fifty-seven thousand, and we have less money. We had 29 percent three years ago, and now we have 26 percent of the town budget. The clown that, that Flynn sent across the street to, to tell us that we better bite the bullet confessed that in his town, and he lives in the suburbs and if I had my way, he would live in the city or not have his damn job. And, but eighty percent of the school budget for his town goes to the schools. That is criminal. That is a fault. And when we talked about not having enough money and we repeat the same silliness. We just don't have our priorities straight. The kids are our fragile immortality and it's the one thing that we can rally around is that awareness that we need to build around an issue and the most of the school committee now is women. No we haven't dealt with that in the, in the, in the Black movement. _Eyes on the Prize_, they said over and over again the thing that disturbed me then and disturbs me now is we haven't told the story, the real story, of Black women. There are real differences, viva la difference. But beyond that, there is an awareness that we have to deal with some very difficult things and we have to argue them in public because the Whites do not have different problems than we have, but if we set the tone on both sides, then we've got a, a, a, vision of a new prospect which will have equality for us all. And we, and we do, do ourselves a disservice. Well, anyway [inaudible]

Theresa.

I'd just like to address the issue that Dan brought up about qualifications as they relate to affirmative action and quotas. I think it's an issue that needs some time to be addressed. Ed articulat-articulated it very well and effectively when he said when you talk about affirmative action, you're talking about people who are qualified with different qualifications. The issue often comes up in the media and gives the impression to people, deliberately, that if you enter an admissions program under affirmative action that somehow you are less qualified than everyone else and, and I think we all understand that this is a scheme devised to divide in order to perpetuate racism. When we look at the Bakke case, this was an issue that was hot because in the media, they brought to the fore that there were students of color, in particular Blacks, who supposedly were less qualified than Bakke. But there was a lot of information that was omitted. And one of the things was Bakke was rejected by approximately thirteen medical schools including his alma mater.

May I just, for a second? He was also rejected by three medical schools that had no students of color.

OK. In addition, there were approximately thirty-six White students in the same program at UC-Davis who were considered less qualified than Bakke based on the MCAT scores and based on the GPAs. One other point of information that they decline to give you is that the dean of admissions at UC-Davis is allowed five students. That dean can select five students of his or her choosing who can bypass the admissions policies in medical schools. Another point of information is with affirmative action as you increase the number of students of color, Blacks, Asians, and so forth, they refuse or decline to tell you that the number of seats also increase so that Whites do not lose any seats under affirmative action in medical schools. OK? So all of these things avails a bias and racism, OK, that we need to look at because the, the effort is to maintain and perpetuate racism. And I think that when we look at this, we have to look at the total picture and not be misled or fooled by what we read, what we hear, what we see. So this is all in answer to your question about qualifications. When we're looking at qualifications, let's look at everybody's qualifications. I think with Bakke the issue was not racism but ageism. When you look at medical school bulletins in the 1970s, it was an unwritten law that if you were over twenty-six, you didn't stand a chance of getting in the medical school and I think that was the real issue with Bakke. That's all I have to say.

But he chose to make it a racial issue.

Judy, yours is the last.

Can't hear you.

I guess what I'm thinking about I'm glad that you just mentioned the point which indicates that it is not...it is not affirmative action which is clouding the issue. It is institutional racism. And I really think we need to be clear about that. I woke up this morning to NPR, which can always be a problem because sometimes [inaudible] you know-

We can't hear you, Judy.

Yeah, what happened with NPR?

Can you go back to when you woke up this morning?

When I woke up this morning? OK. When I woke up this morning, I wake up to NPR and it's always a problem because you never know what country we're invading at the moment, sometimes it's [inaudible], you know. But this morning it was a debate between Ralph Neas, the Civil Rights Conference, and the head of the National Association of Manufacturers. Because today they begin debate on the Hawkins-Kennedy bill which is reinstating what we once had in terms of affirmative action. And I guess what I'm trying to think about is how we understand that it's not just about-and I don't mean just in terms of only-but about the teaching profession. It is what's happening in everywhere, across the board, in terms of employment. So that when we talk about meritocracy, I mean, I'm talking to a good friend of mine who is now an editor at _USA Today_. Across the board nationally less than 0.05% of, of editorial and newsrooms have any Black people in them. And that is not because they are not qualified. It is because a decision has been made not to allow them into the newsroom. Now, and what she says is, now I'm an editor and I look around and there are some mediocre White people. And that's the other thing that we get into. It is not about qualifications. It is not about meritocracy. It is about institutional racism and what we want our newsrooms to look like. _Variety_ last week, I'm looking at a Brian [sic] Tartikoff, head of programming, for NBC, right? He says, Well, there's a reason why we only have three Black execs here, out of what, two, three-hundred. Because they don't have the experience and we're looking for them but they're just not coming through with the experience as they come through the door. Now we all know, particularly those of us in the industry, that people move up in that industry regardless of qualifications. They start in the mail room and sometimes one, two years later, depending upon whom they know, they move up and suddenly at twenty-four, twenty-five years old, they're head of programming. They're head of children's programming. It is not about meritocracy and I guess, I don't want to say affirmative action is the right to be mediocre like everybody else, but there is that part of it, because it doesn't just depend on that. And that's, yeah.

Why don't we take a break right now and when we, for how long, Loretta?

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes. And when we come back Ozell Hudson, who is the director of the Committee for Civil Rights under Law of the Boston Bar Association will take over the next segment of the program.

Presentation that would kinda give a con-give context. I remarked that I think what I'll do is referee.

