STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 01-17-18
UNC CHANCELLOR FOLT TO LEAVE AFTER ORDERING SILENT SAM
PEDESTAL REMOVED
[CHAPEL HILL] Originally she was supposed to step down after Spring commencement. But after she ordered the pedestal to the controversial Silent Sam statue removed Monday evening, outgoing UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt will be leaving her post in two weeks. Her unannounced action apparently caught her bosses, the all-Republican UNC Board of Governors by surprise, which voted to end her employment Jan. 31st.. In a statement, Folt – who has been at the helm at UNC – CH since 2013, said the safety of students on campus was her highest priority, and given that the statue (forcibly removed last August and currently held in an undisclosed location) represented white supremacy, she saw no choice.
WHITE MALE CHARGED WITH ASSAULT OF 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL AT MALL
[ASHEVILLE] A 51 year-old white male from Black Mountain has been charged with assault on a 12-year-old girl after an altercation Saturday evening outside of an area shopping mall. David Bell, who is said to stand 6” 1’ and 250 lbs, is also charged with two counts of assault on a female after violently striking the black female pre-teen.
A video of the alleged incident shows Bell in the middle of a group of teenage girls outside one of the mall’s entrances, angrily exchanging barbs. A young black girl approaches Bell yelling at him . He shoves her back hard. She then rushes back, raising he right arm as if to punch him, but before she does, he braces, and punches her with a crushing left closed fist. The girl hits the ground immediately, apparently stunned. An off-duty police officer later arrested Bell. The girl refused medical attention. At least one onlooker said Bell was trying to break up a fight, and stepped in, pushing the teens away. He is scheduled to be in court on Feb. 5th.
HEARING FOR HARRIS IN 9THDISTRICT CASE SCHEDULED FOR JAN. 22ND
[RALEIGH] The hearing in Wake Superior Court requested by Republican Mark Harris, the candidate in the controversial Ninth Congressional District race that was marred by alleged illegal absentee ballot handling, has been set for Tuesday, Jan. 22ndat 10 a.m. at the Wake County Courthouse in Raleigh. Harris, who unofficially won his race against Democrat Dan McCready, asked for a judge to certify the race when the State Board of Elections twice declined to certified the result. Harris is expected to maintain that as long as the vote count was not affected, the race should be certified.
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COMMUNITY ANGERED BY WILLISTON
ARTS SCHOOL PROPOSAL
By Cash Michaels
Staff writer
Florence Johnson Warren proudly graduated from all-black Williston Senior High School – “The Greatest School Under the Sun” – in 1963, five years before the New Hanover Board of Education vengefully closed it down in retaliation for a federal judge ordering the system to desegregate its high schools.
Williston Senior High was shuttered, later to be resurrected as a middle school, as it remains today.
Now, in the wake of news that the school board is considering a proposal to turn Williston Middle School into an arts high school, alums of Williston Senior High, like Ms. Warren – also a former Williston instructor, and Barbara Smith-Walker, class of 1955, say they’ve seen this movie before, and do not like the ending, especially if it does little to help black children achieve the skills necessary to succeed.
“We are very concerned about this proposal,” Ms. Smith-Walker, a member of the Williston Alumni Association, toldThe Journal. “I object that it should be a school of the arts.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” she continued. Our students need a curriculum that will give them a job, such as technical studies along with liberal arts courses.”
Ms. Smith-Walker ended her reaction saying that she hoped to learn more about “…what seems to me to be another railroad tactic.”
The Williston Alumni Association is already on record, per a letter issued and read at the Jan. 8thNHC School board meeting, as formally opposing the proposal.
Ms. Deborah Dicks Maxwell, president of the NHC NAACP, is not an alumna of Williston Senior High School, but the idea of transforming it into an arts high school still disturbs her.
“Not in favor of this [arts] school personally as it was almost cloak and dagger the way it was thrown at us,” she told The Journal.
In the various forthcoming community meetings and forums that will be held on this controversial proposal, NHC School Board members can expect to hear much of the same, especially from the African-American community, which historically has had its fill with school system leaders politically manipulating the education of black children against their ultimate welfare.
The school system closed Williston Senior High, not only the county’s only black high school, but academically considered one of the finest high schools in the South, in 1968, refusing to bus white students there to keep it open.
In the interim, Williston has served in various capacities, including a ninth-grade center and math and science magnet school, in addition to its current status as a middle school.
Supporters of the arts high school proposal argue that despite those numerous changes, the school has not performed beyond a “D” per state evaluations.
Critics counter that numerous redistricting plans that assigned a large percentage of high poverty students to the school, along with a considerable lack of resources, has mightily contributed to any deficiencies.
In published reports, NHC School Board Vice Chair David Wortman, the originator of the arts high school proposal, says he’s starting an exploratory committee “immediately,” based on survey results that “85 percent” of county parents support the idea of a performing arts high school. Other board members, however, say given the level of community concern, especially in the wake of adoption of the new school redistricting plan last week.
The Williston arts school proposal was discussed, and it was clear that if later adopted, its middle school students currently attending, would be transferred elsewhere.
“Why fine arts?” Williston Senior High alumna and former teacher Florence Johnson Warren asked rhetorically. “Normally, when the budget is cut, on any level, fine arts is the first curriculum/project deleted!! So, if this pattern continues, Williston High School no longer be in existence at all!”
“I ultimately retired while at Williston Middle School,” Ms. Warren continued. “Because of my experiences, I strongly feel this proposal in not geared for the success of all students.”
“Therefore, one recommendation being offered is a traditional school with a poly-tech focus. Students would be able to be job ready upon graduation and more likely of getting employment.”
“Concerns registered:
o Community involvement should have been initiated before the first announcement about a Fine Arts HS
o Use 2-3 years to plan, research and implement.
o A state of the art, financially sound quality program
o Have a Plan B
o The faculty & staff
So we need to implement diversity in the schools. Why move the black students from Williston?” Warren continued. “Where will they go? To an existing crowded school? You, the school board approved the district lines with a certain purpose in mind. Fine Arts School is appealing to what population?”
The school board discussion on the Williston proposal is expected to continue next week.
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REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE SBOE DOES.
CONGRESS MAY DECIDE 9THDISTRICT SEAT
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Even though a new five-member State Board of Elections (SBOE) – appointed by Gov. Cooper – takes over in two weeks on January 31st, and, based on the alleged illegality in the 2018 midterm Ninth Congressional District race between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready, is likely to order a new general election race (assuming that four of the five members indeed vote for one), it is pretty certain that the US House of Representatives can, and very well will, have the final say as to who ultimately represents the Ninth in Congress.
In a letter dated January 11, 2019 from Chairperson Zoe Lofgren of the Congressional Committee on House Administration to Kim Strach, SBOE executive director, Strach is told the U.S. Constitution empowers the U.S. House, “…to be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.”
The letter went further to state that constitutionally, the Committee on House Administration has “jurisdiction” over what ultimately happens in the Ninth District race after the state has finished its inquiry, and in fact, may decide to conduct its own inquiry.
“…[T]he House may become involved in the determination of the rightful claimant to [the Ninth District seat]….,” and may review all of the evidence collected by SBOE investigators.
“We are watching very carefully what is happening in North Carolina,” assured Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D – NC-1) says.
This is key not only because the five-member SBOE may not be able to come to a decision about ordering a new election (with state statute mandating a four -member vote to do so, one of those would have to come from one of the two Republican on the SBOE, and that’s unlikely to happen, say observers), but also because Republican Harris is asking a Superior Court judge to certify his race, despite the investigations, so that he may be seated.
Harris told the conservative Carolina Journal last week that “…he expects a state court will certify him the winner of the disputed 9th U.S. Congressional District election. He will go to Washington despite what he considers political interference by a Democratic-controlled state elections board to scuttle his victory.”
The state Republican Party wants certification of Harris as the winner as well, saying that any alleged absentee ballot fraud found in Bladen and Robeson counties – two of the districts that make up the Ninth, ultimately did not affect Harris’ 905 vote victory.
