The Capital City Hues: A question of race?
By Jonathan Gramling
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Last December, we featured a story about the Volunteer Mentor African American Man (VMAAM) class at West High School. The
class had been created by Tenia Jenkins, who had run a similar class at Shabazz High School before she retired in June 2006.
Jenkins and her student teacher Matthew Braun would present information about topics applicable to the young men's lives and
then volunteer mentors who were present at the class would talk with the students and help them process the information. It
was a program that targeted African American male students at West.
At the time, Jenkins said "We know of the suspension rates, the expulsion rates, and the lack of graduation," Jenkins said. "Mr.
Holmes is really trying to reverse that trend and cause these young men to be uplifted and cause them to be really positive
contributing members of the community by putting together this whole academic achievement project for them here at West
High School." In essence, the class was attempting to assist young African American men to make the transition from the street
to the classroom and understand that they would have to develop two sets of behavior: the behavior of the streets and the
behavior expected in the classroom.
Sometime last spring, VMAAM came under the scrutiny of Superintendent Art Rainwater for the possible violation of Section
118.13 of the Wisconsin statutes that states "no person may be denied admission to any public school, may be denied the
benefits of, be denied participation in or be discriminated against in any curricular, extracurricular, public service, recreational, or
other program or activity because of a person's sex, race, religion, national origin" or other protected classes." In essence,
Rainwater wanted to know if VMAAM promoted reverse discrimination as it related to the enrollment of students in the class.
The law firm Julian & Associates was retained by MMSD to investigate whether or not there was a violation of Section 118.13
by VMAAM. West High School Principal Ed Holmes and Jenkins were interviewed by lawyers from Julian & Associates. Jenkins
stated that she was interviewed by MMSD's lawyers for five hours at the offices of Madison Teachers, Inc. It appears that the
students who took the class and others associated with the class and the school were also interviewed.
VMAAM was not offered at West High School for the fall 2007 semester. Rainwater received the final report from Julian &
Associates on September 27, the same day Rainwater and MMSD Board Chair Arlene Silvera met with Jenkins, several of the
mentors and supporters at S.S. Morris AME Church to explain why the district took the actions it had taken.
In portions of the report obtained by The Capital City Hues, Julian & Associates stated, "The use of race as a factor in
recruiting, recommending and selecting students for the VMAAM class violated the 14th Amendment to the United States
Constitution and the parallel provisions of the Wisconsin Constitution." The use of race in the process of recruiting,
recommending, and selecting students for participation in the VMFAAM class or similar classes cannot continue."
When The Capital City Hues asked for the complete report, it was told that some of the report dealt with personnel-related
items and could not be released. As of press time, The Capital City Hues is waiting for a more complete redacted report.
Reflections
Percy Julian, one of Madison's prominent civil rights attorneys, has been hired by MMSD to determine whether or not the
VMAAM class had violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the amendment passed right after the Civil War came to
a close that guaranteed due process and equal protection to all U.S. citizens under the law. The 14th Amendment was used by
the NAACP in many arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court to abolish racial segregation in the U.S.
Now VMAAM is designed to help young African American men to develop perspectives on their lives so that they avoid the
pitfalls that many African American young men get in trouble with and they improve their lives by getting an education. At issue,
apparently, was the way in which the program targeted African American young men to enroll in the class.
This is a very thorny issue because one never wants to create rules and laws that may meet your needs in the present and
then be turned against you in the future. While I may construe a law or ruling one way, there is nothing preventing an ingenious
lawyer from using it for purposes at odds with the reasons the laws were enacted in the first place.
So I can appreciate Attorney Julian's concerns that the recruitment strategy of VMAAM may have, in essence, used the power of
the state to create de facto segregation in a Madison Public School. I wouldn't want any kind of legal precedence to be created
that would allow someone with evil in their hearts to create segregated classrooms or segregation in any other kind of public
facility in order to deny African Americans and other people of color their equal rights under the law. That is why legal
segregation based on race was ruled unconstitutional in the first place./On the other hand, any person who reads the papers
knows that we have a crisis on our hands as it relates to African American young men in this community. We have one of the
highest incarceration rates for young African American men in the country. While approximately 50 percent of African American
students drop out of high school before they graduate, I would suspect that the drop-out rate is the highest for young African
American men. As someone said, it seems at times that our education system is preparing African American men for a life in
the prison system.
While VMAAM did indeed target young African American men, it was doing so to help them take advantage of Madison's
educational system and not to deny them the benefits of the school system. We have to find a solution to this crisis and I think
the state has an overriding interest in seeing that this crisis concerning African American men be solved. And that solution must
begin in the schools.