But at any, in any event I'm glad to be here. A couple of things. First of all, the name of the organization that I work for is the Lawyers' Committee for- [picture resumes] -Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association. The Lawyers' Committee was originally founded in 1964 at the impetus of President John F. Kennedy who was prodded by Dr. Martin Luther King and various other civil rights leaders to provide a source of pro bono lawyers, that is, free lawyers for people who are victims of discrimination. Recognizing that even with the passage of civil rights legislation it would be meaningless if there were not a cadre of lawyers to provide that legal work to people who could not afford it. The Boston Lawyers' Committee came into existence in approximately 1968 and became affiliated with the Boston Bar Association in 1973, I believe. The Lawyers' Committee basically is independent of the Boston Bar Association. We are governed by a steering committee made up of representatives of various law school faculty, members of twenty-nine of the largest law firms in Boston, and representative of various governmental agencies. The steering committee of more than thirty-something individuals are all lawyers. Now, we are, we are affiliated with the Boston Bar. In other words, they don't tell us what cases to bring or what actions to deal with. They basically are supportive of our, of our work. And not, and so, basically, the way, funding, we're not completely independent in funding, eighty percent of our funds come from the major law firms in the City of Boston, who also agree to co-council every case that we accept. They also have no say-so about what cases we bring and if they, perhaps, represented an adverse party, they get no information about what we're doing. I just wanted to give you that background. Now, personally, I am, I guess I'm called a civil rights lawyer but I've done a little bit of everything. I'm from Georgia. I grew up under a segregated school system. I knew my first White person by name, personally, when I was eighteen and left Georgia and went to Iowa to go to school. Prior to that time, I did not know a White person personally, cause I didn't have to work for any. In other words, and Georgia was completely s-where I lived was completely segregated. So when you talk about school systems, I can tell you that I'm not that old, but my grades one through four were in a one-room, country store-one room above a country store, where we got there early enough in the morning to chop the firewood and the bath-house was two hundred yards out under the pine trees. So, in any event, no more hard luck stories.

Moving forward, just say where we're coming from. That's all. Now, basically, I want to try to put this in context and, believe me, I could spend, I could spend like a class period on each one of these cases. So, it's gonna be very abbreviated. And the way in which I intend to approach it is to tie it to what is relevant today which is the pending 1990 Civil Rights Restoration Act which is presently pending before Congress, the Kennedy-Hawkins Bill, there's a vote to end debate called cloture which may be taken this week and if that debate is not ended, the vote will not occur on that bill and it more than likely will not be brought up before Congress anymore this year because, basically, Congress is gonna move on to dealing with the budget and financial considerations. So, it is important that the debate ends and that vote is taken in the Senate this week and it's likely that a vote on cloture is gonna take place this week. The Kennedy-Hawkins Bill, we call it, or, the 1990 Civil Rights Restoration Act. OK? Now, that is, it doesn't deal with quotas. Bush Administration, and the Attorney General's Office, his new Attorney General, Dunn, who really does not know anything about civil rights who has no civil rights background, but has a strong legal background, has only been on the job for about six months. But Bush Administration has taken the position that this Bill deals with quotas, and it does not deal with quotas, and their concerns are being hammered out right now, in various meetings and conferences that are taking place between civil rights organizations and leadership. Now, in order to kinda give this some kind of focus, one of the things, a lot of you are teachers, right?

Yeah, we are.

OK. Well, I've had that experience myself and I thoroughly enjoy it. In any event, do you remember your litera-your, your tea-your training, or your, what you were taught about literature?

Mm-hmm

OK? There are seven elements of literature. Is that correct? Some people say so, some may say more. Do we know what they are?

Plot.

OK. Let's, plot would be one. OK, let's put-

Characters, setting.

Yes, now we got it.

Rising action. Climax.

OK, we got s-OK well, actually

Pictures.

Oh, we're missing at least two.

Climax.

Movie lights.

Both of you, you said climax but climax plays a plot, a part of the p-ot it, but it's not climax. There's something else that's missing and I can't. Tone, form, plot, setting, character, theme, style. Okay. Now. Basically, those of you who kept saying climax. Climax is only one part of the plot. The plot can either occur in terms of an episode or events, right? Episode being if we just deal with an episode, just one action has no relation to another action but if we're dealing with events then one action leads to another action, leads to another action, at the top here is the climax and then when that action starts descending to what the French term, a denouement, OK? Now, so, I was just, I was just trying to explain to you in terms of the difference between the episode and the climax. An episode, and events, and the climax is only a part of a series of events. OK? So, basically, what I want you to do is view this in terms of a series of events. Now, I had prepared something to say to you but you see all this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna work it backwards. I'm gonna eliminate most of it and just refer to a couple of my notes and give you a little his-historical background and we're gonna deal with this. OK? Now, first of all, I want to say that the 1990s represent the birth of a new decade. In ten short years, we would witness the birth of a new era. However, we have approached a watershed in the history of the civil rights movement. That is a critical point in the history of civil rights in this country. And the future of civil rights in this country apparently will be navigated by Congress, not by the courts. We have to bear in mind that fifty percent of the federal judges sitting in the US District Court and the Court of Appeals were appointed under Reagan. So, we cannot look to the federal court for a remedy anymore as we previously did. We're gonna have to look legislatively and other, and even to state remedies. There was a time when lawyers were very reluctant to even take any type of a civil rights case into state court, viewing the state courts as being very insensitive. However, Massachusetts is one of those states where you're probably better off taking the case into the state court because of more favorable state laws. Like, the recently enacted Equal Rights Act which was passed last year in, in anticipation that the Supreme Court was going to eviscerate the, the, the long rulings, precedents established before Patterson in 1981. Basically, what we want to say is that the Supreme Court has charted a course diametrically opp-in opposition to full enforcement of equal employment laws. So, whether you're talking about school systems, fire departments, police departments, public employers, and private industry, the Court has charted a course that is in diametrically-diametrical opposition to the full establishment of equal employment. The full enforcement. So, we're not just talking about affirmative action. You know, that term means many different things to people but when I, I, first of all, let me just say to you, when I deal with affirmative action, I know that affirmative action works both ways. It works for people of color, in the past, but it, for a long history has worked for the majority. The Savings [and] Loan bailout is an affirmative action program. You show me one Black group, there may be one or two, I'm not gonna say there aren't. But of all the billions of dollars that have that are going in to save Savings [and] Loan industry, they certainly aren't going to any people of color. OK? When you bailout Chrysler, that's an affirmative action program. And then Chrysler can turn around and pay millions of dollars to its chief executive officer who then reneges on the promises made to pay back the, the workers. It's an affirmative action program. So, basically, the mere fact that the majority in this society were born a certain skin condition meant, and still means today, that through the perpetuation of institutional racism, they have always had the benefit of affirmative action. And so, and you have a group of people in this country, people of color, who were brought over as slave laborers, who did all the work. They say that Black folks are lazy, but I'm here to tell you that we did all the work, especially in the South and in the West. You had the Asian populations, they did all the work and didn't get paid for it. And, and, and not only did all the work, but basically were held back, and we know, if we know our history, we know, denied the opportunity to communicate in their own language, denied the opportunity to maintain a family intact, denied the opportunity to get a wage, a decent wage. So, you know, this thing about affirmative action, you know, you all want to debate it, fine. I'm saying you've always had affirmative action for the majority society, and it hasn't changed, by virtue of your skin condition. During the colonial period, they changed they changed the English Common Law from a system of primogeniture, which was that the firstborn inherits, to a system of basically slavery in perpetuity, which meant that if you were born of a slave person, once a slave, always a slave, you take the race of the mother, the mother being the slave, you are always a slave, you never could change that. They changed that to institutionalize slavery and to protect property rights. And that's been the way it's been until this day. So, it doesn't take but an eye drop of so-called African-American blood and you are Black. And it's still this way today. And I say that, because I can tell you, I want to tell you, but I handled an interracial child-custody case about four years ago in Georgia, where I represented a White mother who's, who was divorced from her White ex-the White husband. And after the divorce, she dated a Black officer and then they came and took her child, the White child, basically saying the only reason she is unfit is because she gave birth to an interracial daughter. You know, that's what I mean. It's still that way today. The racism is part of the system. First you had it in the form of a custom and practice, then the legal system legalized it, the church blessed it, and then slavery was institutionalized. Now, how does all this relate, and putting this into some kind of context? Well, I want you to see a theme. And the theme, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna, you look at the characters. In, in Price, in Price Waterhouse, you have people of color making a claim under a civil rights statute, OK? And the employer's defense was that, Yes, there may have been a discriminatory reason but there was also a non-a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason. So, the Supreme Court says, Well, even though there is a discriminatory reason for the dismissal, if the employer can state a nondiscriminatory reason, then there's no discrimination. Please. Do you understand what I'm saying? All of these cases were decided in the last term just last year. And that is the impetus for the Civil Rights Restoration Act. And all of these cases were decided by a five to four majority of the Supreme Court, basically. A very narrow, slim majority of the Supreme Court. In none of these cases, was there a, a interpretation of the Constitution, where basically lawyers, and legislators, and other federal agencies would feel compelled to defer to the US Supreme Court because the US Supreme Court, under the old case of Marshall vs Madison has basically this judicial power to interpret what the Constitution means. But, no, each one of these cases dealt with statutory construction, interpreting a statute. What did congress mean-1866 when it passed 1981? What did it intend to do in 19, in 1866? This Statute 42 USC section 1981 is a statute that was enacted by the Congress to give enforcement powers to the Thirteenth Amendment. Basically, meaning that Blacks were given the authority to enter into, and make contracts and enforce contracts. Because prior to that time, as a slave, you could not testify in court, you could not make a binding contract, and you certainly could not go to any judicial forum to see that that contract was enforced. So, anyway, mixed motive. I simply lay that out very clearly to you. If you've got a legitimate reason, the employer states a legitimate reason, but the plaintiff or the employee can also state a non legitimate reason, like, in other words, you discriminated because of race or sex, then, there's no discrimination. Well, you can look at this case and when it comes to looking at these cases, I put this here not so I'm gonna work through every one of them. But I want you to look at the characters involved. You know, your protagonist, your antagonist, your tertiary or peripheral characters. You look at the setting, what period of time, economic, socially, politically, this is occurring. We primarily say this is occurring on the heels of the Reagan administration, at the end of two terms of Reagan where the courts are now stacked with Reaganites. What's the plot? Well, you figure it out. [attendees laugh] What's the forum? I mean, I'll entertain the question, really. What's the tone? Is this serious? Is it humorous? Is it melodramatic? What's the style? You know, I'm, I mean, there are many, for those of you who are involved in creative writing, you know, you've got, you can deal with all these things, metaphors, similes, and all of that. But, basically, you figure it out. Think of the style that's in you. But then this is the main thing I want you to concentrate on each and every one of these and I guarantee you that you'll find this theme running in each and every one of these blocks. No matter what you consider in terms of items one through six, character, setting, plot, form, tone, style, the theme is gonna be reflected in each and every one of these blocks, if you do a close analysis. And I tell you today that that cli-that theme is a retroaction of full enforcement of equal employment opportunity laws. That's what each and every one of