Any school staging separate social events for students of different races and ethnicities should be prepared to hire a lawyer, two federal agencies are warning in a letter sent to school districts and state education agencies across the country.
Practices such as holding segregated high school proms or naming separate race-based sets of recipients for senior-year honors 鈥渁re inconsistent with federal law and should not be tolerated,鈥� says the joint letter from the civil rights offices of the federal departments of Justice and Education.
Read the on seperate proms from the Department of Education鈥檚 .
鈥淲e have found, for example, that some school districts have racially separate homecoming queens and kings, most popular student, most friendly, as well as other superlatives,鈥� says the letter. 鈥淲e have also found that school districts have assisted in facilitating racially separate proms.鈥�
The agencies 鈥渨ill act promptly to remedy such violations where they occur, through litigation if necessary,鈥� warns the letter, which was signed by Kenneth L. Marcus, who heads the Department of Education鈥檚 office for civil rights, and R. Alexander Acosta, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice鈥檚 civil rights division.
In some communities in the Deep South, separate proms, homecoming courts, and other social activities became engrained as schools were desegregated in the decades following the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared racially segregated public schools unconstitutional. Some towns have clung to those traditions to this day, often through the efforts of parents and students acting on their own outside of school.
Mr. Marcus said last week that federal officials would act any time they caught wind of public schools that receive federal funds being directly or indirectly involved in such practices, and the letter was designed 鈥渢o get the message out.鈥� The letter to school districts, dated Sept. 20, was preceded by an earlier version that was mailed to state education agencies, he said.
鈥淲e wanted to make clear that the federal government was speaking with one voice and would enforce all of the laws that both departments have jurisdiction over,鈥� Mr. Marcus said.
鈥楾heir Own Thing鈥�
The Toombs County school district in rural Georgia attracted national attention this past spring when its high school students organized their first Hispanic prom, expanding on a local tradition of throwing separate proms for white and black students. (鈥淎lternative Proms Gain in Popularity,鈥� May 19, 2004. )
After consulting with its lawyer, the 2,800-student district concluded that it was powerless to interfere in parties organized outside the school system, Super intendent Kendall Brantley said last week.
Administrators at the district鈥檚 750-student high school have always been willing to sponsor a prom, but students have declined the offer, Mr. Brantley said. He speculated that the teenagers wanted to avoid school rules on refraining from alcohol consumption and wearing clothes that meet the school鈥檚 dress code.
Saying that black, Hispanic, and white students attended each of last spring鈥檚 proms, he added that he didn鈥檛 think the decision to forgo a single school-sponsored prom was motivated by racial animus.
鈥淚t鈥檚 never been a thing about race; it鈥檚 just that they didn鈥檛 necessarily want to abide by school rules by having it on the school premises,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey liked the idea of just doing their own thing.鈥�
A spokesman for the Justice Department said the agency would only look into situations in which state or local school officials were in some way involved in arranging or endorsing segregated social events.
The same goes for OCR, Mr. Marcus said. The office is charged with enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination by recipients of funds from the Education Department.
The office鈥檚 most recent case touching on the issues outlined in the new letter arose as part of a wide-ranging probe of alleged racial discrimination in the Worth County school district in southwestern Georgia, department officials said.
An agreement the office reached with the 4,100-student district in 1997 stipulates that the county鈥檚 high school will no longer name separate white and black homecoming queens, an approach it adopted 鈥渨ith the well-placed intention to avoid controversy,鈥� as the pact put it. The district also promised to devise a way to select 鈥渟enior superlatives鈥� that 鈥渨ill not involve race as a consideration.鈥�
Many schools in the South have tried to close the racial divide in social events and extracurricular activities over the years. Still, Stephen J. Caldas, a professor of education at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who specializes in school desegregation, said he has often heard of segregated proms in the Cajun and Creole communities surrounding his southern Louisiana city.
鈥淭hey have an official prom that tends to be all-black and an unofficial prom that is all-white,鈥� Mr. Caldas said, adding that the community鈥檚 apparent acceptance of that pattern has surprised him.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 hear people complaining about this,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t seems to be the generally accepted social order.鈥�
