NAACP FILES COMPLAINT WITH SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS and CALLS FOR THE STEPPING DOWN OF WAKE CHAIRMAN MARGIOTTA at MORNING PRESS CONFERENCE

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

NORTH CAROLINA STATE CONFERENCE

114 W. Parrish Street, Second Floor Ÿ Durham, North Carolina 27701

866-626-2227   Ÿ    919-682-4700   Ÿ   FAX  919-682-4711

www.naacpnc.org www.ncprosecutorialmisconduct.com www.hkonj.com

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II President                                                                                                                                      

Amina J.  Turner Executive Director                                                                                                                                                               

 

Immediate Release

March 5, 2010

Contact:  Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, State President, 919-394-8137

                 Atty.  Al McSurely, Communications, 919-389-2905

NAACP FILES COMPLAINT WITH SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS and CALLS FOR THE STEPPING DOWN OF WAKE CHAIRMAN MARGIOTTA at MORNING PRESS CONFERENCE

(Durham, NC)  Today, State NAACP President Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II and Attorney Al McSurely, Communications Chair, unveiled the formal complaint to the prestigious Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).  “We believe these acts are in violation of SACS CASI standards including, but not limited to Standard 1, vision and Purpose; Standard 2, Governance and Leadership; Standard 6, Stakeholders Communications and Relationships; and Standard 7, Commitment to Continuous Improvement.”

In addition, the NAACP called for the Wake County School Board Chair, Ron Margiotta to step down as chair of the largest school district in the state.  In this regard, Rev. Barber said, “Mr. Margiotta openly referred to the many stakeholders of color at a public meeting as ‘animals’ into his microphone, so that all could hear: ‘Here come the animals out of their cages.’  The obvious racial meaning of this remark is even more hurtful because, if the Chair of the Wake School Board feels comfortable in openly deriding people of color who have been waiting to make their public comment as ‘animals out of their cages’ without fear of ostracism… we can infer [that they] must feel free to express similar derogatory and racist attitudes toward people of color in their secret meetings.”

Click on the link: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org:80/2010/03/04/margiotta-calls-parents-animals/.  See the full complaint attached.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

NORTH CAROLINA STATE CONFERENCE

114 W. Parrish Street, Second Floor Ÿ Durham, North Carolina 27701

866-626-2227 Ÿ 919-682-4700 Ÿ FAX 919-682-4711

www.naacpnc.org www.ncprosecutorialmisconduct.com www.hkonj.com

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II President  Amina J. Turner Executive Director

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

5 MARCH 2010

CONTACT: REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER, II, PRESIDENT, 919-394-8137

MR. AL MCSURELY, COMMUNICATIONS, 919-389-2905

REMARKS from NC NAACP’s NEWS CONFERENCE

March 5, 2010

Al McSurely, Communications Chair & member Legal Redress Committee

North Carolina NAACP

Good morning. I want to make two points. I realize many people are not familiar at all with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and its Council on Accreditation and School Improvement. This prestigious organization has been in business since 1895, when it was formed to insure that the new public school systems in the South met best practices standards of good education. The NAACP, a national and state-wide organization, is constantly learning about effective ways to push forward our purpose of DE-Segregating our society—our neighborhoods and our schools. Recently we learned from our Burke County Branch that it had received a quick, effective response from the SACS when some members of its School Board had been engaging in similar autocratic, racially-discriminatory acts. SACS sent in a team of investigators, corroborated the NAACP’s allegations and found some other violations of the SACS standards for accreditation, all in a couple of months. The SACS team required several fundamental changes in how the Board related to the minority community and our members involved in the process have been impressed by the professional and thoughtful way the SACS has intervened. We are aware of another case in Clayton County, Georgia, where SACS withdrew its accreditation, and wholesale changes were initiated to bring the school system into compliance. I urge you to research this prestigious organization and its solid track record of responding quickly and effectively to this type of complaint.

Secondly, I want to emphasize that the complicated task of repairing the breach in the human family, rent asunder by slavery and Jim Crow, cannot be captured in 30 second sound bites, or in caricaturing individuals and their statements to imply this exercise in democracy has degenerated into a yelling match. This story is not about Ron Margiotta’s “animals” and “cages” remark. Nor is it about individuals, Black and White, who have been systematically shut out of the decision-making process by the ideologically driven Caucus of five. It is clear, as we have alleged in our complaint, that they hold secret caucus meetings before the public meetings, that they make their decisions then, and that they even plan on how Mr. Margiotta will handle the “public.” This is not democracy. These are acts of a small group of conspirators, afraid of democracy, afraid of the “animals” –all of us—getting out of our “cages” and expressing our hopes for our children.