these cases say. That the courts are no longer required, public agency, public entity, employers, the judiciary to give full enforcement to equal employment opportunity laws. That's what's being said here every time. So, I'm telling you the theme in advance from my perspective. OK? In Patterson, Brenda Patterson, Black female worked in this credit union. She was a clerk. She was the only clerk that had to sweep floors. She was the only clerk that when she complained to the employer about the, about how hard the work was, he assigned her more work. More difficult work and then would make remarks like, Well, you know, Black folks work slower and are less productive, are lazy, than White workers. So, she sued. And she sued under 1981. She could've sued under Title VII, too. But there's a difference between suing under 1981 and Title VII. Under Title VII, basically, the only damages you can get is back pay, maybe reinstatement, OK? And the back pay is mitigated by the burden placed upon you to get out there and find other employment. And if you don't show that you tried to find other employment, then you, you won't get the full amount of the back pay. If you happen to find another job, then they deduct what, what you earn from what you would have earned had you stayed on that job. But under 1981, you get punitive damages, and you get the right to a jury trial. In Title VII, you don't even get the right to a jury trial. It's a judge. It's a bench trial. So, she sued under 1981. And the, and the Supreme Court in that case, said, This section only covers two things, the right to enter into a contract, meaning the right to enter into an employment contract. It doesn't have to be in writing, mind you, because contracts that are verbal are enforceable. It's just more difficult to prove them if they're not in writing, the existence. And the other point was simply that you have the right to enforce the contract. To enter into and to enforce. What they said Patterson was claiming about was harassment on the job and 1981 does not cover that. The Supreme Court retreated from approximately eighteen or more years of legal precedent covering harassment on the job, so currently people who are the victims of race and sex discrimination are not protected under 1981 for harassment on the job. And I'll give you an example. There was a case that had to be dismissed right after Patterson. That was a case where a Black woman claimed that the employer sexually harassed her. He showed her lewd pictures of sex acts, saying he wanted her and demanded her to do these acts. She refused. He continued to harass her. He made almost phys-made physical threats. She ran from him. In the process of running, she fell downstairs, she injured herself. She suffered permanent damage and the case was dismissed. F-u-u-u-l-l-l retreatment from the enforcement of civil rights laws in the employment category. Wards Cove Packing Company v Antonio. In that case, you were dealing with some nonworkers-nonwhite workers who had all the cannery jobs in Alaska, which is the dirtiest and slimiest work. And all the White workers had the, had the non-cannery jobs. Plus the employer maintained, and it was admitted on the record, a segregated dining room eating facility, etc. The court said that the previous standard of proving a Title VII case, Griggs-no, excuse me, Griggs vs Duke Power Company, a case that was established almost twenty years ago, setting the precedent for the s-for how you go about making a prima facie case, that is what the plaintiff initially offers as a matter of proof, and then what the burden of the employer is. The plaintiff initially has to show, had to show under Griggs, that they are a member of a protected class. That protected class could be racial, it could be sexual, it could be religious, it could be national origin. You understand? Show that you're a member of that protected class. It applies to both hiring, promotion, and discharges. You-in the hiring context, which is the easiest way to present it, you simply show that the employer advertised. or had a vacancy, then advertised that vacancy, that you applied, that despite your qualifications you were rejected and the employer continued to seek applicants and ultimately filled that position with a person who is not your color or your sex or your gender or your religion or whatever the case may be. Or not handicapped, whatever. OK? And then the employer's burden is simply to come forward and show that the employer had a legitimate business reason. In the Griggs, it was a question of tests. So, like in a f-in certain cases where, all right, maybe there are certain positions, like, for a garbage worker. If an employer got a standard of saying that you need to have a high school diploma then that test is certainly not legitimately related to the, to performing picking up garbage. I mean, at least that's one of the, that's the extreme, OK? So, the Supreme Court undid that whole line of precedence. And the problem with these cases right now is that district courts are confronted with new fact situations, new cases, and they have now got to interpret what the Supreme Court meant or intended in, in terms of applying the law. So, you have two things happening. You have loss of predictability by the, by the courts themselves, the judges are splitting all over the country about what is meant. And I'll give you an example. In the Patterson case, even though it said no, you don't co-don't have harassment, but you do-but a promotion, a promotion, denying a person a promotion because of sex or race could be the refusal to enter into a new contract. If you can show, basically, that there was a, if I paraphrase it, a substantial difference between the old job and the new job in terms of salaries and. So, you're talking about a new contract. So, basically, that's what you have to do now. You have to take a harassment claim and treat it as if it's a failure to promote, or treat it as if the employer denied you the opportunity to enforce the contract. But in any event, Wards Cove changed the standard under Griggs v Duke Power. Even though the Supreme Court did not overrule Griggs, did not come out and say, "We overrule Griggs", Griggs has been effectively overruled, that standard. Now, it's a more difficult standard. The employer no longer has to show business necessity. That burden is on the plaintiff. In other words, the court is saying to the plaintiff, that you should get the records that only the employer has, and prove your case. All right? Moving on. Lorance. You all were talking about seniority. Here, here's one for you. And I'm try-I'm running through it, real quick. Women. AT [and] T Technology passed a seniority policy say, four years ago. They didn't apply it to the, to the plaintiffs, to this class of women, they weren't affected by it. It didn't even apply to them until approximately two years later. Well, let's say the statute of limitations under Title VII is 180 days from the date the claim arise. The Supreme Court says th-even though the statute, even though the seniority policy now being applied is sexually or even racially discriminatory against the class of folks whom it didn't even apply to when it was first created, they are now barred, forever, from bringing a lawsuit claiming race or sex discrimination because they should've brought it when the employer first developed the seniority policy. Now, I'm being generous in, in, in that. I am being generous. That is not an overstatement. If anything, it's an understatement. OK? Martin v Wilkes. If anything that they teach you in law school, is that a certain point in time, judicial policy requires finality. That at a certain point, litigation must come to an end. You got all kinds of principles that they use to keep you from coming in and out of court all the time. For some of the lawyers, bless them, they know, it's Res Judicata. You know, you can't litigate the same ca-same case or same claim twice between the same parties. OK? Collateral estoppel. You can't litigate, litigate the same claim or causes of action between the same parties. In Martin v Wilkes, you're dealing with the Birmingham Fire Department. And eventually, I'm gonna tell you the effects of all of these. These people knew that a lawsuit was pending more than ten years ago. The plaintiffs in the City of Birmingham entered into a settlement agreement in federal court, a consent decree mandating affirmative action, so many Blacks for so many Whites to be hired, so that you can bring the numbers of Black employees up. Well, after, I mean, after two trials, several hearings, a consent decree, and more than ten years, the Supreme Court says these White firefighters who sat on the sidelines years ago, can now come up and challenge that consent decree. Which means that employers no longer are that willing to enter into consent decrees, which serves a lot of different ju-policies. Number one, it reduces the cost of litigation. It reduces unnecessary litigation. It brings the parties together without having full-blown trials. That means that now every consent decree is basically open to reverse discrimination challenges by Whites. That's what it means. And they're happening all over the country. They are happening all over the country. Just like in Patterson, within, within a matter of months, hundreds of cases involving 1981 claims had to either be amended or dropped or dismissed, because if lawyers continued to deal with them, there is a thing that says, there is a Rule 11 requirement in federal court, it's a federal rule that penalizes a lawyer for bringing either basically a non-meritorious claim or, or failing to reasonably investigate. So, if you know the Supreme Court is saying, Well, look, you no longer have a 1981 claim. You better drop it or get out of that case because the sanction, basically, is to make the lawyer pay the other side's attorney fees. That has a very chilling effect on civil rights lawyers. Croson. Well, I, I'm not gonna say much about it. You know about that. All right?

