The Orlando-based Florida Civil Rights Association (FCRA) has filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) against the Brevard County School District, for what they say is an unlawful school-closings program targeting African-American students and students with disabilities.
President of FCRA, J. Willie David, III, said, the recent decision by the Brevard school board to close three predominately black schools – Clearlake Middle in Cocoa, Gardendale Elementary Magnet on Merritt Island and South Lake Elementary in Titusville – is nothing more than a sham and an attempt to cover up its discriminatory policies and practices against students protected by state and federal laws. David noted that Sea Park Elementary, a predominately white school, had been spared from closure.
“The schools closings plan promote less educational opportunity for students of color and individuals with disabilities and at the same time continue to promote a dual and disparate school system with the school district,” David said.
In the 5-page federal complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Education, FCRA alleges that: “The School district changed its school closure criteria so that the criteria ‘explicitly eliminated the two factors favoring the retention of schools serving minority areas.'”
The civil rights group pointed out that the schools slated for closure will have a disproportionate impact on African-American students and students with disabilities, which is destructive. Displaced students are shipped away from their neighborhoods and forced to cross many social boundaries, with little to no precedent of advanced academic success in their new environments, the FCRA alleges in the complaint.
The complaint also alleged that the district reassignment of students to other schools due to closure will result in a disproportionately high number of African-American and disabled students at those schools. The closure will result in a disparate proportion of the protected class students attending schools “inferior in terms of academic achievement and graduation rates.
The FCRA said, the district’s school closing plan violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 based on racial discrimination, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, based on disability discrimination, all enforced by the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
The civil rights group has also called on the U.S. Department of Education to withhold all federal funds until the school district correct its discriminatory policies and practices.
Brevard Judge George W. Maxwell will hear two lawsuits: one filed by a mother and grandmother and their children, and the other by the Brevard County Commission. Both lawsuits seek an emergency injunction to stop the district’s school closures.
A planned donation of $5 million by the Canaveral Port Authority to save the three schools has been delayed, according to news reports.