Let us who have dedicated ourselves to truth and justice renew our commitment to providing the historical context, the political agenda, and the financial foundations that lay behind the racially demeaning remark of Mr. Margiotta. Let us ask our editors, our supervisors, our teachers, and anyone interested in the De-Segregation of our society, to tell the whole complicated story occasionally and the pivotal role the NAACP has played for 100 years in guiding our society toward one nation, with freedom and justice for all.

Amina J Turner, Executive Director, NC NAACP

As a former school board member, it is understandable that there can be heated debates and arguments around policy and direction in which a school board should lead its schools and educate its children. But it is unacceptable that the heat of the moment as described by Mr. Margiotta was the excuse for not be respectful of people exercising their rights to hold divergent opinions in a democratic society by calling them animals. If it is a matter of managing the public, as chairperson you use the gavel. You don’t resort to school yard tactics of insults and one-upmanship through verbal attacks. This behavior seems rather arrogant and anti-community building, anti-seeking common ground, anti- working on behalf of all children and their families in the Wake County School District.

A gavel will do when trying to maintain order. But the use of charged language in an already fractious situation is highly improper and demonstrates a lack of understanding of history, and the purpose of civil discourse. Civil discourse is what has lead to the gains in civil rights in our country. But to shut discourse down through the Margiotta Method will not raise test scores, maintain diversity in public schools nor support equitable distribution of resources and in opportunity for learning.

Mr. Margiotta, enough is enough! Your position demands more of you for all of Wake County’s citizens as well as those you were elected to serve—Wake’s public school children and their families.

Rev. Nancy E. Petty, Pastor, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

I am the pastor of a church in Raleigh that, for 125 years, has stood for justice and equality for all people. I am here today to speak to an issue that is facing our nation and now, specifically, Wake County— a crisis in moral and ethical leadership when it comes to seeking justice in our world.

For certain, we don’t need our public servants, our elected officials calling people animals. We don’t need leaders who are unwilling to listen to their constituents; who are inflexible; who cannot make wise decisions about the best interest of the good of the whole; and who cannot after looking at the facts admit that they may be wrong.

I have worked with Rev. William Barber for some months now, specifically on the issues surrounding the Wake County Public School System. What I can say is that he is a man of integrity (a character trait we teach in Wake County’s school curriculum) and he is a man who respects (another character trait we teach in our public schools) his fellow human being regardless of race, gender, or political affiliation. He is a man who works with people, not against people. But more than that, he is a man of justice; and when he sees injustice, he shows up to shine a light.

As to the article in the News & Observer today (March 5, 2010) quoting him saying, “This is not a dictatorship. This is not a gang. This is not a Mafia meeting. This is a democratic process.” –his words speak the truth. We are citizens of a democracy, not a dictatorship. We are not “animals having been let out of cages” as chairman Marigotta called the citizens of Wake County; but rather we are people who are concerned for our children and our community. Rev. Barber in his remarks spoke to our PROCESS. Marigotta called people animals. That is very different.

The issues before us—our children and the well-being of our community as a whole—deserve our best. The issues deserve our highest respect and the integrity of a fair and transparent process. Anything less is an injustice!

If we are to move forward in this world as one humanity, we need more leaders like Rev. William Barber and more organizations like the NAACP who are willing to shine the light of truth and justice where the darkness of inequality and evil would wish to persist and prevail.

Michelle Laws, President, Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP Branch

District 8 Director

The question of what’s in the school board chair’s heart is best measured by his actions and his record. The hostile and politically regressive climate that we are now operating in requires us all to be very careful about the words that we utter that can spark the flames of destructive and division politics. As our president, Rev. Barber said, the issues affecting the education and therefore, life outcomes of our children are serious; they are not psychosomatic or simply in our heads but the repercussions are far too grave for us to take lightly. So, no one gets a pass for using racist rhetoric to get a point across or demonstrate powerful influence.

Rev. Curtis E. Gatewood, Second Vice President

The actions of five who make up the majority on the Wake County School Board continues to violate the best interest of poor children and a disproportionate number of African Americans. The fact that they make up a majority does not negate the fact they have a responsibility to serve the best interest of all. Furthermore, the chair’s reference to the supporters of the diversity plan as “animals coming out of cages” is consistent with his blatant disregard for justice, morality and protocol.