I don't [inaudible].

Yeah, OK. The Croson case was basically, you had the City of Richmond had a, a, a, a set-aside program. OK? But, for minorities but also the WBE means that there are also women, set-aside for women business enterprise, minority business enterprise, like, set-aside programs. So, basically, you know, saying anywhere ten, twenty, thirty percent, you know, I think 30 percent of the government contracts would go to minorities, all right. The Supreme Court, basically, Sandra Day O'Connor said, Well, even in a city of Richmond, the heart of the Confederacy, that the plaintiffs can't show that this was established to eradicate prior discrimination. More importantly, Croson is the meanest of all these cases. The reason why it's the meanest is, is the Court said that, Well, you gotta have a narrow, tailored remedy. So, like this set-aside program covered women, Black, Asian, the American Indians, Aleuts, OK. That's the key word, if you're Alaskan, you're Aleuts. All right. Well, there are none in the City of Richmond. So, O'Connor jumped on that to say, well it's not narrowly tailored, because you're trying to include a group of people who don't even exist in the City of Richmond. So, the case doesn't say that all minority set-aside programs are illegal. It primarily says that there are certain pre-conditions that have to be met. Number one, you have to basically, you, today, in order to have a valid one, you need, you need to make sure you got the data. And the data is primarily obtained several ways. The principal way that it, it should be done, is through public hearings, number one, you, and you structure those public hearings. And if people want specific information, you can contact me, I can help you get the information on how to set up these public hearings. And we need to start setting up these public hearings in order to preserve those programs that are in effect, because through the public hearings you document, number one, the existence of the prior discrimination. You do-use the statistics, and you bring in the contractors who, who have had problems getting these contracts, and they can, they got plenty of stories, OK. So, now, this applied to a municipal- And I will give the Court credit, because last week the Court changed the tone a little bit. The Court deferred to Congress regarding the FCC rules and regulations that allow minorities to purchase radio stations, TV stations, etc., that were at risk, or about to go bankrupt, foreclose, etc., gave them a preference, all right. And the Court said that when it comes to Congress making that decision, Congress can do things that the state and the municipalities cannot do. Now that's the only positive case that has come out in the last two terms, as far as I'm concerned, from the Supreme Court regarding affirmative action full employment, equal employment. So, I'm, I'm gonna stop and open it up to questions. But the point simply is that you look at each one of these cases, you'll see that the common theme when you look, when you analyze the style, when you analyze the tone, the form, the plot, the setting, the character in any of these cases, the common theme is basically the Supreme Court has authorized and moved contrary to the previously established national consensus for the full enforcement of equal employment opportunity laws.

Just real quick. What was the last case that you cited. You didn't say. Do you have the name of that?

I, I, I don't recall the name. It just came out last week. But-

It's in your notebook.

OK. Good.

That last case? The broadcasting?

Yes. It's the broadcasting case. Yes. All right. I think, OK, she had her hand up. Just-

I just had a question about that Wards Cove. I'm not sure what you said the Court said. Could you?

Well, what I'm saying is basically the Court, in summary, the Court changed the burden of proof, created a more difficult burden of proof, if not more difficult, an almost impossible burden to meet. Now that's basically, you know, without referring to, oh, let me give you a couple of points. All right. The Court, in Wards Cove, held that the plaintiff should bear the burden of isolating the parts of an employer's selection procedures that have disparate impact, and should bear the burden of showing the extent of the disparate impact attributable to each such part. Now that sounds like a legal, a lot of legal mumbo jumbo but, you know, you have disparate treatment and disparate impact cases. OK. One, disparate treatment is intentional discrimination. Disparate impact is the effect of the discriminatory act, OK? And basically, all the Court's decisions over a period of eighteen years on the nature of the employer's burden after a showing disparate impact had been misconstrued. The Court's saying that eighteen years of rulings and decisions by the previous US Supreme Court, by the previous Tenth and then Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and all of the District Courts that they were wrong. That's what they said. And then, the employers, responding to assure, even if you get to the point where you can show disparate impact, the, the em-the employer need only to meet an undefined burden of production. And that undefined burden of production, is that they just got a legitimate reason for the decision they made. And anything can be a legitimate business decision. If I wanna fire you, all I got to do is say, Well, look, I no longer need your, that department. I'll get rid of all your people and then hire the ones I want back. Or if, I could say financial reasons. You know, I can close down the plant. Anything can be a, I mean, you know, that's just like trying to bring these cases against banks. You know, it's very hard to sue these banks with these redlining policies because they've got a hundred different reasons that they can deny you a loan. And employers got a hundred different reasons that they can say it's a legitimate business practice. Wait a minute. This gentleman.

I just wanted you to clarify the AT [and] T case and the Martin case.

The A, which one? Lorance. OK.

OK. In the, in the first case, the AT [and] T, you said that because they didn't bring suit originally, they couldn't now bring suit? Is that what you said?

