Here is Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's statement, which the Arkansas Times posted on its blog Jan. 28 and which it reported he sent to the Arkansas Board of Education that day:
I urge you to reject the attempt to disenfranchise the voters who have entrusted the Little Rock School Board with responsibility for governing the Little Rock School District for two reasons.
First, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Little Rock School District is not lawfully governed by the presently composed Little Rock School Board (LRSB). Each LRSB member holds office after having won election by registered voters within the LRSD. The votes have been counted and the election results were duly certified. Any action which divests governance of the Little Rock School District from its democratically elected Board will amount to impeachment of each Board member, without trial and with without any charge that any Board member, let alone the entire Board, has committed an offense deserving impeachment. And such action would subject the electors of the Little Rock School Board to taxation without representation.
Second, there is no credible evidence that the Little Rock School Board, as presently constituted, has failed to discharge the legal obligations to govern the Little Rock School District in the manner required by the Arkansas statutes, federal statutes, the Constitution of Arkansas, or the Constitution of the United States. The presently constituted LRSB, to its credit, is laboring to overcome the cumulative effect of race discrimination, poverty, and willful actions by many political leaders and private actors bent on noncompliance with the legal and moral obligation to provide free public education to every student in an efficient and fair manner.
Current problems in LRSD schools that are designated "academically distressed" were not caused by the School Board you are asked to dissolve. None of these Board members should be faulted for those problems.
In 1927 Little Rock Senior High School opened to the claim of being the most beautiful high school in the United States. It was built to accommodate 3000 students. The library had 11,000 books. The principal was paid $500 per month. The school boasted a gymnasium and stadium. The school and it's facilities were built with tax funds. All the teachers and students at LRSHS were white.
Meanwhile, M.W. Gibbs High School--the school for Little Rock black students--was in disrepair. When black parents complained about the need for a decent school building, it was discovered that the money appropriated for a new black high school in Little Rock had been "diverted" to construct Little Rock Senior High School.
A new high school for black students was finally constructed thanks to funding provided by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, the John D. Rockefeller Foundation, and local fundraising. That new school was Dunbar School for Industrial Arts. Dunbar had no gymnasium and no stadium. The library had less than half the books at LRSHS. The Dunbar principal was paid $335 per month.
Little Rock Senior High School is now known as Little Rock Central High School. I cite this history to show you how previous LRSD School Boards controlled by white politicians and community leaders acted to defraud black children and voters. That fraud was fully known by State leaders. No member of the School Board that authorized, condoned, or who was complicit in that colossal fraud was ever removed.
This history reveals the naked hypocrisy at the root of the action you are asked to take. The Little Rock School Board you are asked to dissolve has done nothing that justifies it being dissolved. Instead, you are being urged to commit an act of tyranny by people who must surely know that this School Board is more representative, cohesive, and committed to serving all students than all of its predecessors, without exception.
History will not be kind to the people who seek to have the current Little Rock School Board dissolved. I urge you to not align yourselves with those actors. Allow the duly elected School Board to work to remedy decades of discrimination and hypocrisy so that all children in the LRSD can get the fair, efficient, and decent education they deserve.
Wendell Griffen
Metro on 02/22/2015