Wendell Griffen is being Wendell Griffen again. Now a circuit judge in Pulaski County, The Hon. Rev. Griffen, who can don and doff his judicial robes with the speed of Clark Kent changing into his Superman costume, took it upon himself the other day to issue a wordy statement prejudging, dissecting, denouncing and generally railing against the state's taking over Little Rock's long-beleaguered school district. The largest and surely one of the most troubled school districts in the state, it has long failed to offer all its students the minimal education required by Arkansas' laws and constitution, not to say common decency.
Brother Griffen's manifesto mixed law, politics, ideology, racial grievances old and new, and assorted other acrimonious irrelevancies into a general goulash of accusation and agitation. ("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. . . . This history reveals the naked hypocrisy at the root of the action you are asked to take.)"
The state's response was to put the school district under its control, which the Board of Education wisely did--so professionals like the district's own superintendent could do their jobs free of harassment by a micro-managing school board with its own rancorous racial divisions. It was about time. As for Wendell Griffen's statement and stemwinder about this case and controversy, it was, as usual, quite a show. For he's Arkansas' answer to Alabama's Roy Moore, the current holder of George Wallace's old title of Fighting Judge.
And then, over the weekend, Judge Griffen suddenly had a seizure of ethics. For when this case got to the courts, as just about everybody who'd been watching it might have predicted, it was assigned to none other than the Hon. Wendell Griffen's courtroom and cockpit. Asked for his response on being asked to handle a case he'd already prejudged, His Honor took refuge in a late-blooming discretion. He declined to say anything about the matter "because there has been a lawsuit filed, and it has been assigned to my court. Therefore, I am not permitted under our rules of ethics to have any comment about a matter that is pending in my court." So, having commented about this case every which way except judiciously, Judge/Reverend Griffen now had no comment. Beautiful. Whose "naked hypocrisy" is on display now?
But it's never too late to do the right thing, your honor and reverence. As any preacher should know. So please step aside without further ado and agitation, recuse yourself from this case and can of worms, and let serious jurists do the serious work of the law, which has been the clearest victim of your antics.
Editorial on 02/25/2015