Yes. Right. You, see. Yes.

OK. Then in the Birmingham case, that they were allowed to bring suit after ten years, that now they can come forth. Did I hear wrong?

Yes. Well, thank you. No, you didn't hear wrong. That's my point, too. And I'm glad you saw that. I'm glad. Really. Absolutely. Does it make sense? Not to me. Yeah.

I have two questions. I used to work for the Commission against Discrimination-

Louder.

I used to work for the Commission Against Discrimination in Massachusetts. And we were always told we were trying to close cases, and we were always trying to get settlements, and are those settlements considered consent decrees or are they a different kind of settlement? And if they're consent decrees, de, decrees, can they be reversed?

Well, let me explain. First of all, you, you have the MCAD and the MCAD is a state agency, OK. It will, excuse me, administer not only, I'm not sure if it has a contract deferral status with EEOC but it probably does. OK. So, it can not only apply Title VII but the beauty of the MCAD activity is that it can also apply the state laws of Massachusetts. And, basically, the federal courts are gonna defer to what the Supreme Judicial Court says that the Massachusetts laws mean. So, in that context, you, if it's a state law being applied, usually the, the federal courts are gonna leave it up to the highest court in the state to interpret and say what that law means in the state. Not, if it's a federal law, like Title VII being applied, then the court's gonna feel like it's got carte blanche to interpret and do whatever it wants to do, meaning the, the federal court with a federal statute. But, yes, basically, they don't call 'em, they don't really call 'em consent decrees. Consent decrees usually are, are in the form of a judicial order. It's like the parties enter into an agreement while the case is pending in court, and then the judge approves that, so it has the effect not only of a voluntary agreement between the parties, but also judges approval. Now quite often judges make the parties come together and settle. OK. In the MCAD, you're faced with a situation where you're dealing with a governmental agency that's working out a conciliatory agreement. Any further questions? Yes.

I've studied the Croson case and, you're right-

Can't hear you

I've studied the Croson case and, you're right, at least in terms, it's the meanest case just in terms of how O'Connor'd written that decision. But I think just, just for the, for the group to get a sense, could you tell just in terms, some of the backstop of that particular case in terms of why the City Council set, set up, set up the mi-minority business in terms of what percentage of businesses in Richmond in 1983 were fully-owned Black and what percentages of businesses were [unintelligible] Blacks after the Croson case?

Let me see if I, let me see if I have some of that data. OK. I'm trying to recall. I can't say I'm gonna recall all of that off the top of my head. But let's see if we have some of that information here. I tried to-

Well, I-

-well, I won't, go right ahead. Do you happen to know specifically?

The City of Richmond enacted-

Could you stand up?

The City of Richmond enacted this ordinance after public hearings had been held to determine the fact that the City of Richmond, which is over fifty percent Black and was only giving 1.3 percent of the business contracts to Black business persons in the City of Richmond. They passed the law saying that they would give thirty percent of the business contracts to Black business persons. Croson was the, was affiliated with the Association of General Contractors, and keep in mind, because this is also applicable to Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Building and Contractors Association is using this decision to limit contractors, particularly for minority contractors with a central lottery being constructed right now and has key impetus for minority business interests, interests in Boston. After this, after this decision was overturned at the Circuit Court level and then went to the Supreme Court. In 1989 under, under the City of Richmond 1.7 percent of bu-of city dollars in Richmond, again a city that is now 57 percent Black, going to Black businesses in the, in the, in that city.

Well, the statistics are horrendous, for sure.

[unintelligible]

No, 1.7. It had gone, a decline from 30 percent to 1.7, as a result of the Supreme Court decision.

And what happened [inaudible]?

Well, those are very good points and thank you. The statistics are very horrendous and in most of these cases, they are horrendous. Like, the, even in the Atlanta situation. Before, even though you had political power that existed in Atlanta, but none of it-before Hartsfield Airport and, and those and the Jackson Administration, etc., none of those businesses were really going to, to minorities. And it wasn't until, until Maynard Jackson took office and, I guess, you have witnessed with _Eyes on the Prize_ that Blacks began to, to get some of that business. So, and there are, and the thing about it is that there are hundreds of cases where there are minority business enterprise, women business enterprises, procurement contracts, et cetera, that are being just tossed out after Croson. Now, what we urge, like, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. They have a MBE program. They wanted to voluntarily disband it, but political pressure was brought, brought to bear on them so that now, I was reading an article in the _Boston Business Journal_ just yesterday that they plan to hold public hearings. We also need to hold public hearings around the Third Harbor Tunnel project because you're looking at over 4.4 billion dollars over ten years coming into the City of Boston. And, and now there's no guarantee that any minorities or women are going to have access to those dollars. So, that's why we need to start the public hearing process, generate the type of evidence, get the experts. Now the U.S. Civil, Civil Rights Commission at, hopefully, I think they're back on track now as being a somewhat of a viable organization. They usually have a good track record of putting together these public hearings identifying the statisticians, the economists, etc., to provide the expert evidence necessary. And then the people in the community, the businesses themselves can come up with the actual war stories.

You started off with the, mentioned the Kennedy-Hawkins bill and saying it's sort of like the Civil Rights Restoration Act. How would, then, knowing the Supreme Court Justices sit for life, and in fact it's clearly documented certainly what you mentioned to us today, this retraction of the full employment, as you call it, the full employment opportunity laws are kind of in effect, in place as we see it on the board. Could you say a little bit about how this Kennedy Hawkins bill is going to perhaps impact that or because the Supreme Court will still be in a position, as I, as it seems to be, the way that it's set up, to interpret the law of the land even though Congress can make laws, but will it, what do you think its impact will be?