But according to state law, it didn’t have to.
Under NC General Statute 163-182.13, one of the qualifying reasons for the SBOE to order a new election is the fourth listed – “ irregularities or improprieties occurred to such an extent that they taint the results of the entire election and cast on their fairness.”
“There is no doubt, but that the election of Mark Harris was tainted by illegal activities committed by those who directed his campaign,” says Irving Joyner, attorney for the Bladen County Improvement Association. “Illegal activities had an impact on the outcome of the congressional race and other races in Bladen, Robeson and Columbus Counties. “
If the SBOE’s three Democrats believe, based on the evidence, that there was enough illegal mishandling of absentee ballots to call the entire Ninth election into question, they’ll most likely push for a new election. The two Republican SBOE members, however, may not agree, and stop any move towards a new election by simply voting “no,” thus setting up a judge to then certify Harris’ victory since the SBOE won’t do it, observers say.
Rep. Butterfield cautions, however, that “If the process breaks down, then the House always has the prerogative of deciding who is seated in [the Ninth Congressional District seat,” he says. “So the House has the final say.”
“You would think that Harris, an ordained minister, would not want to be seated in this seat with this cloud of illegality hanging over his head,” says atty. Joyner. “This effort will not go unchallenged either with the State Board of Election, whenever it is seated, or on Capital Hill when he seeks to be sworn in.”
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TILLIS
NCNAACP READY TO FIGHT AGAIN
IF FARR RENOMINATED BY GOP
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The president of the NCNAACP vows that if Pres. Trump re-nominates Raleigh attorney Thomas Farr to become a federal judge in North Carolina’s Eastern District, that the civil rights group will be right back in the fight to defeat his U.S. Senate confirmation once again.
Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the NCNAACP, was responding to reports that now, with South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of Pres. Trump’s most loyal Republican supporters, now the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recent published reports say he’s met with the White House recently to over a list of Trump’s judicial nominees who were not taken up by the republican-led Senate for confirmation in the 115thCongress.
Farr, a former campaign attorney for racial segregationist Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) who is documented to have coordinated a so-called “ballot security” program for the Helms campaign against black Democratic voters in the 1980s and 90s, was nominated by Trump in 2017, and had his nomination voted out by the Senate Judiciary Committee in early 2018, only to have it temporarily shelved before going to the full Senate before the midterms.
After the November midterms, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell scheduled Farr’s confirmation, only to have a damaging Washington Post piece expose Farr’s role in the Helm’s campaign ballot security scheme exposed, followed by members of the NCNAACP, led by Dr. Spearman, to go to Washington, D.C. and lobby vigorously against it.
One of the several Republican senators they lobbied was Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senate’s only black GOP member. Ultimately it was Scott, along with the outgoing Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who announced they would not vote to confirm Farr, thus crippling Farr’s chances of passage because the GOP slim majority had eroded.
But Republicans in the Senate did very during the midterms, padding their number to 53 to 47 Democrats, meaning that at least four Republicans would have to buck Farr’s re-nomination in the new Congress.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), strongly supported attorney Farr before, and says he would do it again.
“We’re looking at it right now,” Tillis told McClatchy [Newspapers] last week.
That is not something that Dr. Spearman is pleased to hear.
“In light of recent events, the possibility of Tillis and (NC Sen. Richard) Burr resurrecting Farr's nomination is certainly viable, especially with Graham's urging,” the NCNAACP leader said. “However, this would fly in the face of the only seated African American [Republican] senator [Scott] whose broken silence is speaking powerful truths.”
“Will the Republicans declare themselves outright racists?” Dr. Spearman continued, asking rhetorically? “If so, the NC NAACP will not stand down. We will stand strong and endure.”
The Eastern Judicial District is where at least 30 percent of North Carolina’s black population resides, yet an African-American judge has never presided over federal court there in its 145-year history.
Dr. Spearman, along with other civil rights leaders, say it would be a mockery to have someone with Attorney Farr’s reported racial history – which includes defending the NCGOP’s racial gerrymandering and voter ID laws – serve a lifetime appointment to the bench there.
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