Well, you see, first of all the, usually what the, what the courts do, and you know, it's a lot of things that happen in courts are, they, it's custom, it's practice, but then it gets legitimized. So they, they interpret, the get, there's a whole series of rules about what the, what the court, what a court's supposed to do when it comes to interpreting a particular piece of legislation. So, you have to understand that in the process of the debate, or the, and the context. This legislation is coming into being on the heels of these adverse rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Which, meaning that they are intended to change the Court's viewpoint. So Congress, I mean, fo-so the Supreme Court, is going to look at what Congress intended. Now it may not actually say it word for word because, you know, they got copyright legislation that was written into the Constitution two hundred years ago that's now telling, that, that the Court is saying now governs computers and video equipment and I'm sure the so-called founding fathers had no idea that there would be computers and video equipment. So, they look to this legislation to say what Congress intended. So, what, what, what the astute senators and politicians do, they will read into the record why they are supporting this legislation. It will be printed in the _Congressional Record_ so the Court, in the process of determining what the legislation means will look to the _Congressional Record_, they'll look to the Senate debate, they will look to the leading proponents' debate in the House. You know, things like that. Now, that's, but look, you see, this is the way it works. A judge determines what he or she wants to do and then go out and find something to back it up.

That's right.

So, there's no guarantee. You understand? The Fourteenth Amendment that was originally passed in Congress immediately after the Civil War to give freedom to ex-slaves was interpreted to give freedom to corporations. The Court, the Supreme Court grabbed hold to the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment and said, Well, that means that 'person' means corporation and therefore corporations are entitled to equal protection and due process. Now you tell me a corporation that was a slave. OK. So, basically, there is no guarantee. Now, we have to make sure that we scrutinize all future appointees to the courts as we have been doing. We have to use the political process. We have to use the economic process. None of this stuff occurs in a vacuum.

I guess I want to follow up a little bit on the, on the question over here on-

Speak up, please?

I guess I want to follow up the question raised over here a moment ago about the specifics of the, the Kennedy Hawkins bill and what are the key redefinitions as you see them?

All right. Let me hit, hit on those real quickly if you don't mind?

Thank you.

OK. First of all, what it attempts to do is protect Americans against race discrimination on the job and in private contracts. That language is, I mean, that's not the actual language but that is intended to address primarily Patterson. OK. Because basically, the Supreme Court in that case held that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which barred intentional discrimination on the basis of race, no longer applied to on-the-job discrimination, that period between the time hired and, and the, and the termination of the job. OK. Except maybe for promotion. So, section 1981 is the only federal statute that borrows that type of discrimination and to that extent the Civil Rights Restoration Act is intended to restore the law that, that existed before Patterson. OK? There is, let's see, restoring the burden of proof in discriminatory and impact cases. That is intended to address the Wards Cove situation. OK? Facilitating a prompt and orderly challenge to consent decrees and court orders. That's intended to deal with the Martin v Wilkes situation. By that, basically, what the legislation intends to do is give a, give notice to all affected parties, either, you know, similar to, what like, like in a class action. You know, when you represent a party to the class action even though you may only have one or, well, two or more named clients there may be thousands of potential people out there who are members of the class. So, you run notices in the newspaper or, or etc. And you give people a notice and you give them a reasonable opportunity to intervene in the case or express their opposition or whatever. And then after a certain period of time it's cut off. So, you, you guarantee them that degree of due process. So that's intended to deal with the Martin v Wilkes situation. Then the other thing is that we want to make clear that job bias is always illegal. And that's intended to deal with the, the mixed motive situation of Price Waterhouse. I mean, it makes no sense for an employer to have as a defense a mixed motive that although I discriminated, although I intentionally discriminated, I let her go because I had a legitimate business reason that was non-discriminatory. so, we're saying that anytime there is a discriminatory reason involved in the employment decision that, in fact, the employer ought to be guilty of discrimination. OK. Then there's one, another element and that element is, is basically, all the things I mentioned before deal with bringing the law, well, re-establishing the law as it was before the Court got hold to these cases in the previous term. So, none of this is anything, it's no new laws that we're asking for, in, in this sense. But there is one element that is new, which you all should support. Currently, under federal laws, before the, well, before the Court got hold to them, there was a difference between the remedies that were available to, say, Blacks and women. OK. For instance, women who claim sex discrimination does not have a remedy similar to, similar to 1981. Now if they claim race discrimination, they've got 1981 remedies which are punitive damages and the right to a jury trial, amongst others. OK? So the law, and, see, part of building the political coalition was to say, we want to expand the remedies to give women the same rights that are now available under 1981 to Blacks. See, you have to understand, 1981 was written as a enforcement of the Thirteenth Amendment. OK? And the Thirteenth Amendment was designed to provide, you know, citizenship, end slavery, as it concerned Blacks. 1981 covers intentional racial discrimination. So, you have to be a person of color, basically, to get the benefit of 1981. There is no comparable statute providing a similar remedy to women. So, the legislation does say that we want to give the same remedies available to people of color to women. All right? Now, as far as this Croson's material, it was intentionally left out, for political reasons. When Bush and his people in the Justice Department argued quotas, it was not included. It was left out for political reasons, because we wanted to get this all taken care of first. And if we can get this taken care of, then this will be separate legislation later on. So, Croson and the quotas is not even a part of the Civil Rights Restoration Act. So, what we're talking about is from this point and other cases. OK? Right there.

I just wanted to make a point that, we talked earlier about institutional discrimination. I think that what's going on in the Supreme Court right now, is perhaps the most invidious form of discrimination because it is binding on all the lower courts and upon the states in many instances. But I also wanted to say that even when the courts do uphold the laws, the earlier laws, do provide some benefits, people in the system have found ways to circumvent them and find loopholes. And with the minority set-asides for contracts, which was a big issue I know in New Jersey, and it's been in many other states. Several of the corporations, the contracting companies, have set up minority contracting companies within them and then leased all their equipment and all their machinery, since they were precluded from bidding on certain contracts, they would essentially set up like dummy corporations that were, were just that, to serve the purpose of getting in on the bidding for certain contracts that they were precluded from.

You're, you're absolutely right. There has been a degree of fraud and misrepresentation when it comes to business.

I don't mean to suggest that that's a reason for not having set-asides. I just was saying-

No, no, I, I, absolutely. I'm not, I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna stand here and say that that didn't exist. OK? However, what we're saying is that when we get to Croson, we know that we've got to put some, some, some requirements there to make sure that we get, that we aid the people that the legislation is intended to benefit, and not some multimillionaire person or entity who is trying to masquerade as a minority enterprise to get a particular contract. So, I mean, you know, that's understood.

There needs to be monitoring of it.

Well, certainly, it needs to be monitored, you know? But what you have is the government, a lot of this is, see, understand that a lot of this is coming about, I started off talking about that Savings [and] Loan stuff. What you have is, basically the Court is saying, consistent with Reaganomics, is, Let's get out of regulating industry. Let's get out of regulating businesses. Let's get out of regulating anything that private enterprise ought to be able to govern and let the market control. So the market should determine whether people get a job or not. No matter how institutionalized discrimination is in the marketplace. So, you know, we got all of that.

Is any effect, is gay legislation having any effect on any of these things?

Basically...excuse me. Pass these around, please. The gay legislation-I only have one copy of that Civil Rights Restoration Act material. You may wanna have someone make copies. Gay legislation is really not a part of this, OK? Unless, unless, you speak of the sexual preference. All right? Now, most, basically, most of that is taken care of under state law. At least in the State of Massachusetts. All right? If the courts, if the court, if the language, you know, a lot of times you write something and you purposely leave it ambiguous? OK? Because you can't really build a consensus if you try to spell it out? OK? So, you know, that's probably how it is. But let me make one other comment before I, I, I, take a seat or get out of, get out of here. I represent the Concerned Black Educators of Boston. OK? And regarding this teacher union business. And I want to say this about it. First of all, you were absolutely right when you talked about the, the institutionalized racism. OK? But you also have to understand that politically, this issue did not have to be. It did not have to be, because your political leadership should recognize that education and schools have, has got to be a number one priority. And you devote the resources necessary to improve the quality of the schools and the people that are gonna be carrying forth that educational function. Teachers should be the last to lose their job. A lot of folks should go before teachers go. A lotta, a lotta people who don't do any heavy lifting. Administrative aids, press secretaries, and, you know, all of those types of individuals. I have nothing against media. OK? But I'm talking about the kids. All right? Now, what you have is a situation that you also need to look at. And the Lawyers Committee already has a suit depending not against the City of Boston, not against the BTU, but against the state government for the mechanisms that are used to finance education in the state. There is no equity-based funding. You got a lot of communities who receive, whose tax base isn't that strong. Therefore, the, the revenue put into education is, is limited. And then you got communities that are wealthy. And they generate a substantial amount of local revenue. But they all, the wealthy and the poor communities, get the same amount of dollars from the state in subsidy. And that's wrong. So, in at least twelve jurisdictions, that has been held unconstitutional around the country, and we intend to make Boston-

And who's bringing that lawsuit, the Concerned Black educators?

No. That, that's a different lawsuit. The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights is handling that lawsuit. We refer to it as the Webby.

As the what?

As the Webby case. Webby v Dukakis. Well, one of the plaintiffs. OK. The case was originally filed about ten or eleven years ago and then the, the state entered into an agreement to improve the quality of funding, or the level of funding, but then they backed off. So, now, we have reactivated the case. In addition, I would like to say that from the standpoint of the Concerned Black Educators and the minority teachers. First of all, the problem with the union is this. And I'm not a person who is anti-union. I, I, I've found it very difficult to even take on unions, but it's not the first time I've done it, because unions historically excluded people of color. The Asian exclusion Act used out in the west with the Chinese immigrants who were used to build the railroads became the precedent for how Blacks were treated in terms of union involvement and is one of exclusionary policy as opposed to an inclusionary policy. Now, basically, the way people got seniority within the Boston Public School System is because the Boston Public School System discriminated against hiring minority teachers. And if they had not discriminated then there would be Blacks who-

-US Supreme Court and lost. So that's why, you know, the Concerned Black Educators of Boston were picketing outside their conference this past weekend to, to discourage them politically from taking that move again. Now, there are things that are being done and I'm not gonna reveal any strategies here, but I want to simply sat that basically, you know, it's not just an issue of White and Black-

-because that's the kind of polarization that institutionalized racism like to develop. And basically if someone mentioned that, you know, talked about quality, performance, and there was an articles in the paper about whether or not, you know, that should be a part of whether or not a person keep their job. And that's, you know, if you wanna talk about it, someone else here was talking about let's look at both sides. I mean, let's look at quality and performance by people of color as well as by Whites. OK. I mean, if you're not, if you're not doing, doing the job, I don't want you teaching my kid no matter what color you are. Now, you know, I think that diversity is very important. You know, in a school system that's probably eighty percent Black or minorities, Asians maybe ten percent, Hispanic a rising percentage. And to not have minority teachers present to any significant degree is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. So, I mean, aside from the legal arguments, I guess, I need to shut up and move on. I've enjoyed talking with you all and I hope you had a good time.

Ozell, I'd like to thank you very much. We have two more days together where we will be using a lot of the information that you have provided for us in our continuing conversations. 'Cause that's one of the beauty of this institute, is the fact that we build upon various pieces that come at different points in time. I would like to set a parameter for our coming back at two o'clock. Near the back of your notebook, I think it's under Thursday, you have a purple sheet that's called "The Civil Rights Act: White Men's Hope". It's an editorial by Julian Bond. Sometime during your lunch break read this editorial and we will start off our conversation together around the argument that's being presented on the purple sheet near the back of your notebook. That is it, and, OK. One housekeeping detail.

Can I just have a few volunteers who could help us move the VCR equipment back across the courtyard? Just like two or three folks, cause, it's not-